Why Being Moral Can Make You a Worse Person
Morals are the building blocks that make up the essence of who we are and what we value. It is knowing right from wrong. These are the codes that we use to navigate throughout our life to make the right decisions that will impact those around us and ourselves.
As morals create the individual, the individual creates the society. A strong and good functional society depends on the values that it stands on. Strong upstanding citizens can help society flourish and grow. But what if morals can have a sinister impact? Can our good values backfire on us and hurt those around us too?
From Saints to Sinners
We tend to think that our moral compass will lead us in the right direction, but the opposite may hold true. It can influence us to make bad decisions that go against our values.
Ever wonder why you hear stories about how a politician that preaches strong family values is caught cheating on their spouse. Or stories about someone rebelling against the sins of gay marriage to be only found at a gay strip bar. Or stories of how a cop, who is supposed to defend and protect, is caught striking unarmed citizens. These are common narratives you’ll hear all the time. Psychologists call this phenomenon moral licensing.
Moral licensing is the act of doing something good, which allows us to trust our good intention. This will often permit us to do something bad later on. This is a common occurrence. In other words, when we are good, we are allowed to be a little bit bad.
A Startling Discovery
A study was conducted to test this theory out. A group of students at Princeton University was given statements to evaluate and they had to choose “disagree, neutral, or agree.”
The two statements were: “Most women are not really smart” and “most women are better suited to staying at home taking care of children than to work.” By a show of votes, the students disagreed and rejected these terrible statements.
Another group was given the same questionnaire except now it was “Some women are not really smart” and “some women are better suited to stay at home taking care of the children.” While these comments still left a bad taste, it was hard to disagree with some, so they were more neutral.
Now the groups were given a hypothetical hiring scenario in a male-dominated industry, such as finance or construction. After evaluating their statements, researchers believed that they were more likely to choose a female for the role, but the opposite was true.
The group that strongly disagreed with the sexist statements were more likely to choose a male over a qualified female for the job, whereas, the group who agreed with the less sexist “some women” statements chose more females.
This same attitude was demonstrated when students were allowed to discriminate against minorities and gave racist remarks.
As long as the students established their moral standards and credentials first, they felt that they were more justified in behaving in any way that made them felt good afterward.
“When it comes to right and wrong, most of us are not striving for moral perfection. We just want to feel good enough — which then gives us permission to do whatever we want.”
Kelly McGonigal, Health Psychologist at Stanford University
In the age of virtue signaling
In this age of virtue signaling, an individual or group preaches a certain belief or value to demonstrate their goodness. While it seems noble, is it really? Is it really about ethics and helping others, or is it really about making them feel bigger and feeding their ego?
It could be someone announcing to social media that they donated to a certain charity. It could also be a company preaching certain ethics to the public while announcing for change. It might also be someone just signaling their beliefs to others.
While these actions may seem harmless on the outside, what are the intentions behind it? Is that person announcing their charitable donation as a way to promote it or are they trying to gain validation and enhance their image?
Are companies preaching values for the sake of the people or profit? Are these companies still conducting operations in an unethical manner? Are people signaling their beliefs for change or is it to feel self-righteous and morally superior?
These are the questions that we must ask. While some do it for the genuine greater good, many do it for selfish motivations. It is a safe bet that humans love to feel self-righteous and will find any way to stroke their ego, especially online. Many will signal their virtues to exert moral superiority onto others.
According to Research Digest, moral superiority can be one of the most common and biggest irrational self-serving biases that we all carry. Individuals who signal their virtues the most are usually the ones who don’t care about virtues, to begin with. It’s not about being virtuous for them, but rather, finding outlets to exert dominance and control over others.
This becomes disingenuous because by virtue signaling and projecting moral superiority onto others, we are more likely to do something that we preach against. We become more vulnerable to moral licensing.
How morals can make us fat and broke
We talked a lot about how morals can play a big role in society, but what about in our daily lives. Does moral licensing play a role there too? Well by taking a closer look, it does!
If there is one thing that Americans moralize, it would be….progress! We believe that progress is good and makes us a better person. Just by moralizing it, we are already opening the doors to self-sabotage.
For example, a study was done that most people who would imagine themselves to donate to a charitable cause, were likely to go on a shopping spree afterward.
Researchers have indicated that we are likely to reward ourselves for things that we could’ve done, but didn’t.When we take righteous actions, such as exercising or eating healthy, we are more likely to cram donuts into our bodies or skip the gym the next day.
Today’s virtuous actions justify tomorrow’s sins. Just by recalling a good memory or any excuse for that vanilla shake, we’ll quickly jump on it.
The crazy catch is that the progress doesn’t even have to be real. Just by imagining what we could be, we are more likely to congratulate ourselves by buying something new or getting a snack, anything to give us that dopamine spike.
Is there any hope left?
Now does this mean that we should drop our morals and values? Absolute not. We should still strive to be our best selves, but it is important to be aware of our vulnerabilities. We need to be brutally honest with ourselves and always question our intentions.
Just by moralizing our progress, we are likely to take two steps back. By virtue signaling, we can become the very thing we are against. By fantasizing about our progress, we can use it as a justification to cut corners. We must be aware of our shortcomings and flaws. It’s easy to think of ourselves as good and everyone else as lesser, but what if we’re all not that different?
In terms of our goals, we need to quickly catch ourselves when we take actions that will undermine it. By quickly realigning with our “why,” it will remind us of why we started in the first place. The effects of moral licensing can be tricky, but the greatest agent for change is through awareness.
Resource: The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal
