Reward Alleviates Moral Licensing Effect

Past psychology research has found an increased tendency to act unethically after people have already behaved in an ethical way, known as moral licensing effect. In this research, we propose that rewarding the initial ethical behavior is a viable device to reduce the licensing effect. Supporting this hypothesis, three experiments demonstrate that people who received an external reward for a first ethical behavior acted significantly more ethically in their subsequent choice than those who did not, because receiving the reward reduces the moral credentials earned from the first good deed, threatening people’s moral self-regard, thus motivating them to make ethical choice at the next opportunity.