Self-licensing (also moral self-licensing, moral licensing, or licensing effect) is a term used in social psychology and marketing to describe the subconscious phenomenon whereby increased confidence and security in one's self-image or self-concept tends to make that individual worry less about the consequences of subsequent immoral behavior and, therefore, more likely to make immoral choices and act immorally. In simple terms, self-licensing occurs when people allow themselves to indulge after doing something positive first; for example, drinking a diet soda with a greasy hamburger and fries can lead one to subconsciously discount the negative attributes of the meal's high caloric and cholesterol content. A large subset of this effect, the moral credential effect, is a bias that occurs when a person's track record as a good egalitarian establishes in them an unconscious ethical certification, endorsement, or license that increases the likelihood of less egalitarian decisions later. This effect occurs even when the audience or moral peer group is unaware of the affected person's previously established moral credential. For example, individuals who had the opportunity to recruit a woman or Black person in one setting were more likely to say later, in a different setting, that a job would be better suited for a man or a white person. Similar effects also appear to occur when a person observes another person from a group they identify with making an egalitarian decision. Self-licensing can have negative societal consequences since it has a permissive effect on behaviors such as racial prejudice and discrimination, selfishness, poor dietary and health habits, and excessive energy consumption. But recent scholarship has failed to replicate seminal studies of the licensing effect, and meta-analysis found it to be exaggerated by publication bias. Furthermore, where licensing typically assumes that a good deed is the cause that makes subsequent transgressions more likely, an alternative (or additional) account is that people are faced with a temptation to do something morally dubious, and use a prior good deed as an excuse or reason why it is allowed for them to indulge. The opposite of the licensing effect is the consistency effect, where a person’s behavior encourages them to continue it to maintain consistency. A meta-analysis examining when moral licensing versus consistency occurs found that people show more consistency when thinking abstractly about their initial behavior and values, but show more licensing when thinking concretely about what they have accomplished. For example, remembering a recent moral act may trigger licensing, while remembering a childhood moral act is more likely to trigger consistency. Other influencing factors include focusing on action outcomes (licensing) versus intentions and values (consistency), identification with the goal, and motives for the action.
Definitions Researchers Uzma Khan and Ravi Dhar describe the phenomena as follows:
[A] prior choice which activates and boosts a positive self-concept subsequently licenses the choice of a more self-indulgent option, [by reducing] negative self-attributions associated with the purchase of relative luxuries. [...] We show that consumers may be unaware of how their prior decisions influence their subsequent choices. In other words, the process underlying the licensing effect may be largely nonconscious. Similarly, Anna Merritt and colleagues have explained that
Past good deeds can liberate individuals to engage in behaviors that are immoral, unethical, or otherwise problematic, behaviors that they would otherwise avoid for fear of feeling or appearing immoral.
Group membership It has been found that moral credentials can be obtained vicariously. That is, a person will behave as if they, themselves, have moral credentials, when that person observes another person from a group they identify with making an egalitarian decision. In research that draws on social identity theory, it was also found that group membership moderates the effectiveness of moral credentials in mitigating perceptions of prejudice. Specifically, it was observed that displays of moral credentials have more effect between people who share in-group status.
Examples Research suggests that self-licensing affects moral self-regulation and individual behavior in a variety of contexts; for example, it can influence consumer purchases, political opinions, charitable giving, energy policy and home energy use, job hiring, racial attitudes, health-related decision-making, risky sexual behavior, alcohol consumption, and dietary supplement use. Washington Post staff writer Michael Rosenwald described the following everyday examples of self-licensing behavior:
We drink Diet Coke – with Quarter Pounders and fries at McDonald's. We go to the gym – and ride the elevator to the second floor. We install tankless water heaters – then take longer showers. We drive SUVs to see Al Gore's speeches on global warming. In a large experience sampling study, Hofmann and colleagues found evidence for moral licensing in people's everyday behavior outside of the lab, noting that "committing a moral act earlier in the day was associated with an above-average likelihood of a subsequent immoral act and a decreased likelihood of a subsequent moral act."
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
