MORAL LICENSING

There also seems to be a set point for morality—a point at which we feel that we’re being “good enough” and then stop trying. One study, for example, had a group of people imagine performing some good deed (cleaning a park area of a university). The people who did the imagining were then more likely to cheat on a game that would give them money than a control group, who did not imagine performing a good deed beforehand. This suggests that even thinking about doing something good can get you to let yourself morally off the hook, free to do something bad. What’s more, people who buy “green” products are, everything else being equal, subsequently more likely to cheat and steal. This offsetting of good behavior is known as moral licensing.