The Effect Of Immoral Experience And Public Self-Awareness On Immoral Behavior

Immoral behavior has been considered as an antecedent variable or an outcome variable separately in previous research. However, recent researches focus more on the dynamics of moral or immoral behavior, i.e., the effect of previous moral/immoral behavior on subsequent moral/immoral behavior. This paper investigates the effect of an individual’s immoral experience on dynamic perspective, i.e., his/her previous immoral behavior on his/her afterwards immoral behavior, In addition, past researches have pointed out that there was a connection between public self-awareness and immoral behavior. Thus, this paper takes immoral experience and public self-awareness into consideration simultaneously, examines if the interaction of public self-awareness and immoral experience affects immoral behavior and analyzes the differences between immoral experience and immoral behavior under different public self-awareness conditions.There are three studies, In study1, the researcher uses the scenario approach to examine the effect of individuals’immoral experience on his/her future immoral behavior. In study2, which is based on study1, the author uses the behavior-recall approach and the self-awareness scale to explore the influence of immoral experience and trait public self-awareness on future immoral behavior. In study3, the author adopts the behavior-imagine approach and the implicit priming method to examine the influence of immoral experience and situational public self-awareness on future immoral behavior and to consolidate the same results derived from study2.The results show that people’s immoral experience has an influence on his/her afterwards immoral behavior. People who had immoral experience commit more immoral behavior than those who had no immoral experience. Public self-awareness has an effect on immoral behavior. People who are high in public self-awareness transgress less than those who are low in public self-awareness. The interaction of public self-awareness and immoral experience affects immoral behavior. People who have immoral experience commit immoral behavior only when he or she is low in public self-awareness. Whereas, people who have immoral experience significantly reduce their immoral behavior when he or she is high in public self-awareness.