Purpose

Despite its prevalence and serious negative impact on consumer behavior, marketing strategies and social welfare, little is known about how to effectively curb moral licensing. Drawing on research in warm-glow giving and virtue signaling, this paper aims to propose that social sharing can help alleviate the moral licensing effect; and this effect is mediated by moral self-regard and moderated by temporal distance.

Design/methodology/approach

Two experimental studies were conducted in a laboratory setting using large samples. In particular, Study 1 was designed to test the proposed main and mediation effects, and Study 2 was designed to further examine the proposed moderation effect.

Findings

Study 1 demonstrates after having shared a prior moral behavior on social media, people are more likely to engage in another moral act subsequently. This is because that sharing a prior moral behavior on social media leads to a drop in moral self-regard, which, in turn, boosts a subsequent moral intention. Study 2 further shows that after having shared a prior moral behavior on social media, when making a decision for the present, people are more likely to engage in a subsequent good deed; however, this effect is diminished when people are making such a decision for the future.

Practical implications

This work provides important implications for marketing managers and policymakers. In particular, this research suggests that social sharing can be an effective tool to encourage individuals’ consistent moral behavior so as to promote individual and collective well-being. Moreover, the findings demonstrate that temporal distance and social sharing can interact to reduce the moral licensing effect. In practice, this research contributes to the development of effective marketing strategies, particularly for those companies that aim to integrate sustainability into their business practices.

Originality/value

In contrast to previous research examining the cognitive approach to curbing moral licensing, this research explores a new, powerful behavioral approach to alleviating the moral licensing effect. Furthermore, this research consolidates previous findings on the relationship between identity signaling and self-regard, increases the scope of identity signaling research and offers a bridge between research on identity signaling and research on moral licensing. Finally, this research adds to understanding of moral licensing by showing that the moral licensing effect may vary depending on contextual factors and, therefore, is more malleable than previously thought, which opens up future research opportunities to explore when and how the moral licensing effect can be alleviated.

中文翻译：

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许可被“暂停”：社交共享对遏制道德许可的影响

目的

尽管其普遍存在并对消费者行为、营销策略和社会福利产生严重负面影响，但人们对如何有效遏制道德许可知之甚少。本文借鉴对温暖奉献和美德信号的研究，旨在提出社会共享有助于减轻道德许可效应；这种效应受到道德自尊的调节和时间距离的调节。

设计/方法论/途径

两项实验研究是在实验室环境中使用大样本进行的。特别是，研究1旨在检验所提出的主效应和中介效应，研究2旨在进一步检验所提出的调节效应。

发现

研究 1 表明，在社交媒体上分享了先前的道德行为后，人们更有可能随后采取另一种道德行为。这是因为在社交媒体上分享先前的道德行为会导致道德自尊心的下降，而这反过来又会增强随后的道德意图。研究2进一步表明，在社交媒体上分享了之前的道德行为后，当人们做出当前的决定时，他们更有可能做出后续的善行；然而，当人们为未来做出这样的决定时，这种影响就会减弱。

实际影响

这项工作为营销经理和政策制定者提供了重要的启示。特别是，这项研究表明，社会共享可以成为鼓励个人一致道德行为的有效工具，从而促进个人和集体的福祉。此外，研究结果表明，时间距离和社会共享可以相互作用，减少道德许可效应。在实践中，这项研究有助于制定有效的营销策略，特别是对于那些旨在将可持续发展融入其业务实践的公司。

原创性/价值

与之前研究抑制道德许可的认知方法的研究相比，本研究探索了一种新的、强大的行为方法来减轻道德许可效应。此外，这项研究巩固了先前关于身份信号与自尊之间关系的研究结果，扩大了身份信号研究的范围，并在身份信号研究和道德许可研究之间架起了一座桥梁。最后，这项研究增加了对道德许可的理解，表明道德许可效应可能会根据情境因素而变化，因此比之前想象的更具可塑性，这为未来探索道德许可效应何时以及如何发挥作用开辟了研究机会。得到缓解。