Daniel A Effron
Biographic Data
| ID | 4100938 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Daniel A Effron |
| GIVEN NAMES | Daniel A |
| FAMILY NAME | Effron |
| SIGNATURE | EFFRON D A |
| AFFILIATIONS | London Business School |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4122-6175 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 154 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 24 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Intergenerational Hypocrisy: When an Organization’s Distant Past Limits Its Legitimacy to Practice or Preach in the Present
Organizations often endure across multiple generations of members—and what one generation preaches may not always align with what another generation practices. We demonstrate that people attribute such inconsistency to hypocrisy, even when over half a century separates the practicing and preaching. Five experiments and three supplemental studies demonstrate this intergenerational hypocrisy effect ( N = 4,482). Organizations were perceived as more…
Hypocrisy either way: Judgments of moral actors who choose between conflicting commitments
People often make commitments to a specific behavior (e.g., eating vegetarian) in service of a higher-order value or goal (e.g., reducing carbon emissions). Yet behavioral commitments and the higher-order values they serve can sometimes point toward different actions (e.g., when choosing between a low-carbon meat dish or a high-carbon vegetarian dish). How are actors perceived when they choose to prioritize one type of commitment over the other? …
When are leaders blamed for bad events that never happened? Partisanship and close counterfactual catastrophes
How much blame do leaders deserve for counterfactual catastrophes : disasters that could have occurred under their watch but never did? We propose that when people oppose (vs. support) a leader, they are more likely to answer this question by considering how close the catastrophe came to occurring. In two preregistered experiments (total N = 1927), U.S. participants assigned greater blame for counterfactual catastrophes (e.g., an imagined nuclear…
Can Self-affirmation Encourage HIV-Prevention? Evidence from Female Sex Workers in Senegal
We test an intervention aiming to increase condom usage and HIV testing in a stigmatized population at high risk of contracting HIV: female sex workers (FSWs) in Senegal. Some sex work is legal in Senegal, and condoms and HIV tests are freely available to registered FSWs-but FSWs may be reluctant to get tested and use condoms, in part because doing so would entail acknowledging their risk of contracting HIV and potentially expose them to stigma. …
From critical to hypocritical: Counterfactual thinking increases partisan disagreement about media hypocrisy
Partisans on both sides of the political aisle complain that the mainstream media is hypocritical, but they disagree about whom that hypocrisy benefits. In the present research, we examine how counterfactual thinking contributes to this partisan disagreement about media hypocrisy. In three studies (two pre-registered, N = 1342) of people's reactions to media criticism of politicians, we find that people judged the media's criticism of politicians…
It might become true: How prefactual thinking licenses dishonesty
about how it might become true in the future. This effect emerged with participants from 59 nations judging falsehoods about consumer products, professional skills, and controversial political issues-and the effect was particularly pronounced when participants were inclined to accept that the falsehood might become true. Moreover, thinking prefactually about how a falsehood might become true made people more inclined to share the falsehood on soc…
Moral credentials and the 2020 democratic presidential primary: No evidence that endorsing female candidates licenses people to favor men
Moral cleansing as hypocrisy: When private acts of charity make you feel better than you deserve
What counts as hypocrisy? Current theorizing emphasizes that people see hypocrisy when an individual sends them "false signals" about his or her morality (Jordan, Sommers, Bloom, & Rand, 2017); indeed, the canonical hypocrite acts more virtuously in public than in private. An alternative theory posits that people see hypocrisy when an individual enjoys "undeserved moral benefits," such as feeling more virtuous than his or her behavior merits, eve…
An Exploratory Investigation of Americans’ Expression of Gender Bias Before and After the 2016 Presidential Election
Did the 2016 U.S. presidential election’s outcome affect Americans’ expression of gender bias? Drawing on theories linking leadership with intergroup attitudes, we proposed it would. A preregistered exploratory survey of two independent samples of Americans pre- and postelection ( n s = 1,098 and 1,192) showed no pre–post differences in modern sexism, concern with the gender pay gap, or perceptions of gender inequality and progress overall. Howev…
Hypocrisy and culture: Failing to practice what you preach receives harsher interpersonal reactions in independent (vs. interdependent) cultures
Group cohesion benefits individuals who express prejudice, but harms their group
Other People's Money: Money's Perceived Purchasing Power Is Smaller for Others Than for the Self
Nine studies find that people believe their money has greater purchasing power than the same quantity of others' money. Using a variety of products from socks to clocks to chocolates, we found that participants thought the same amount of money could buy more when it belonged to themselves versus others-a pattern that extended to undesirable products. Participants also believed their money-in the form of donations, taxes, fines, and fees-would hel…
Ethical Decision‐Making: Contemporary Research on the Role of the Self
How do people decide when facing dilemmas that pit self‐interested gains against ethical values? We highlight two key principles from contemporary behavioral research: (i) people are more willing to act unethically when they can convince themselves that their behavior does not reflect poorly on their moral character and (ii) people tend to be content with an “ethical enough” self‐image. We examine how these principles shed light on the antecedent…
Cheating at the end to avoid regret
How do people behave when they face a finite series of opportunities to cheat with little or no risk of detection? In 4 experiments and a small meta-analysis, we analyzed over 25,000 cheating opportunities faced by over 2,500 people. The results suggested that the odds of cheating are almost 3 times higher at the end of a series than earlier. Participants could cheat in 1 of 2 ways: They could lie about the outcome of a private coin flip to get a…
Entitativity and intergroup bias: How belonging to a cohesive group allows people to express their prejudices
We propose that people treat prejudice as more legitimate when it seems rationalistic-that is, linked to a group's pursuit of collective interests. Groups that appear to be coherent and unified wholes (entitative groups) are most likely to have such interests. We thus predicted that belonging to an entitative group licenses people to express prejudice against outgroups. Support for this idea came from 3 correlational studies and 5 experiments exa…
The strategic pursuit of moral credentials
The unhealthy road not taken: Licensing indulgence by exaggerating counterfactual sins
Inventing racist roads not taken: The licensing effect of immoral counterfactual behaviors
Six experiments examined how people strategically use thoughts of foregone misdeeds to regulate their moral behavior. We tested 2 hypotheses: 1st, that people will feel licensed to act in morally dubious ways when they can point to immoral alternatives to their prior behavior, and 2nd, that people made to feel insecure about their morality will exaggerate the extent to which such alternatives existed. Supporting the 1st hypothesis, when White par…
Affirmation, acknowledgment of in-group responsibility, group-based guilt, and support for reparative measures
Moral Self‐Licensing: When Being Good Frees Us to Be Bad
Past good deeds can liberate individuals to engage in behaviors that are immoral, unethical, or otherwise problematic, behaviors that they would otherwise avoid for fear of feeling or appearing immoral. We review research on this moral self‐licensing effect in the domains of political correctness, prosocial behavior, and consumer choice. We also discuss remaining theoretical tensions in the literature: Do good deeds reframe bad deeds (moral crede…
Psychological License
Diffusion of entitlement: An inhibitory effect of scarcity on consumption
Endorsing Obama licenses favoring Whites
Embodied temporal perception of emotion
The role of embodiment in the perception of the duration of emotional stimuli was investigated with a temporal bisection task. Previous research has shown that individuals overestimate the duration of emotional, compared with neutral, faces (S. Droit-Volet, S. Brunot, & P. M. Niedenthal, 2004). The authors tested a role for embodiment in this effect. Participants estimated the duration of angry, happy, and neutral faces by comparing them to 2 dur…
Endorsing Obama licenses favoring Whites
Affirmation, acknowledgment of in-group responsibility, group-based guilt, and support for reparative measures
The strategic pursuit of moral credentials
The unhealthy road not taken: Licensing indulgence by exaggerating counterfactual sins
Entitativity and intergroup bias: How belonging to a cohesive group allows people to express their prejudices
We propose that people treat prejudice as more legitimate when it seems rationalistic-that is, linked to a group's pursuit of collective interests. Groups that appear to be coherent and unified wholes (entitative groups) are most likely to have such interests. We thus predicted that belonging to an entitative group licenses people to express prejudice against outgroups. Support for this idea came from 3 correlational studies and 5 experiments exa…
Inventing racist roads not taken: The licensing effect of immoral counterfactual behaviors
Six experiments examined how people strategically use thoughts of foregone misdeeds to regulate their moral behavior. We tested 2 hypotheses: 1st, that people will feel licensed to act in morally dubious ways when they can point to immoral alternatives to their prior behavior, and 2nd, that people made to feel insecure about their morality will exaggerate the extent to which such alternatives existed. Supporting the 1st hypothesis, when White par…
Hypocrisy and culture: Failing to practice what you preach receives harsher interpersonal reactions in independent (vs. interdependent) cultures
Other People's Money: Money's Perceived Purchasing Power Is Smaller for Others Than for the Self
Nine studies find that people believe their money has greater purchasing power than the same quantity of others' money. Using a variety of products from socks to clocks to chocolates, we found that participants thought the same amount of money could buy more when it belonged to themselves versus others-a pattern that extended to undesirable products. Participants also believed their money-in the form of donations, taxes, fines, and fees-would hel…
Diffusion of entitlement: An inhibitory effect of scarcity on consumption
It might become true: How prefactual thinking licenses dishonesty
about how it might become true in the future. This effect emerged with participants from 59 nations judging falsehoods about consumer products, professional skills, and controversial political issues-and the effect was particularly pronounced when participants were inclined to accept that the falsehood might become true. Moreover, thinking prefactually about how a falsehood might become true made people more inclined to share the falsehood on soc…
Group cohesion benefits individuals who express prejudice, but harms their group
From critical to hypocritical: Counterfactual thinking increases partisan disagreement about media hypocrisy
Partisans on both sides of the political aisle complain that the mainstream media is hypocritical, but they disagree about whom that hypocrisy benefits. In the present research, we examine how counterfactual thinking contributes to this partisan disagreement about media hypocrisy. In three studies (two pre-registered, N = 1342) of people's reactions to media criticism of politicians, we find that people judged the media's criticism of politicians…
Cheating at the end to avoid regret
How do people behave when they face a finite series of opportunities to cheat with little or no risk of detection? In 4 experiments and a small meta-analysis, we analyzed over 25,000 cheating opportunities faced by over 2,500 people. The results suggested that the odds of cheating are almost 3 times higher at the end of a series than earlier. Participants could cheat in 1 of 2 ways: They could lie about the outcome of a private coin flip to get a…
Embodied temporal perception of emotion
The role of embodiment in the perception of the duration of emotional stimuli was investigated with a temporal bisection task. Previous research has shown that individuals overestimate the duration of emotional, compared with neutral, faces (S. Droit-Volet, S. Brunot, & P. M. Niedenthal, 2004). The authors tested a role for embodiment in this effect. Participants estimated the duration of angry, happy, and neutral faces by comparing them to 2 dur…
Endorsing Obama licenses favoring Whites
Moral Self‐Licensing: When Being Good Frees Us to Be Bad
Past good deeds can liberate individuals to engage in behaviors that are immoral, unethical, or otherwise problematic, behaviors that they would otherwise avoid for fear of feeling or appearing immoral. We review research on this moral self‐licensing effect in the domains of political correctness, prosocial behavior, and consumer choice. We also discuss remaining theoretical tensions in the literature: Do good deeds reframe bad deeds (moral crede…
Psychological License
Diffusion of entitlement: An inhibitory effect of scarcity on consumption
Affirmation, acknowledgment of in-group responsibility, group-based guilt, and support for reparative measures
The strategic pursuit of moral credentials
The unhealthy road not taken: Licensing indulgence by exaggerating counterfactual sins
Inventing racist roads not taken: The licensing effect of immoral counterfactual behaviors
Six experiments examined how people strategically use thoughts of foregone misdeeds to regulate their moral behavior. We tested 2 hypotheses: 1st, that people will feel licensed to act in morally dubious ways when they can point to immoral alternatives to their prior behavior, and 2nd, that people made to feel insecure about their morality will exaggerate the extent to which such alternatives existed. Supporting the 1st hypothesis, when White par…
Ethical Decision‐Making: Contemporary Research on the Role of the Self
How do people decide when facing dilemmas that pit self‐interested gains against ethical values? We highlight two key principles from contemporary behavioral research: (i) people are more willing to act unethically when they can convince themselves that their behavior does not reflect poorly on their moral character and (ii) people tend to be content with an “ethical enough” self‐image. We examine how these principles shed light on the antecedent…
Cheating at the end to avoid regret
How do people behave when they face a finite series of opportunities to cheat with little or no risk of detection? In 4 experiments and a small meta-analysis, we analyzed over 25,000 cheating opportunities faced by over 2,500 people. The results suggested that the odds of cheating are almost 3 times higher at the end of a series than earlier. Participants could cheat in 1 of 2 ways: They could lie about the outcome of a private coin flip to get a…
Entitativity and intergroup bias: How belonging to a cohesive group allows people to express their prejudices
We propose that people treat prejudice as more legitimate when it seems rationalistic-that is, linked to a group's pursuit of collective interests. Groups that appear to be coherent and unified wholes (entitative groups) are most likely to have such interests. We thus predicted that belonging to an entitative group licenses people to express prejudice against outgroups. Support for this idea came from 3 correlational studies and 5 experiments exa…
Hypocrisy and culture: Failing to practice what you preach receives harsher interpersonal reactions in independent (vs. interdependent) cultures
Group cohesion benefits individuals who express prejudice, but harms their group
Other People's Money: Money's Perceived Purchasing Power Is Smaller for Others Than for the Self
Nine studies find that people believe their money has greater purchasing power than the same quantity of others' money. Using a variety of products from socks to clocks to chocolates, we found that participants thought the same amount of money could buy more when it belonged to themselves versus others-a pattern that extended to undesirable products. Participants also believed their money-in the form of donations, taxes, fines, and fees-would hel…
An Exploratory Investigation of Americans’ Expression of Gender Bias Before and After the 2016 Presidential Election
Did the 2016 U.S. presidential election’s outcome affect Americans’ expression of gender bias? Drawing on theories linking leadership with intergroup attitudes, we proposed it would. A preregistered exploratory survey of two independent samples of Americans pre- and postelection ( n s = 1,098 and 1,192) showed no pre–post differences in modern sexism, concern with the gender pay gap, or perceptions of gender inequality and progress overall. Howev…
Moral cleansing as hypocrisy: When private acts of charity make you feel better than you deserve
What counts as hypocrisy? Current theorizing emphasizes that people see hypocrisy when an individual sends them "false signals" about his or her morality (Jordan, Sommers, Bloom, & Rand, 2017); indeed, the canonical hypocrite acts more virtuously in public than in private. An alternative theory posits that people see hypocrisy when an individual enjoys "undeserved moral benefits," such as feeling more virtuous than his or her behavior merits, eve…
Moral credentials and the 2020 democratic presidential primary: No evidence that endorsing female candidates licenses people to favor men
From critical to hypocritical: Counterfactual thinking increases partisan disagreement about media hypocrisy
Partisans on both sides of the political aisle complain that the mainstream media is hypocritical, but they disagree about whom that hypocrisy benefits. In the present research, we examine how counterfactual thinking contributes to this partisan disagreement about media hypocrisy. In three studies (two pre-registered, N = 1342) of people's reactions to media criticism of politicians, we find that people judged the media's criticism of politicians…
It might become true: How prefactual thinking licenses dishonesty
about how it might become true in the future. This effect emerged with participants from 59 nations judging falsehoods about consumer products, professional skills, and controversial political issues-and the effect was particularly pronounced when participants were inclined to accept that the falsehood might become true. Moreover, thinking prefactually about how a falsehood might become true made people more inclined to share the falsehood on soc…
Can Self-affirmation Encourage HIV-Prevention? Evidence from Female Sex Workers in Senegal
We test an intervention aiming to increase condom usage and HIV testing in a stigmatized population at high risk of contracting HIV: female sex workers (FSWs) in Senegal. Some sex work is legal in Senegal, and condoms and HIV tests are freely available to registered FSWs-but FSWs may be reluctant to get tested and use condoms, in part because doing so would entail acknowledging their risk of contracting HIV and potentially expose them to stigma. …
When are leaders blamed for bad events that never happened? Partisanship and close counterfactual catastrophes
How much blame do leaders deserve for counterfactual catastrophes : disasters that could have occurred under their watch but never did? We propose that when people oppose (vs. support) a leader, they are more likely to answer this question by considering how close the catastrophe came to occurring. In two preregistered experiments (total N = 1927), U.S. participants assigned greater blame for counterfactual catastrophes (e.g., an imagined nuclear…
Intergenerational Hypocrisy: When an Organization’s Distant Past Limits Its Legitimacy to Practice or Preach in the Present
Organizations often endure across multiple generations of members—and what one generation preaches may not always align with what another generation practices. We demonstrate that people attribute such inconsistency to hypocrisy, even when over half a century separates the practicing and preaching. Five experiments and three supplemental studies demonstrate this intergenerational hypocrisy effect ( N = 4,482). Organizations were perceived as more…
Hypocrisy either way: Judgments of moral actors who choose between conflicting commitments
People often make commitments to a specific behavior (e.g., eating vegetarian) in service of a higher-order value or goal (e.g., reducing carbon emissions). Yet behavioral commitments and the higher-order values they serve can sometimes point toward different actions (e.g., when choosing between a low-carbon meat dish or a high-carbon vegetarian dish). How are actors perceived when they choose to prioritize one type of commitment over the other? …
Psychology (19 works) · Social Psychology (19 works) · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment (15 works) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (14 works) · Social Psychology (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Political science (8 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (5 works) · Hypocrisy (5 works) · Politics (5 works)