This article was taken from the February 2015 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
Have you ever treated yourself to a few beers or a new gadget after completing a work project? How about pushing in a queue when you have just been extra nice to a colleague? No single behaviour sits in a vacuum. One action can have knock-on effects for what we do next. Some behavioural spillovers are consciously decided upon (planning those beers for when the project is over) but many (like being nasty to one person because you have just been nice to another) come about unconsciously and automatically.
The evidence on behavioural spillovers suggests that we will often unconsciously licence ourselves to do something "naughty" when we have just done something "nice". We have carried out our own experiment where we show that feeling good about having just exercised for two minutes (either through the payment of cash or from positive feedback) leads to nearly twice as many calories being consumed at a buffet lunch compared to when no payment or encouragement are offered. Little wonder, then, that exercise does not lead to weight loss (the evidence is now quite clear that only eating less does).
But it's not all bad. Sometimes we will cleanse ourselves of being naughty by following it up with something nice. In a study called Macbeth and the Joystick, carried out by researchers in Germany, students were assigned to play either
FlatOut 2, a driving video game featuring objects, or
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which involves violence against human characters. The students were then asked to choose take-home gifts out of a selection of ten items, half of which were hygiene products. The students who played Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas were far more likely to pick the hygiene products than those who played FlatOut 2. They literally wanted to wash away their sins. Interestingly, though, this effect did not hold for veteran gamers.
Licensing and cleansing behaviours suggest that we each have something akin to a moral bank account. When we feel that we are in credit, we will license ourselves to spend moral credits. When we are in debit, we need to cleanse ourselves by earning moral credits. We may each have a different balance but we all spend and earn credits by being naughty or nice in a host of different ways -- and many times without even knowing we are doing it. Evidence for moral licensing and moral cleansing has been found in a whole range of behavioural domains including environmental, health, discriminatory actions and charitable giving.
So, what lessons can be learned from all of this? Well, if you have some goal in mind -- weighing less, saving more, being more environmentally friendly -- then it's important not only to consider what you do now, but also what effect your current actions might have on what you do next.
You can organise your days in ways that limit moral licensing: don't walk past the takeaway on the way home from the gym, for example. You can also make good use of the guilt you might feel from time to time when you don't quite do what you set out to: make a commitment to call your mum the
day after a big night out.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
