Welcome to the Nexus of Ethics, Psychology, Morality, Philosophy and Health Care

Welcome to the nexus of ethics, psychology, morality, technology, health care, and philosophy

Thursday, July 10, 2014

The Tragedy of Moral Licensing

A non-replication that threatens the public trust in psychology

By Rolf Degen
Google+ page
Shared publicly on May 20, 2014

Moral licensing is one of the most influential psychological effects discovered in the last decade. It refers to our increased tendency to act immorally if we have already displayed our moral righteousness. In essence, it means, that after you have done something nice, you think you have the license to do something not so nice. The effect was immediately picked up by all new psychological textbooks, portrayed repeatedly in the media, and it even got its own Wikipedia page (Do we have to take that one down?).

The entire Google+ essay is here.