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Prejudice With A Conscience: How A Strong Moral Identity Relates To Greater Prejudice, Moira P. Shaw

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The present research investigated the effects of moral licensing on prejudice for participants with a strong moral identity. It predicted that, because people with a stronger moral identity are especially motivated to be moral, they would be strongly affected by moral licensing effects on prejudice. Three experiments tested this prediction by measuring moral identity, experimentally manipulating and measuring three sources of moral license (moral affirmation, moral superiority, and moral threat), and measuring inter-group prejudice. The results demonstrated that with moral affirmation and moral superiority, a strong moral identity relates to greater prejudice (Experiment 1), moral superiority moderates the relation between …