The Effects Of Regulatory Focus And Regulatory Fit On Moral Licensing Effect

In recent years,as the moral licensing effects proposed by moral psychologists,they raised so much attention and were discussed widely.It is belong to negative feedbacks processing of moral self-regulation,which relate to moral balancing.At the same time,a series of empirical researches had proved that moral identity contribute to the positive feedbacks processing,which relate to moral consistency.So,how to integrate these two kinds of seemingly contradictory phenomenon?At present,the studies which try to solve this paradox still stay in initial stage and had limited progress.Based on Regulatory Focus Theory,the purpose of the current research is to show that the promotion focus and prevention focus have different effects on individual's moral licensing behavior.In Study 1,the sequential behavior paradigm was adopted.Participants' trait regulatory focus was measured with Regulatory Focus Questionnaire to find out whether participants with different chronic regulatory focus has different performance on moral licensing.The results showed that on the basis of recalled past moral behavior,the participants with promotion-oriented were easier to reluctant to do the target moral behavior,which lead to moral licensing effect.Oppositely,after having done the initial moral behavior,the participants with prevention-oriented still had high enough willingness to engage in target moral behavior,which did not lead to moral licensing phenomenonIn Study 2,participants' situational regulatory focus states were induced to investigated the effects of situational regulatory focus on moral licensing.In line with the conclusion of study 1,participants in the promotion-cue condition significantly decreased their willingness to engage in target moral behavior after recalled their past moral behavior.In another word,the moral licensing effect appeared.However,this phenomenon could not be found from participants under the prevention-cue conditionThe purpose of study 3,is to find out on the basis of recalled past moral behavior,whether participants under the promotion-cue condition have different performance on moral licensing in regulatory fit situation or situation without fit.As predicted,after recalled past moral behavior,participants had greater motivations to engage in target moral behaviors when there was a regulatory fit relative to nonfit.At the same time,after recalled the past moral behavior,the participants under regulatory fit situation did not show significant difference on willingness to engage in target moral behavior relative to participants under regulatory nonfit who had not recalled past moral behaviors.That means the moral licensing in study 1 and 2 disappeared on the participants under the promotion-cue condition.The current study not only enriched and completed the theory of regulatory focus and moral self-regulation,but also provided ideas and bases for moral education and propaganda in ordinary life.