Moral Balancing & Compensetory Ethics

Some interesting quotes:

"According to a study, when people feel they have been morally virtuous by saving the planet through their purchases of organic baby food, for example, it leads to the "licensing [of] selfish and morally questionable behavior", otherwise known as "moral balancing" or "compensatory ethics"."

"The pair (of Psychologists) found that those in their study who bought green products appeared less willing to share with others a set amount of money than those who bought conventional products. When the green consumers were given the chance to boost their money by cheating on a computer game and then given the opportunity to lie about it – in other words, steal – they did, while the conventional consumers did not. Later, in an honor system, in which participants were asked to take money from an envelope to pay themselves their spoils, the greens were six times more likely to steal than the conventional."

"Dieter Frey, a social psychologist at the University of Munich, said the findings fitted patterns of human behavior. "At the moment in which you have proven your credentials in a particular area, you tend to allow yourself to stray elsewhere," he said."

From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/15/green-consumers-more-likely-steal

My Comments:

The Canadian psychologists, who published their study in the journal of Psychological Science, said their findings surprised them. They thought that buying green products were manifestations of high ethical standards and humanitarian considerations, and that this would carry over to other areas of social conduct. - But no, it didn't.

Moral balancing is a belief that because I've been really good, I can afford to be a little bit bad. Compensatory ethics is a belief that I deserve to be bad now, because I've been really good already.

Some call this the rubber band effect of trying to be good by force of will. The idea being that if you, by force of will, push in one direction long enough, it eventually becomes too much to sustain, and so there is an equally forceful pull on you from the opposite direction. It is said that this is why many diets fail, and some preachers end up leading secret lives.

And, one more interesting tidbit. Many believe that having more time to contemplate a decision will increase moral awareness, and the likelihood of making more ethical choices. - But, no it doesn't.

The findings of several studies have indicated just the opposite: that greater time for deliberation led to less ethical decisions. While people seemed to know instinctively what ethical decision should be made, the longer they had to think about it, the more likely they were to talk themselves into some justification for making the more selfish and less-ethical decisions.