Being “good” or “good enough

Prosocial risk and the structure of moral self-regard

Bibliographic Data

ID6202573
AuthorsJulian J Zlatev (0000-0002-9427-9887), Daniella M Kupor, Daniella Kupor (0000-0003-4747-7343, Quest University Canada), Kristin Laurin (0000-0003-1126-5293), Dale T Miller (Graduate School USA)
Year2020
Volume118
Issue2
Pages242-253
Publication date2020-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Personality and Social Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-3514 • E-ISSN: 1939-1315
PublisherAmerican Psychological Association (APA) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1037/pspa0000175
PMID31718196
OpenAlexW2986241676
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited37

This model predicts that people are primarily concerned with whether their prosocial behavior legitimates the claim that they have acted morally, a claim that often diverges from whether their behavior is in the best interests of the recipient. Specifically, it predicts that for people to feel moral following a prosocial decision, that decision need not have promised the greatest benefit for the recipient but only one larger than at least one other available outcome. Moreover, this model predicts that once people produce a benefit that exceeds this threshold, their moral self-regard is relatively insensitive to the magnitude of benefit that they produce. In 6 studies, we test this moral threshold model by examining people's prosocial risk decisions. We find that, compared with risky egoistic decisions, people systematically avoid making risky prosocial decisions that carry the possibility of producing the worst possible outcome in a choice set-even when this means avoiding a decision that is objectively superior. We further find that this aversion to producing the worst possible prosocial outcome leads people's prosocial (vs. egoistic) risk decisions to be less sensitive to those decisions' maximum possible benefit. We highlight theoretical and practical implications of these findings, including the detrimental consequence that people's desire to protect their moral self-regard can have on the amount of good that they produce. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)

Altruism (biology) · Economics · Helping behavior · Microeconomics · Moral development · Morality · Outcome (game theory) · Prosocial behavior · PsycINFO · Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Social Psychology

Tools

Open DOI