Testing Education and Accountability as Moderators of the Self-Interest Bias in Moral Character Judgments

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Authors
Lu, Yong
Miazek, Katarzyna
Bocian, Konrad
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Date
2025-08-28
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Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
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1-17
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0146-1672
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https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/01461672251364308
Access date
2025-08-28
Abstract PL
Abstract EN
The self-interest bias describes an inclination of people to evaluate transgressors morally better when the latter’s actions serve the former’s interests. Effective interventions to mitigate this type of self-serving bias remain underexplored. The current research investigates education and accountability as potential moderators of this bias. In preregistered Study 1 (N = 668), as predicted, educating participants about the self-interest bias eliminated its effect on their moral character judgments. However, across three preregistered accountability studies (N = 2,239), holding participants accountable for their judgments did not attenuate the bias. Similarly, in preregistered Study 5 (N = 641), we found no evidence of a combined effect of education and accountability on reducing the bias. These findings suggest that while increasing awareness through education may effectively reduce biased moral judgments, accountability, especially when lacking external scrutiny or consequences, does not. Theoretical implications, methodological limitations, and future research opportunities are discussed.
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Keywords EN
self-interest bias
moral character judgments
motivated cognition
education
accountability
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https://share.swps.edu.pl/handle/swps/1802
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cc-by
Except as otherwise noted, this item is licensed under the Attribution licence | Permitted use of copyrighted works
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