关键词: 道德自我知觉, 道德行为, 欺骗行为, 解释水平

Abstract:

There are two contradictory phenomena in the impact of the improvement of moral self-perception on moral behavior: moral consistency effect and moral psychological licensing effect, which may be caused by the moderating role of construal level. The present research therefore explored the moderating role of construal level in the relationship between moral self-perception and deceptive behavior through two experiments. We recruited 179 and 192 college students in Experiment 1 and Experiment 2 respectively. A paper-and-pencil matrix task was used to measure deceptive behavior, and past and future temporal distance was used to activate the corresponding construal level separately. The results showed that under the condition of high construal level (i.e., distant past and distant future), the deceptive behavior of the moral self-perception priming group was significantly lower than that of the moral self-perception non-production group, which discloses moral consistency effect. While under the condition of low construal level (i.e., near past and near future), the deceptive behavior of the moral self-perception priming group was significantly higher than that of the moral self-perception non-production group, which discloses moral psychological licensing effect. These findings reveal that construal level moderates the relationship between moral self-perception and deceptive behavior, that is, under the condition of high construal level, the improvement of moral self-perception produces a moral consistency effect; while under the condition of low construal level, the improvement of moral self-perception produces a moral psychological licensing effect.

Key words: moral self-perception, moral behavior, deceptive behavior, construal level