Le bien pour faire le mal : du rôle de l'autorégulation morale dans les taboo trade-offs

Details

Supervisors

Luypaert, Gaylord ; Corneille, Olivier

Faculty

Faculté de psychologie, logopédie, sexologie et des sciences de la famille

Degree label

Master [120] en sciences psychologiques

Abstract

People are faced with diverse types of trade-off all the time. Some of these economic choices, called Taboo Trade-offs, are dangerously close to marketable moral limits. Here, we investigated how people manage with the immoral sentiment induced by these situations. To do so, we referred to the Moral Self-Regulation theory and more specifically to Moral Licensing effect; a balancing process which occurs between one's altruistic and selfish behaviours. In addition, we chose to consider this relation in a diachronic perspective. Thus, we called this behavioural pattern Strategic Moral Licensing, in reference to this anticipating process. This lab study, led among students, aimed to test Strategic Moral Licensing occurrence in two different domains. A primary study revealed that the paradigm "ripping off a pair and unknown person when selling her a useless tangram puzzle" was the most realistic and suitable situation. Therefore, we used it to test our hypotheses on how anticipating the money-oriented choice lead to a higher implication in seeking of moral credits by behaving more prosocially. Though, no significant results support the idea that people who are anticipating an immoral money-oriented choice are strategically more implicated in a prosocial behaviour. This study, however, open up interesting reflexion and perspectives mainly about Moral Self-Regulation and Taboo Trade-off managing, two subjects that had never been studied together before.