{"id":40750,"date":"2021-06-19T11:38:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-19T15:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=40750"},"modified":"2021-07-01T13:49:25","modified_gmt":"2021-07-01T17:49:25","slug":"moral-licensing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/moral-licensing\/","title":{"rendered":"Moral Licensing: When \u201cRewards\u201d Are Sabotage"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Do you ever reward yourself with a snack when you’ve done well on your diet? Why do people tend to think that being “good” gives us moral permission to be “bad”?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moral licensing is when people tell themselves they deserve an indulgent treat because they’ve been good. However, much of the time the “reward” is actually counterintuitive to the person’s goal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is why moral licensing goes against self-control. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Why Morality Doesn\u2019t Apply to Willpower  <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Too often we frame our willpower struggles in terms of morality. We give ourselves credit for our perceived willpower successes, and we beat ourselves up for our perceived failures. But applying the labels of virtue and vice to our self-control choices sets us up to fall into four common willpower-failure traps: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Utilizing moral licensing<\/strong>, we tell ourselves we deserve an indulgent treat because we\u2019ve been good. <\/li>
  2. Under the \u201cI\u2019m Making Progress\u201d<\/strong> trap, we tell ourselves we\u2019ve already taken a few steps toward our goal, so why not take a break? <\/li>
  3. With \u201cToo Much Optimism,\u201d<\/strong> we reward ourselves for our potential good behavior in the future\u2014even if we never follow-through. <\/li>
  4. Under the halo effect<\/a><\/strong>, we believe that virtuous choices cancel out bad ones. <\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    The Moral Licensing Trap <\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    Moral licensing is a way of telling ourselves that being “good” gives us moral permission to be “bad.” Sometimes if we just convince ourselves that we\u2019re making progress toward our Personal Willpower Challenge<\/a>, we’ll fall off the wagon. We take a few steps in the right direction\u2014for example, we might stop smoking or drinking alcohol for several days\u2014and then we tell ourselves we deserve a little “treat.” But by choosing indulgence as a reward for good behavior, we’re actually sabotaging what we really want\u2014our bigger, long-term goal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The research:<\/strong> It seems illogical, but many of us indulge in this kind of fuzzy thinking. Studies have shown that when people merely considered donating money to charity\u2014without actually doing it\u2014it made them more likely to buy something for themselves. Chronic dieters often find that exercise actually derails their diet programs because after they work out for an hour, they believe they deserve a food reward. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The research: <\/strong>When subjects in studies are asked to talk about a recent time when they resisted temptation, they will describe an incident of \u201cgood behavior.\u201d When they finish talking, researchers give them the opportunity to indulge in something that\u2019s contrary to their long-term goals. They typically seize the opportunity, and researchers believe it\u2019s because they\u2019re feeling good about themselves. Describing their \u201cgood behavior\u201d leads them toward moral licensing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    But when subjects are asked to describe why<\/em> they recently resisted temptation, they don’t usually follow up their response by indulging. Remembering the \u201cwhy\u201d is key to self-control. <\/strong>People remember they resisted temptation because they wanted to\u2014and that makes them continue to want to.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    When \u201cRewards\u201d Are Actually Sabotage<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    If you want to lose weight, breaking your diet by eating five donuts\u2014after a week of noshing on hard-boiled eggs and carrot sticks\u2014isn’t a reward. It’s a derailment. Telling ourselves we’ve been good and we deserve a treat for good behavior may not matter in some scenarios, but when we apply this thinking to our big willpower goals, it’s sabotage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Moral licensing deceives us into making poor decisions and acting against our best interests. You set your own willpower challenge, right? So why would you act against your own interests? To avoid the perils of moral licensing, your brain needs to carefully separate true moral dilemmas from merely challenging problems. <\/strong>When we view our willpower challenges in moral terms, we fall into the moral licensing trap. But when we realize that our Personal Willpower Challenges are not moral issues\u2014they’re merely personal goals\u2014then it\u2019s illogical to reward ourselves for “being good” or punish ourselves for “being bad.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Do you ever reward yourself with a snack when you’ve done well on your diet? Why do people tend to think that being “good” gives us moral permission to be “bad”? Moral licensing is when people tell themselves they deserve an indulgent treat because they’ve been good. However, much of the time the “reward” is actually counterintuitive to the person’s goal. Here is why moral licensing goes against self-control.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":40824,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,9,43],"tags":[405],"class_list":["post-40750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motivation","category-psychology","category-self-improvement","tag-the-willpower-instinct","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"\nMoral Licensing: When \u201cRewards\u201d Are Sabotage - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Moral licensing is when people tell themselves they deserve a reward because they've been good. 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