When Dishonesty Leads to Trust: Moral Judgments Biased by Self-interest are Truly Believed

• Authors: Konrad Bocian , Wieslaw Baryla , Bogdan Wojciszke
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Research has shown that cheating is perceived as immoral when it serves the cheater’s interests, though it can be seen as moral when it serves the interests of the perceiver. However, are such biased moral judgments real, or are they merely lip service? To answer the question of whether biased moral judgments actually inform behavior, the authors asked participants to observe a confederate who either cheated for money or did not cheat, which benefited either the confederate alone or both the confederate and the participating observer. Then, participants evaluated the confederate and, finally, played a one shot trust game with her. Cheating influenced moral judgments and decreased behavioral trust, but this only occurred when self-interest was not involved. When self-interest was involved, participants showed no significant differences in trust levels, independent of whether the confederate had cheated or not. Implications for the dual process theory in moral psychology are discussed.

Keywords

EN

moral judgments; self-interest bias; cheating; trust

• Publisher: Committee for Psychological Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Polish Psychological Bulletin
• Year: 2016
• Volume: 47
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 366-372

Dates

published

2016-09-01

online

2016-10-20

Contributors

author

Konrad Bocian

• SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Sopot, Department of Psychology, Sopot Campus, Polna 16/20, 81-745 Sopot,

author

Wieslaw Baryla

• SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Sopot,

author

Bogdan Wojciszke

• SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Sopot,

Identifiers

DOI

10.1515/ppb-2016-0043