Motivated Bayesians: Feeling Moral While Acting Egoistically

Francesca Gino, Michael I. Norton and Roberto Weber

Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2016, vol. 30, issue 3, 189-212

Abstract: Research yields ample evidence that individual's behavior often reflects an apparent concern for moral considerations. A natural way to interpret evidence of such motives using an economic framework is to add an argument to the utility function such that agents obtain utility both from outcomes that yield only personal benefits and from acting kindly, honestly, or according to some other notion of "right." Indeed, such interpretations can account for much of the existing empirical evidence. However, a growing body of research at the intersection of psychology and economics produces findings inconsistent with such straightforward, preference-based interpretations for moral behavior. In particular, while people are often willing to take a moral act that imposes personal material costs when confronted with a clear-cut choice between "right" and "wrong," such decisions often seem to be dramatically influenced by the specific contexts in which they occur. In particular, when the context provides sufficient flexibility to allow plausible justification that one can both act egoistically while remaining moral, people seize on such opportunities to prioritize self-interest at the expense of morality. In other words, people who appear to exhibit a preference for being moral may in fact be placing a value on feeling moral, often accomplishing this goal by manipulating the manner in which they process information to justify taking egoistic actions while maintaining this feeling of morality.

JEL-codes: D12 D83 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
Note: DOI: 10.1257/jep.30.3.189
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (112)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.30.3.189 (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrie ... L3lCK7jBDSuBx7PqhcFO (application/zip)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:jecper:v:30:y:2016:i:3:p:189-212

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Perspectives is currently edited by Enrico Moretti

More articles in Journal of Economic Perspectives from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().