The self-interest bias in moral character judgment persists regardless of cognitive resource availability

Miazek, Katarzyna; Bocian, Konrad

doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2025.104846

The self-interest bias in moral character judgment persists regardless of cognitive resource availability

StatusPost-Print

Dublin Core metadata

Authors

Miazek, Katarzyna

Bocian, Konrad

Date

2025-11-10

Journal title

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

Volume

123

Pages

1-13

DOI

10.1016/j.jesp.2025.104846

ISSN

0022-1031

Weblink

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022103125001271?via%3Dihub

Access date

2027-11-10

Abstract EN

The self-interest bias, judging morally questionable actions as less wrong when they benefit us, is prevalent, yet the cognitive mechanisms behind this bias remain unclear. Across six preregistered studies (N = 1680), we investigated whether the strength of the self-interest bias in moral judgments depends on available cognitive resources. Specifically, we manipulated cognitive resources using time pressure and a dual-task paradigm, predicting that limiting resources would amplify the self-interest bias by preventing corrective adjustments from intuitive egocentric anchors. Consistent with prior research, we reliably observed that self-interest robustly biased moral judgments. However, contrary to the predictions derived from resource-dependent correction accounts, we found no consistent evidence that limiting cognitive resources systematically moderated the magnitude of this bias. Our findings challenge the assumption that intuitive biases are straightforwardly corrected by increasing cognitive resources alone. Instead, the persistence of the self-interest bias regardless of cognitive resource constraints highlights the robustness of egocentric evaluations, suggesting that correction requires more than just available cognitive capacity and likely depends on awareness, whether detecting the bias, recognizing it as inappropriate, or both.