Abstract
Abstract: Introduction and theoretical background Research on moral licensing suggested that engaging in environmental behavior makes people more likely to engage in subsequent immoral behavior (Mazar & Zhong, 2010) by giving them moral license and that this effect is comparatively stronger in environmentalists (Hahnel et al., 2015). These findings contrast starkly with the literature on environmental motivation that views environmental conservation as essentially moral behavior (Karp, 1996; van der Werff et al., 2013) and environmentalists as being pro-social (Kaiser et al., 2010).
Building on the theory of moral self-regulation (Zhong, Liljenquist, & Cain, 2009), we hypothesize that stronger morality of environmentalists makes them comparatively more likely to rectify their prior moral failures (cleansing effect). Since many licensing experiments fail to use appropriate control group (Mullen & Monin, 2016), they mistakenly interpret lower levels of moral outcome behavior after initial moral behavior as evidence of the licensing effect.
Methods We run a series of four web-based experiments on samples (N = 150 - 250) of general adult population. Environmental attitude is measured one week before actual experiments, using GEB scale (Kaiser & Wilson, 2000).
We check for potentially confounding effect of attitude measurement through Solomon design. Measures of moral outcome behavior are based on Die-Under-Cup paradigm (Fischbacher & Föllmi-Heusi, 2013).
Measures of altruistic outcome behavior are based on observed donation to charitable cause and observed participation in environmental research (Hahnel et al., 2015). Result The first two experiments extended Mazar and Zhong's experiment (2010) by focusing on whether environmentalists are perceived as more moral than other people.
Our results indicate that external observers view environmentalists as generally more trustworthy and moral and that such judgments are independent of observers' own environmental attitudes. Experiment 3 demonstrates that environmental attitude predicts moral behavior (cheating in a game for financial gain) which is completely unrelated to environmental conservation.
Finally, in experiment 4 we replicate Hahnel et al.'s (2015) licensing mediation test only to find that moderation concerns cleansing rather than licensing effect, which only becomes apparent when control group is used in the experiment. Conclusions Contrary to somewhat spiteful message of the licensing literature, engagement in environmental behavior seems be associated with moral superiority.
Environmentalists are not just viewed as morally superior but they also behave more morally.