Abstract
A common form of moral hypocrisy occurs when people blame others for moral violations that they themselves commit. It is assumed that hypocritical blamers act in this manner to falsely signal that they hold moral standards that they do not really accept. We tested this assumption by investigating the neurocognitive processes of hypocritical blamers during moral decision-making. Participants (62 adult UK residents; 27 males) underwent functional MRI scanning while deciding whether to profit by inflicting pain on others and then judged the blameworthiness of others’ identical decisions. Observers (188 adult U.S. residents; 125 males) judged participants who blamed others for making the same harmful choice to be hypocritical, immoral, and untrustworthy. However, analyzing hypocritical blamers’ behaviors and neural responses shows that hypocritical blame was positively correlated with conflicted feelings, neural responses to moral standards, and guilt-related neural responses. These findings demonstrate that hypocritical blamers may hold the moral standards that they apply to others.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1909-1927 |
Number of pages | 19 |
Journal | Psychological Science |
Volume | 33 |
Issue number | 11 |
Early online date | 6 Oct 2022 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 30 Nov 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We thank Linda Skitka, Jenifer Siegel, and members of the Crockett Lab for suggestions on study design, data analysis, and comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. We also thank Michel-Pierre Coll, Anne-Marie Nussberger, Mary Montgomery, Talia Longthorne, Eloise Copland, Heather Koh, Cassandra Popham, and Wenchuan Wu for assistance in data collection.
Keywords
- blame
- conflicted feeling
- guilt
- lateral prefrontal cortex
- moral hypocrisy
- open materials
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Psychology