IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0117540.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Moral Hypocrisy on the Basis of Construal Level: To Be a Utilitarian Personal Decision Maker or to Be a Moral Advisor?

Author

Listed:
  • Wei Xiao
  • Qing Wu
  • Qun Yang
  • Liang Zhou
  • Yuan Jiang
  • Jiaxi Zhang
  • Danmin Miao
  • Jiaxi Peng

Abstract

Background: People encounter various moral issues that involve making decisions for others by giving advice. Objective: This study investigated the characteristics of providing suggestions for oneself versus providing suggestions for others in ethical decision-making and the differences between them based on Construal Level Theory (CLT). Methods: A total of 768 undergraduate students from three universities in China were randomly assigned to eight groups on the basis of a grid of two Construal Levels (self or others) by two different numbers of people saved (5 people or 15 people) by two problem situations (trolley problem vs. footbridge problem). The investigation examined participants’ decisions to opt to take action or refrain from action that would have the consequence of saving more people. Results: The main effects of Construal Level (F1, 752 = 6.46, p = .011), saving number (F1, 752 = 35.81, p

Suggested Citation

  • Wei Xiao & Qing Wu & Qun Yang & Liang Zhou & Yuan Jiang & Jiaxi Zhang & Danmin Miao & Jiaxi Peng, 2015. "Moral Hypocrisy on the Basis of Construal Level: To Be a Utilitarian Personal Decision Maker or to Be a Moral Advisor?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(2), pages 1-13, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0117540
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0117540
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0117540
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0117540&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0117540?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tine Bock & Iris Vermeir & Patrick Kenhove, 2013. "“What’s the Harm in Being Unethical? These Strangers are Rich Anyway!” Exploring Underlying Factors of Double Standards," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 112(2), pages 225-240, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mills, Paul & Groening, Christopher, 2021. "The role of social acceptability and guilt in unethical consumer behavior: Following the crowd or their own moral compass?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 377-388.
    2. Mindaugas Sinkevičius & Justina Gineikienė & Maik Huettinger & Benas Adomavičius, 2014. "Double Standards in the Judgment of Consumer versus Business Unethical Behavior," Tržište/Market, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Zagreb, vol. 26(1), pages 45-57.
    3. Jaakson, Krista & Vadi, Maaja & Baumane-Vitolina, Ilona & Sumilo, Erika, 2017. "Virtue in small business in small places: Organisational factors associated with employee dishonest behaviour in the retail sector," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 168-176.
    4. Valor, Carmen & Antonetti, Paolo & Zasuwa, Grzegorz, 2022. "Corporate social irresponsibility and consumer punishment: A systematic review and research agenda," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 1218-1233.
    5. Septianto, Felix & Tjiptono, Fandy & Kusumasondjaja, Sony, 2020. "Anger punishes, compassion forgives: How discrete emotions mitigate double standards in consumer ethical judgment," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    6. Elizabeth Jonson & Linda McGuire & Deirdre O’Neill, 2015. "Teaching Ethics to Undergraduate Business Students in Australia: Comparison of Integrated and Stand-alone Approaches," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 132(2), pages 477-491, December.
    7. He, Hongwei & Kim, Sumin & Gustafsson, Anders, 2021. "What can we learn from #StopHateForProfit boycott regarding corporate social irresponsibility and corporate social responsibility?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 217-226.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0117540. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.