The Influence of Moral Standards on Self-Deception in Deceptive Behavior

Fan Wei; Yang Ying; Xiya Guo

doi:10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20250319

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Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2025, Vol. 48 ›› Issue (3) : 707-723. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20250319

Social, Personality & Organizational Psychology

The Influence of Moral Standards on Self-Deception in Deceptive Behavior

Fan Wei^1,2,3, Yang Ying^1,2, Xiya Guo^1,2

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Abstract

Unethical behavior pervades nearly every aspect of society, and moral disengagement may explain why otherwise ordinary individuals engage in unethical actions without apparent guilt or self-condemnation. When moral disengagement fails, individuals may decide to engage in unethical behavior. Moral disengagement refers to the diminishment or elimination of guilt and moral responsibility through cognitive strategies such as neglect or moral rationalization, allowing individuals to avoid moral remorse for unethical behavior. Self-deception is considered the central psychological mechanism underlying moral disengagement, enabling individuals to rationalize immoral behaviors while maintaining their moral self-image. Self-deception occurs when an individual deliberately distorts facts to uphold a belief, even when that belief is inconsistent with reality. Self-deception can facilitate the rationalization of unethical behavior, with potentially negative consequences at both the individual and societal levels.
This study included three experiments aimed at investigating the impact of unethical behavior on self-deception and the inhibitory effect of moral standards on self-deception. This study integrates paradigms of unethical behavior and self-deception to induce self-deception through participants' voluntary unethical actions and exposure to external information that may enhance their moral self-image. The results indicate a successful induction of self-deception. Experiment 1 explored the influence of active unethical behavior on self-deception. Participants engaged in a sender-receiver task in which they first made a decision to behave honestly or deceptively. When prizes were distributed based on the chosen scheme, the recipients' prizes were transformed into a lottery with unknown random probabilities. Participants were then asked to predict the probability values after each decision. Subsequently, a lottery task assessed participants' true beliefs about these random probability values. The results indicated that the predicted belief in the cheating condition was significantly lower than in the honest condition and also lower than the actual belief, suggesting the presence of false beliefs during unethical behavior. Regression analysis revealed that the individual deception rate significantly and negatively predicted the discrepancy between predicted and actual beliefs in the deception condition. Experiment 2 assessed the impact of passive unethical behavior on self-deception. The results indicated that no false beliefs were generated when participants passively deceived at the request and command of the host. Experiment 3 examined the influence of ethical concern on self-deception in the context of active unethical behavior. The results indicated that there was no significant difference between predicted and true beliefs in the deception condition, suggesting that no false beliefs were formed. In contrast, the control group showed a significant discrepancy between predicted and true beliefs, leading to false beliefs.
The results revealed that participants' beliefs about the values of random probability significantly deviated from their true beliefs when they engaged in immoral behavior, and they adopted more pessimistic beliefs in these contexts. This suggests that individuals developed false beliefs that contradicted reality in the context of unethical behavior, resulting in a psychological process of self-deception. The observed phenomenon of individuals predicting lower probabilities of unethical behavior was likely attributed to self-justification, exemplified by rationalizations such as “I cheated not because I am immoral, but because I believed you had a low probability of receiving a bonus” . By adopting more pessimistic beliefs about random probabilities, individuals rationalized their behavior and preserved their moral self-image, suggesting that individuals tended to obscure the attribution of their unethical behavior and actively rationalize it retrospectively. These findings suggest that in passive unethical behavior, in which individuals were instructed or ordered to act immorally, the alleviation of moral responsibility alleviated guilt and self-blame, diminishing the motivation to uphold their moral self-image. Conversely, those who engage in active unethical behavior are more likely to exhibit stronger motivations for self-deception, whereas heightened awareness of moral standards could inhibit self-deception in such behavior.

Key words

self-deception / unethical behavior / moral standards / beliefs

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Fan Wei, Yang Ying, Xiya Guo. The Influence of Moral Standards on Self-Deception in Deceptive Behavior[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2025, 48(3): 707-723 https://doi.org/10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20250319

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