Table of Contents
Moral Compensation
“Moral licensing” (or “moral self-licensing”) is a term we encountered in an article about the limitations of fitness apps. I found the psychological aspect of this principle more interesting than the technical limitations of an app. It describes a form of self-sabotage that almost all of us engage in consciously or unconsciously. “Moral licensing” refers to the fact that people tend to worry less about negative behavior due to their own positive behavior or traits. When we talk about “positive” and “negative” behavior, we mean it in various aspects such as moral and financial choices, as well as choices related to health. Morally, think of biased white Americans who have less trouble favoring other whites because they voted for Obama [1]. “I elected a black president so now I can be a bit more racist again.” Groningen professors called it “moral compensation” in the case of directors of charities embezzling money [2]. We all recognize examples of “moral compensation” regarding health: “I can have that cream cake with my coffee because I just spent 15 minutes on a treadmill,” or “Let’s grab a beer after football.” The “best” example so far, in my opinion, is the man in Planet Fitness training his lower back while eating a slice of pizza!“More Vitamins so More Smoking”
Taiwanese researcher Wen-Bin Chiou noticed during lunch that his colleague opted for an unhealthy meal instead of a healthy one “because he had taken a multivitamin in the morning.” When he consulted literature on multivitamin use, he found that usage was increasing, but there seemed to be no improvement in health. Wen decided to conduct a study on this. Together with fellow researchers, he gave a placebo to 74 students, all of whom were smokers [3]. Half were told they received a placebo as a control group, while the other half were told they had received multivitamins (which was not the case). They were given a survey to fill out with questions that would indicate their level of vulnerability (likelihood of disease, accidents, etc.). Additionally, they were told they could smoke during the test. The percentage of students smoking during the test was 50% higher in the group who thought they had received multivitamins compared to the other group. Furthermore, the survey revealed that they felt less vulnerable regarding aspects such as their health. Repeating this study led to the same conclusion [4].“More Vitamins so Less Exercise and Less Healthy Eating”
From the larger-scale replication of the study, it also emerged that people who thought they had received multivitamins were less inclined to eat healthily and exercise [4]. Moreover, they were more indulgent, meaning “they showed more desire to engage in hedonistic activities.” According to Wen-Bin, things we use for health can have negative effects if we overcompensate with negative behaviors. It’s then highly questionable whether the ultimate “balance” is positive or negative.People who rely on dietary supplement use for health protection may pay a hidden price, the curse of licensed self-indulgence. After taking dietary supplements in the morning, individuals should diligently monitor whether illusory invulnerability is activated by restored health credentials and subsequently licenses health-risk behaviors. Wen-Bin Chiou, National Sun Yat-Sen University
Compensating Healthy Eating with Lying and Stealing
Okay, we all find the pizza eater at the gym very strange, but the difference with many people who laugh about it is that they usually wait until they’re back from the gym. In fact, others might eat pizza today because they went for a half-hour walk three days ago. Yet these are associations we can still understand, whether we find them logical or not. It gets more interesting when we compensate positive behavior in one area with negative behavior in a completely different area. It turns out that people who buy environmentally friendly products are more likely to lie and steal. Students from the University of Toronto were divided into two groups. One group had to shop in a regular store, the other in a store selling environmentally friendly products. They were then given a test where they had to indicate which side of a screen showed more dots in a square. This was always a clear difference and therefore not difficult to determine. However, the students were paid 5 (Canadian) cents for each time they saw more dots on the right and only half a cent if they saw more dots on the left. Beforehand, during practice, they were shown what their answers meant for the balance they would receive. In the end, they were allowed to take the earned contract from an envelope with $5 already on their desk. You might guess it: Students who had bought environmentally conscious products lied more about which side they saw the most dots on to increase their balance, but they also more often took more money from the envelope than the balance they had “earned.” So watch out for Prius drivers, vegetarians, and volunteers because apparently they all have some negative karma points to spend.Moral Compensation is a Bitch: Don’t Fool Yourself
It’s precisely these extreme examples that show how you unconsciously let one behavior influence another. The moral of the story is that you shouldn’t fool yourself. Often, you won’t notice it yourself, but as soon as you hear yourself say or think, “I can now… because…” the alarm bells should ring. Instead of thinking, “I can have a Big Mac now because I just ran for half an hour,” it’s smarter to realize that thanks to that Big Mac, you’ve sweated for nothing. Especially if you plan to have a large fries and half a liter of cola with it. And no, you don’t compensate for that by having a Diet Coke or by ordering a salad.References
- Effron DA, Cameron JS, Monin B (2009). “Endorsing Obama licenses favoring Whites”. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 45: 590–593. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2009.02.001. Retrieved 08/10/2012.
- Wen-Bin Chiou et al. A randomized experiment to examine unintended consequences of dietary supplement use among daily smokers: taking supplements reduces self-regulation of smoking. Addiction Volume 106, Issue 12, pages 2221–2228, December 2011
- Wen-Bin Chiou et al. Ironic Effects of Dietary Supplementation Illusory Invulnerability Created by Taking Dietary Supplements Licenses Health-Risk Behaviors. Psychological Science August 2011 vol. 22 no. 8 1081-1086
- Wen-Bin Chiou et al. Are Dietary Supplements Working Against You? Psychological Science. April 21, 2011
- Nina Mazar, Chen-Bo Zhong, University of TorontoDo Green Products Make Us Better People? Psychological Science February 2010 March 5, 2010, doi:10.1177/0956797610363538
