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Moral Accounting and Real Effort: Experimental Evidence

Eberhard Feess et al.

Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics2025https://doi.org/10.1628/jite-2025-0046article
AJG 2ABDC B
Weight
0.50

Abstract

Individuals who face consecutive decisions may engage in moral accounting - balancing moral consequences of initial decisions through behavior in subsequent decisions. Yet the evidence is mixed and studies vary in whether participants actively make morally questionable decisions or are passively assigned to moral conditions. Our experiment contributes to the literature by contrasting active and passive outcomes in the first stage, implementing a real effort task in the second stage, and developing a game-theoretical model that addresses self-selection and moral accounting. The results demonstrate moral accounting effects only when participants actively choose the morally questionable option in the first stage.

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1628/jite-2025-0046

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@article{eberhard2025,
  title        = {{Moral Accounting and Real Effort: Experimental Evidence}},
  author       = {Eberhard Feess et al.},
  journal      = {Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics},
  year         = {2025},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1628/jite-2025-0046},
}

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Moral Accounting and Real Effort: Experimental Evidence

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Evidence weight

0.50

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.