scholarly journals Morality in the flesh: on the link between bodily self-consciousness, morality and (dis)honest behaviour

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina Scattolin ◽  
Maria Serena Panasiti ◽  
Salvatore Maria Aglioti

The sense of owning a body (ownership) and controlling its actions (agency) are two main pillars of bodily self-consciousness (BSC). Although studies suggest that BSC signals may influence morality, the direction of such remains unclear. To investigate this issue, we conducted an online study in which 658 participants completed BSC- and morality-related questionnaires, and undertook a task where they could cheat for monetary gain. We found that those with high sense of ownership, and low reward sensitivity, displayed both high moral identity and deception. This seemingly counterintuitive result supports the notion that people who feel highly moral allow themselves to act immorally. Moreover, we found that high agency was associated with increased moral identity in participants with higher levels of moral disengagement and sense of power. That BSC can differently affect moral identity and behaviour may inspire policies of contrast to immorality and dishonesty, based on changes of corporeal awareness.

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmen Lișman ◽  
ANDREI CORNELIU HOLMAN

Marital infidelity is both socially perceived as immoral and very frequent. This contradiction might be explained through the process of moral disengagement, specifically by the use of certain socially shared moral justifications of infidelity, which consequently foster unfaithful behavior. This research developed and examined the Infidelity Moral Disengagement Scale (IMDS), aiming to capture the strategies of morally legitimizing infidelity used among people engaged in marital relationships. Across two studies (total N = 609 married participants) we investigated the dimensions and psychometric properties of the IMDS. Results showed that the dominant strategies of legitimizing marital infidelity are the diffusion of responsibility, the attribution of blame on the cheated partner, advantageous comparisons with other immoral acts, justifying infidelity through certain benefits, and minimizing its negative consequences. The IMDS emerged as negatively related to moral identity and strongly associated to people’s past infidelity and to their tendency to engage in unfaithful behaviors.


2017 ◽  
Vol 157 (3) ◽  
pp. 653-672 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoming Zheng ◽  
Xin Qin ◽  
Xin Liu ◽  
Hui Liao

2019 ◽  
pp. 088626051986008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xingchao Wang ◽  
Fengqing Zhao ◽  
Jiping Yang ◽  
Li Lei

Based on an integration of the positive youth development model and the social cognitive theory, friends’ moral identity was examined as a moderator of the direct and indirect relations between school climate and adolescent’s cyberbullying perpetration via moral disengagement. Participants were 404 Chinese adolescents ( Mage = 13.53 years, SD = 0.92). They completed the Perceived School Climate Scale and the Moral Identity Scale and nominated up to three friends whom they considered to be their “best friend” in their classroom at Time 1. After 6 months, they completed the Moral Disengagement Scale and the Cyberbullying Scale at Time 2. Results showed that adolescents who experienced positive school climate were less likely to cyberbully others, which was mediated by their moral disengagement. Friends’ moral identity moderated the direct and indirect relations between school climate and cyberbullying perpetration. Specifically, the indirect relationship between school climate and cyberbullying perpetration through moral disengagement became nonsignificant for adolescents interacting with high moral identity friends. The direct association between school climate and cyberbullying perpetration was moderated by friends’ moral identity.


2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 188-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cindy Xin Wang ◽  
Elizabeth A. Minton ◽  
Jiao Zhang

Research has inadequately examined how increasing a consumer’s sense of power may positively influence healthy choices. With the global obesity epidemic worsening each year, now is an essential time for marketers and policy makers to identify ways to encourage healthy choices. Thus, the current research addresses this need and the accompanying gap in the literature. Through five studies (including a field study) involving both corporate advertising and public service announcements, results show that priming a high (vs. low) sense of power leads consumers to make healthier food purchase decisions and that this effect occurs because a higher sense of power results in a more salient health goal. Most relevant for policy makers, the findings show that priming a high sense of power through simple changes in marketing communications (e.g., using the headline “You are powerful”) is an effective way to increase healthy choice, particularly for lower-socioeconomic-status consumers.


2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
pp. 172170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuki Sato ◽  
Toshihiro Kawase ◽  
Kouji Takano ◽  
Charles Spence ◽  
Kenji Kansaku

Understanding how we consciously experience our bodies is a fundamental issue in cognitive neuroscience. Two fundamental components of this are the sense of body ownership (the experience of the body as one's own) and the sense of agency (the feeling of control over one's bodily actions). These constructs have been used to investigate the incorporation of prostheses. To date, however, no evidence has been provided showing whether representations of ownership and agency in amputees are altered when operating a robotic prosthesis. Here we investigated a robotic arm using myoelectric control, for which the user varied the joint position continuously, in a rubber hand illusion task. Fifteen able-bodied participants and three trans-radial amputees were instructed to contract their wrist flexors/extensors alternately, and to watch the robotic arm move. The sense of ownership in both groups was extended to the robotic arm when the wrists of the real and robotic arm were flexed/extended synchronously, with the effect being smaller when they moved in opposite directions. Both groups also experienced a sense of agency over the robotic arm. These results suggest that these experimental settings induced successful incorporation of the prosthesis, at least for the amputees who took part in the present study.


Author(s):  
Ivanete Schneider Hahn ◽  
Eliane Schleder Cezar Bonatti ◽  
Anderson Antônio Mattos Martins

- Objective: to analyze the propensity for corrupt decision-making by pre-candidates for mayor and councilor, analyzing the 2020 Brazilian municipal elections. - Theoretical framework: the study is theoretically based on the behavioral aspect of corruption, as deviant behavior, as well as intrinsic and extrinsic motivations to corruption, which are subdivided into: propensity to unethical decision-making, individual self-control, moral identity, guilt, and disengagement moral. - Methodology: A quantitative, exploratory, and descriptive study was conducted. In the operationalization, a cross-sectional survey was used, with the data collected through a structured questionnaire applied to a valid sample of 115 pre-candidates for the 2020 municipal elections. The data analysis used univariate and bivariate statistical techniques. - Results: (1) a sample have low propensity for unethical decision-making, high individual self-control, high moral identity, low guilt, and low propensity for moral disengagement; (2) there is a significant and positive association between the variables of individual self-control with guilt, moral disengagement; and moral identity is shown to be positively associated with moral disengagement, and moral disengagement positively with the variable of having a previous elective position or not. - Originality: The main contribution of the research is the analysis of the theme on municipal legislators and executors, in the version of pre-candidates. - Theoretical and practical contributions: (1) low representation of women even as pre-candidates; (2) the sample considers the ‘other’ pre-willing politicians to make unethical decision-making, but not themselves; (3) sample with a high capacity for self-control, especially the part of the sample that did not have a previous elective position; (4) women have a higher degree of guilt than men, that is, they are less disposed to unethical decisions or corruption; (5) it can be said that the sample has a low propensity to deviant behaviors, that is, corruption.  


2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 363-375
Author(s):  
Miriam C. de Graaff ◽  
Ellen Giebels ◽  
Desiree E. M. Verweij

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