The Influence Of Power, Authority, And Impressions On Moral Hypocrisy

Moral hypocrisy means moral seemingly, but actually the moral-hypocrisy avoids paying anything for acting morally. As a result, the moral-hypocrisy tends to hold a double moral standards,for the same moral event, the moral-hypocrisy are less strict in their own behavior than others. Most of the previous studies focus on two aspects: individual and situational factors, and there are few studies on the influence of personality factors and social perspectives on moral hypocrisy. In Experiment 1: we used 2 (sense of power: high, low) x 2 (authoritative personality: high, low)two-factor randomized experiment design, the dependent variable is the level of moral hypocrisy. In Experiment 2: we used a sense of power (high,low) x 2 (impression management: high, low) two-factor randomized experiment design, the dependent variable is the level of moral hypocrisy. According to these results, we can get this study’s conclusions as follows:(1) Because of maintenance of their inherent rules, power and potential benefits,the power tends to holds moral standards that means they are more strict in moral judgment about other people than themselves. That is to say the high power increase moral hypocrisy, but not low power;(2) Because of the dual personality traits of the authoritarian personality, it is to say that personality produces double moral standards, the high authoritarian personality increases moral hypocrisy, but not low authoritarian personality.(3) There is no interaction between the power and the authority personality.(4) Impression management has no influence on moral hypocrisy, but there is an interaction between power and impression management on moral hypocrisy.