Does helping now excuse cheating later? An investigation into moral balancing in children

Abstract

We often use our previous good behaviour to justify current immoral acts, and likewise perform good deeds to atone for previous immoral behaviour. These effects, known as moral self-licensing and moral cleansing (collectively, moral balancing), have yet to be observed in children. Thus, the aim in the current study was to investigate the developmental foundations of moral balancing. We examined whether children aged 4-5 years (N = 96) would be more likely to cheat on a task if they had previously helped a puppet at personal cost, and less likely to cheat if they had refused to help. This hypothesis was not supported, suggesting either that 4-5-year-old children do not engage in moral balancing or that the methodology used was not appropriate to capture this effect. We discuss implications and future research directions.