Deontological Study
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. Journal of Business Ethics, 137(3), 537-549. doi:10.1007/s10551-015-2576-6
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How Can a Deontological Decision Lead to Moral Behavior?
The Moderating Role of Moral Identity
Zhi Xing Xu • Hing Keung Ma
Received: 23 January 2014 / Accepted: 10 February 2015 / Published online: 18 February 2015
� Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015
Abstract Deontology and utilitarianism are two com-
peting principles that guide our moral judgment. Recently,
deontology is thought to be intuitive and is based on an
error-prone and biased approach, whereas utilitarianism is
relatively reflective and a suitable framework for making
decision. In this research, the authors explored the rela-
tionship among moral identity, moral decision, and moral
behavior to see how a preference for the deontological
solution can lead to moral behavior. In study 1, a Web-
based survey demonstrated that when making decisions,
individuals who viewed themselves as moral people pre-
ferred deontological ideals to the utilitarian framework. In
study 2, the authors investigated the effect of moral identity
and moral decision on moral behavior in an experimental
study. The results showed that when deontology was cou-
pled with the motivational power of moral identity, indi-
viduals were most likely to behave morally.
Keywords Moral decision � Ethical predispositions �
Deontology � Utilitarianism � Moral identity � Moral
behavio
r
Introduction
Deontology and consequentialism are frequently discussed
in tandem as they are usually thought as two opposing
theories in normative ethics. Consequentialism focuses on
the utility of an action, while deontology emphasizes the
obligation of an individual to adhere to universal moral
rules, principle to determine moral behavior (Brady and
Wheeler 1996; Kant 1996). Some theorists argue that
consequentialism is a more appropriate framework when
making moral decisions, since the deontology is usually
moral shortcut and commits moral errors (see reviews in
Baron and Ritov 2009; Sunstein 2005). Recently, however,
Bartels and Pizarro (2011) found that those individuals who
are least prone to moral errors also possess a set of psy-
chological characteristics, such as have higher scores on
measure of antisocial personality traits, which many would
consider prototypically immoral. Though Bartels and
Pizarro’s research has provided evidence to justification for
deontological thinking in moral decision, we argue that the
existing investigations have disproportionately relied on
recording participants’ responses to ‘‘sacrificial’’ dilem-
mas. In these types of dilemmas, participants are asking
whether it is acceptable to kill a person to save others (e.g.,
Greene et al. 2001; Greene 2007). The protected value ‘‘not
to harm innocent person’s life’’ in these dilemmas is, we
argue that, rare confronted in daily life, especial in business
world. The basic conflict of economics is that people act in
ways to maximize their self-interest pit against the re-
spected rules and laws. From this sense, existing research
contributes relatively limited to our understanding of
deontological thinking in business dilemmas. In the present
study, we show that in ‘‘everyday morality,’’ the deonto-
logical thinking is not necessarily an error-prone and bi-
ased approach in morality. For individuals with strong
Z. X. Xu (&)
Business School, Beijing Normal University, Beijing,
China
e-mail: spark-85@163.com
Z. X. Xu � H. K. Ma
Department of Education Studies & Center for Child
Development, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong,
China
e-mail: hkma@hkbu.edu.hk
123
J Bus Ethics (2016) 137:537–549
DOI 10.1007/s10551-015-2576-6
http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/s10551-015-2576-6&domain=pdf
http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/s10551-015-2576-6&domain=pdf
moral identity, deontological thinking is more likely to lead
to moral behavior in daily life. A great deal of research has
already explored the effects of moral judgment and moral
identity on moral behavior separately. However, few
studies investigate how moral identity affects moral judg-
ment and how moral identity and moral judgment interact
together to shape moral behavior. In this study, we intend
to establish the relationship between moral identity and
moral judgment and then investigate how moral identity
and moral decision act dependently to shape moral
behavior.
Social Cognitive Perspective on Moral Identity
Increasing researchers have recognized the limitations of
the cognitive development theory (e.g., Haidt 2001; Krebs
and Denton 2005), and several of them have turned to the
identity theory (e.g., Aquino and Reed 2002; Blasi 1980;
Shao et al. 2008). They suggest that moral behavior is the
result of both moral judgment and moral identity, and
moral identity is used to bridge the gap between moral
judgment and moral behavior (e.g., Blasi 1984; Damon and
Hart 1992; Hardy and Carlo 2005; Hardy 2006; Reynolds
and
Ceranic 2007).
Moral identity reflects the significance and salience of
moral values in one’s identity (Blasi 1984). For some in-
dividuals, moral considerations are abundant in everyday
living because morality is rooted at the core of their being,
whereas for other individuals, moral standards and values
are not that particularly salient in their daily activities and
self-concept (Aquino and Reed 2002; Blasi 1984). Scholars
conceptualize moral identity from two different perspec-
tives: one is the character perspective, and the other is the
social cognitive perspective (Shao et al. 2008). The char-
acter perspective appears to focus on a relatively narrow set
of moral behaviors that are undertaken after thoughtful
consideration (Hardy and Carlo 2005). Thus, it may fail to
account for the possibility that most of what constitutes the
practice of ‘‘everyday morality’’ may be fast, automatic,
unconscious, and driven by moral heuristics rather than
calculative reasoning (Lapsley and Narvaez 2004; Narvaez
et al. 2006; Shao et al. 2008). The social cognitive per-
spective defines moral identity as the cognitive schemas,
moral values, goals, traits, or behavior scripts a person
holds about his or her moral character (Aquino and Reed
2002; Aquino et al. 2009; Lapsley and Narvaez 2004). This
approach adopts knowledge accessibility as the mechanism
to explain its role in moral functioning. If a given schema
has high accessibility, it should exert a strong influence on
behavior (Aquino and Reed 2002; Higgins and Brendl
1995). The motivating force of moral identity comes from
people’s desire to maintain self-consistency (Aquino et al.
2009; Blasi 1980). A strong moral identity compels the
individual to act morally (Damon and Hart 1992). Building
from this social cognitive perspective, Aquino and Reed
(2002) conceptualized moral identity as a self-schema or-
ganized around a set of moral traits. Aquino and Reed
(2002) also demonstrated that moral identity has both
public and private aspects. The private aspect of moral
identity is internalization and the public one is symbol-
ization. Internalization taps the degree to which moral traits
are central to the self-concept, while symbolization taps the
degree to which the traits are reflected in the respondent’s
actions in the world (Aquino and Reed 2002). Theories and
research on moral identity have established the relationship
between moral identity and moral behaviors, including
self-reported volunteering, and the willingness to minimize
harm toward an out-group, and cheating behavior (e.g.,
Aquino and Reed 2002; Gino et al. 2011; Reed and Aquino
2003; Reed et al. 2007; Xu and Ma 2014).
Moral Judgment and Moral Identity
Traditional moral psychologists such as Piaget and Kohl-
berg underline the importance of moral development,
especially the principal role of moral reasoning (Kohlberg
1969; Piaget 1965). Much of the research from this ap-
proach has measured moral judgment as stages of moral
development (e.g., Kohlberg 1984; Rest 1986). Rest’s
(1986) influential descriptive four-component model of
ethical decision making argued that when making ethical
decision and acting morally, a moral agent must (a) have
the moral awareness to recognize the moral issue, (b) make
a moral judgment, (c) resolve to place moral concerns
ahead of other concerns (establish moral intent), and (d) act
on the moral concerns. These four factors are important in
understanding many ethical decisions, and Rest did provide
a persuasive framework for researchers who are interested
in moral decisions and moral behaviors. Yet this model is
mainly built on two presumptions: (1) awareness is needed
for a moral decision, and (2) cognitive moral development
is the critical element in moral action (Bazerman and
Tenbrunsel 2011). Each of these assumptions, which are
implicit in traditional approaches to ethics and many
ethical training programs, ignores evidence of other ways
(e.g., Bazerman and Tenbrunsel 2011; Haidt 2001).
Other than measuring moral judgment as stages of moral
development, perhaps the most influential alternative for
conceptualizing and measuring moral judgment is ethical
predisposition (Brady and Wheeler 1996; Reynolds and
Ceranic 2007). Ethical predisposition or moral predispo-
sition refers to the moral frameworks individuals rely on
when facing moral decisions (Brady and Wheeler 1996).
Research in this area has focused on two of the most
538 Z. X. Xu, H. K. Ma
123
foundational moral frameworks in terms of consequen-
tialism and formalism, as well as in the related constructs
of utilitarianism and deontology (Bartels and Pizarro 2011;
Brady and Wheeler 1996; Schminke and Wells 1999). In
philosophy, consequentialism is usually referred to as
utilitarianism, which focuses attention on the ends of an act
and contends that the moral act is that which maximizes the
good or benefit (Bentham and Mill 1973). In contrast,
formalism represents a deontological or an obligation-
based approach which emphasizes the importance of pat-
terns, rules of behavior, and other formal standards to de-
termine moral behavior (Brady and Wheeler 1996; Kant
1785/1994). Previous research has demonstrated that a
manager’s preferences for consequentialism and formalism
can influence his or her responses to the characteristics of a
moral issue (Reynolds 2006). Employees of a Mid-western
financial firm preferred formalist forms of ethical reasoning
to utilitarian reasoning (Brady and Wheeler 1996). Ethical
formalists were more sensitive to procedural justice issues,
and ethical utilitarianism adherents were more sensitive to
distributive justice issues (Schminke et al. 1997).
A moral person would be one for whom moral con-
structs are chronically accessible, readily primed, and
easily activated for social information-processing (Aquino
et al. 2009; Narvaez et al. 2006; Shao et al. 2008). Moral
identity represents a relatively well-defined, clear, easily
accessible schemas or ethical predisposition that can be
used quick, automatically in making decisions. In Aquino
and Reed’s (2002) conceptualization, moral identity was
organized around a set of moral traits, such as fairness,
care, honesty, or kindness. These traits have the essential
characteristics of deontological in nature, or at least, ap-
pears to be deontological. On the other hand, the well-
defined features of moral identity are less useful in com-
puting the utilitarian consequences, which have to rely on a
sophisticated calculation of the gain and lost to reach the
rule: ‘‘To seek the greatest good for the greatest number.’’
We propose that for individuals who have strong moral
identity, so that moral schemas, such as obligation and
rules of behavior, which are deontology in nature, have
chronic accessibility, they would be more likely to consider
the moral dimensions of a particular situation and put
moral concerns over other concerns. Rather than doing the
cost-benefit calculation and take an outcome-based ap-
proach, individuals with strong moral identity are more
likely to refer to deontology and take a rule-based approach
when facing moral decisions. In other words, we hy-
pothesize the following:
Hypothesis 1 People with strong moral identity have a
preference for deontology when making moral decisions.
As Brady and Wheeler (1996) found, utilitarianism and
deontology are not alternates but, rather, independent sub-
dimensions. We emphasize that individuals with strong
moral identity possibly also do moral reasoning from a
utilitarian approach, but they are concerned more about the
rule or pattern of behavior itself (Reynolds 2006). In con-
trast, individuals with faint moral identity may fail to
recognize the moral ingredients of a particular situation and
regard it as, for example, a financial decision and focus on
the outcome. This happens more often in the real world,
where people are required to make a decision from multiple
and even contradictory perspectives. We suggest that in-
dividuals whose moral schemas are salient in their life
experiences and have chronic accessibility are more likely
to reason from a rule-based perspective and the deonto-
logical framework.
An Integrated Approach to Moral Behavior
How would moral identity and moral judgment act together
to shape moral behavior? According to a ‘‘dual-process’’
theory (Kahneman 2011; Sloman 1996), though both au-
tomatic responses and more cognitive responses play roles
in moral judgment, utilitarian moral judgments are driven
by controlled cognitive processes, while deontological
judgments are driven by automatic emotional responses
(Greene 2007; Greene et al. 2001, 2004, 2008; Haidt 2007).
Processing speed, which is usually represented by reaction
time, is a frequently used psychological feature that dis-
tinguishes deontological thinking (non-utilitarian thinking)
from utilitarian thinking (Greene and Paxton 2009; Rand
et al. 2012). Deontological thinking is relatively auto-
matically processed and fast, whereas a utilitarian response
is a controlled process and requires additional time. Re-
searchers seem to agree that utilitarianism is the appro-
priate framework for moral decisions and that individuals
who prefer deontological solutions to moral dilemmas
(involving harm) are heuristic and committing more moral
errors (Baron and Ritov 2009; Sunstein 2005). However,
heuristic, intuitive, and deontological thinking do not
necessarily lead to immoral behavior. Rand et al. (2012)
found that cooperation is intuitive and fast because coop-
erative heuristics are developed in daily life where coop-
eration is typically advantageous. Their research provided
convergent evidence that intuition supports cooperation in
social dilemmas and that reflection can undermine these
cooperative impulses. Moral heuristics or deontology may
be moral shortcuts or rules of thumb that lead to mistaken
and even absurd moral judgments (Sunstein 2005). How-
ever, if one practices the moral patterns and rules in daily
life, where morality is advantageous and admired, deon-
tology could possibly lead to more moral behavior (Xu and
Ma 2014). Another reason that supports utilitarianism over
deontology is that previous studies mainly relied on
Moral Identity and Moral Predisposition 539
123
philosophical dilemmas such as the trolley and footbridge
scenarios (e.g., Greene et al. 2001). It is argued that these
classic abstract moral vignettes capture a particular kind of
moral tension where the welfare of many (i.e., saving five
lives at the cost of one) is pitted against one’s reluctance to
commit a personal act of violence (Knutson et al. 2010).
Nevertheless, the moral dilemmas which are prevalent in
daily life pit the fundamental motivation of following the
rules against that of maximizing self-gain, such as cor-
ruption, tax evasion, or manipulation of account. This
distinct class of moral tension, which is particularly present
in organizational contexts, is not well examined from a
‘‘dual-process model’’ perspective. So will utilitarianism
still be a more suitable decision framework in daily life as
it is often presumed? Deontology is thought to be heuristic,
fast, and rules of thumb. Can this moral shortcut lead to
moral behavior?
We suggest that moral identity is one factor that helps us
to know how deontology can lead to moral behavior. In-
dividuals with strong moral identity are more sensitive to
behavioral norms and principles. Reynolds (2008) found
that not everyone pays the same attention to the moral
aspects of life. Individuals who chronically perceive and
consider morality in their experiences have the awareness
to recognize the moral issue and therefore act morally.
Formalists are fast heuristic moral decision makers, but if
they also have strong moral identity so that moral schemes
are easily accessible and activated, they are presumed to
have more motivation to place moral concerns ahead of
other concerns and act morally.
Cheating behavior is focused on in this study because
previous research showed that honesty is one of the traits
that people most frequently use to define moral character
(Aquino and Reed 2002). Therefore, it is reasonable to
assume that cheating behavior makes one no longer be
regarded as a moral person (Aquino et al. 2009). On the
other hand, cheating behavior is ubiquitous in our lives.
Studies have demonstrated that telling lies is a common
part of our daily conversations. In a sample of college
students, 92 % admitted they had lied to a romantic partner
(Knox et al. 1993). Surveys showed that thousands of high
school students admitted lying to their parents and teachers
(Ma et al. 2008). This analysis indicates that from a
deontological perspective, people view honesty as a no-
table virtue and define cheating as a behavior that violates
principle and is thus considered as immoral. However, in
reality, cheating is more often a costless activity with po-
tentially huge benefits. People are likely to approve of
honesty over cheating in a hypothesized scenario but cheat
in a similar real-life scenario. This feature of cheating
behavior serves as an ideal basis for investigating the effect
of moral judgment and moral identity on moral behavior
(Reynolds and Ceranic 2007). It is reasonable to expect
that formalists, who have strong moral identity, are re-
sponsive to principles and behavior norms, and the pref-
erence for deontology will lead to less cheating even if they
have the opportunity. We predict the following:
Hypothesis 2 Moral identity will interact with moral
judgment such that stronger moral identity and a greater
preference for deontology will result in a more moral
behavior.
Methodology
Reynolds and Ceranic (2007) suggested that an integrated
approach to the study of moral behavior is not only justified
but also informative. They found that in situations in-
volving cheating behavior, though people are generally
likely to differentiate right from wrong and make a moral
judgment, individuals with strong moral identity are more
likely to follow their inner moral compasses and act
morally when they are facing a moral dilemma. Reynolds
and Ceranic’s work is an exciting start. However, their
research has some limitations we intend to address in this
study. First, their conclusions were based on two survey
studies. We recognize that moral behavior such as cheating
is a sensitive topic, and self-reported data suffer from so-
cial desirability bias. More importantly, the motivational
force of self-benefit is poorly tested in a survey study as the
self-gain at stake is indirect and intangible. It is worthwhile
to test whether the result is robust when the gain is im-
mediate and tangible. Second, Reynolds and Ceranic
(2007) measured consequentialism (utilitarianism) and
formalism (deontology) by asking people whether some
character traits, such as being results-oriented or law-
abiding, were important to them. We acknowledge that the
instrument Reynolds and Ceranic used in their research
was valid. However, we argue that operationalizing moral
judgment in this way may be too abstract and lack con-
textual information. FeldmanHall et al. (2012) found that
real moral decisions can dramatically contradict moral
choices made in hypothetical vignettes. In reality, we make
moral judgment in situations with abundant contextual in-
formation so that our actual moral choices are profoundly
influenced by tangible rewards and consequences (Feld-
manHall et al. 2012). Therefore, we suggest that people can
theoretically define right versus wrong by referring to
foundational moral frameworks. However, making a
judgment in a decontextualized way is not equal to making
a judgment within a real context. Therefore, moral judg-
ment measured in an abstract way cannot predict moral
behavior well. Actually, in Reynolds and Ceranic’s (2007)
540 Z. X. Xu, H. K. Ma
123
research, the main effects of moral judgment on moral
behaviors were not significant in some analyses. To reduce
the concerns mentioned above, in our study, we measure
moral judgment in a scenario-based way, which provides
abundant contextual information. Then we investigate to
what extent this moral judgment in a hypothesized situation
can predict moral behavior in a similar real scenario in an
experimental study.
In the present research, we strive to deepen people’s
understanding about moral identity and moral judgment as
well as their integrated effect on moral behavior. In the
following sections, we report two studies that test these
hypotheses. In study 1, we conducted a survey study to test
the relationship between moral identity and moral judg-
ment. We tested the hypothesis that moral identity is
positively related with preference for deontology (Hy-
pothesis 1). In study 2, we attempted to explore the inte-
grated effect of moral identity and moral judgment on
moral behavior in an experimental study (Hypothesis 2).
Overall, this research aims to deepen our understanding of
the perception of ‘‘who am I,’’ reasoning about ‘‘what is
right and wrong,’’ and how these two factors interact to-
gether to shape
moral behavior.
Study 1: A Survey on Moral Identity and Moral
Judgment
In study 1, we used an online platform named ‘Sojump’
(http://www.sojump.com) to collect data. The trustworthi-
ness of this platform was initially recognized by its good
reputation in China, coupled with the idea that research
using this platform was published in several relatively re-
spected international academic journals (e.g., Zhou et al.
2012). Recently, research using Web-based data has be-
come increasingly common (e.g., Kahneman et al. 2004;
Rand et al. 2012), and scholars have found that online data
are comparable to those from traditional (e.g., paper and
pencil or lab) formats (Gosling et al. 2004).
Method
Sample
The participants in this study were 437 people who were
enrolled in Sojump and were invited by e-mail. The sample
consisted of 254 men and 183 women who ranged in age
from below 20 to over 60. 23 % (102) of the participants
identified themselves as younger than 25, 29 % (125)
ranged in age from 26 to 30, 34 % (149) ranged in age
from 31 to 40, and 14 % (61) were older than 40. All of
them indicated that they were Chinese, and most of them
(98 %) lived in mainland China.
Measures
Dependent Variable
Moral judgment, the preference for utilitarianism and
deontology, was measured using vignette as follows:
One furniture manufacturer employed workers to
produce chair. The manufacturer paid once a week
according to the number of chairs each worker made.
Only the qualified chair would be paid after quality
examination. Within the workers, Rex and Jason both
made a lot of good quality chairs with few un-
qualified chairs. As time went by, the manufacturer
expanded his business and needed to find a partner.
He considered Rex and Jason as candidatures. Since
they had the same job performance, the manufacturer
found it difficult to make a decision. To further in-
spect them, this manufacturer came up with a new
plan: he summoned all workers and announced that
due to the time urgency, as long as the chair was
made, all chairs would be paid without examination.
After the rule changed, the chair production soared,
but the relative defective rate also increased. The
manufacturer found Rex made 100 chairs and all the
chairs passed the quality check, whereas Jason pro-
duced 200 chairs, and 60 % of the chairs were
qualified.
The question is if you were the manufacturer, who
would be your partner? State one of your main
reasons.
We assumed that this business-related scenario involved
competing objectives and obligations. It created space for
both utilitarian and deontological reasoning. Brady and
Wheeler (1996) had demonstrated that individuals can hold
strong preferences for both utilitarian and deontological
ideals, but we reduced the competing responses to one
salient preference by asking them to provide the most
important reason. Of the sample, 14 participants did not
provide any reason. Only the 423 participants who had
yielded a reason were included in data analysis henceforth.
A strict standard based on Brady and Wheeler’s (1996)
measure of ethical viewpoint was employed to assess each
participant’s reason. Utilitarianism and deontology were
represented by character traits. In the context of the present
study, the main reason stated by the participant indicated
the preference for utilitarianism or deontology. Two coders
were trained to identify and distinguish four possible re-
sponses to be utilitarianism: (a) effective (e.g., ‘‘Jason was
able to adapt to the changed rule’’), (b) results-oriented
(e.g., ‘‘Jason had made 120 qualified chairs after all’’ or
‘‘Quality was the foundation of business, Rex had 100 %
qualified chairs’’), (c) productive (e.g., ‘‘Jason was a
Moral Identity and Moral Predisposition 541
123
http://www.sojump.com
productive worker under new policy’’), and (d) winner
(e.g., ‘‘Jason made more chairs and won more money than
Rex’’). Five possible responses were coded as deontology:
(a) principled (e.g., ‘‘Rex was a principled man’’), (b) de-
pendable (e.g., ‘‘We can depend on Rex’’ or ‘‘Jason was
undependable’’), (c) trustworthy (e.g., ‘‘Rex was trustwor-
thy’’), (d) honest (e.g., ‘‘Rex was an honest person’’), and
(e) law-abiding (e.g., ‘‘Rex was a law-abiding man under
relative mild condition’’). The coders were blind to the
moral identity scores. The dependent variable was there-
fore composed of a two-level categorical variable coded 1
or 0 to represent utilitarianism or deontology, respectively.
The proportional agreement between coders was .97 (411/
423), indicating substantial convergence in ratings. It was
noted that most of the remaining disagreements were on
how to classify items like ‘‘Rex had higher quality.’’ The
authors argued that this reason focuses on the result of the
product, and it was a consequential rather than deonto-
logical ideal. Disagreements were discussed by the coders
and authors for both parties’ agreement on how the par-
ticipant’s preference should finally be classified.
Independent Variable
Moral identity: Aquino and Reed’s (2002) internalization
and symbolization scales were used to measure this con-
struct. The Cronbach’s a reliabilities were .70 and .79 for
the internalization and symbolization scales, respectively.
Control
This was a survey study, and we recognized that social
desirability bias could strongly influence the responses of
the participants. Therefore, we measured social desirability
bias with the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Lie (EPQ
Lie) scale. The EPQ Lie was expected to relate with self-
deceptive enhancement and impression management
(Davies et al. 1998). We used 12 items (a = .78) from the
Chinese version of the EPQ-R short scale and included this
measure of lies as the control (Qian et al. 2000). We also
included gender and age as two control variables, since
innumerable studies indicated that age and gender affect
people’s moral judgment.
Result
Of all the valid data, 160 participants were identified as
having a preference for utilitarianism, and the rest, 263
participants, were coded as having a preference for deon-
tology. Table 1 shows the means, standard deviations, and
correlations of moral identity and the EPQ Lie.
To test Hypothesis 1, we conducted a binary logic
regression model analysis with ethical predisposition as
the dependent variable. We selected preference for
deontology as the reference category and investigated this
model in three stages. First, we entered the age and
gender. Second, we entered the EPQ Lie responses, and
finally, we entered the moral identity variables, internal-
ization and symbolization. The likelihood ratio test meant
that the model included five variables and significantly
improved the model’s fit compared to the null model, v2
(5) = 23.688, p = .000. The predicted frequency for
preference for deontology and utilitarianism by logistic
regression with the cutoff of 0.50 was 64.1 %. As Hy-
pothesis 1 predicted, Table 2 shows that internalization
negatively predicted utilitarianism even after age, gender,
and EPQ Lie were controlled. For each point increase in
the internalization score, the odds of being identified as
utilitarian decreased from 1 to 0.553 (see Table 2). These
results support our hypothesis that for individuals with
strong moral identity, their moral schemas have achieved
chronic accessibility, and they will prefer deontological
ideals to utilitarian ideals. The effect of symbolization
was not significant.
Discussion
The results of study 1 identify the relationship between
moral identity and moral judgment. We found that inter-
nalization influences individual ethical predispositions
when making moral decisions. For individuals who have
successfully internalized moral standards and principles,
the morality-related schemas are salient in their life expe-
riences. They demonstrate a preference for deontological
ideals and are more sensitive to rule-based behavior. It is
not a surprise to find that the impact of symbolization was
not significant. Symbolization reflects the degree to which
moral identity is reflected in the respondent’s actions in the
world (Aquino and Reed 2002). This factor is about the
public part of moral identity. Rather than affecting an in-
dividual’s ethical predispositions, symbolization is ex-
pected to relate with behaviors as volunteering, donating
items to the needy, and making donations to charities,
which help symbolize his or her identity (Reynolds and
Ceranic 2007).
Study 2: An Experimental Study of Moral Identity, Moral
Judgment, and Moral Behavior
In study 2, we tested the hypothesis that moral identity and
moral judgment will interact together to shape moral be-
havior. For individuals who have a preference for the
deontological framework, if they also have a strong moral
identity, they are more likely to act morally. The moral
behavior of interest in this study is cheating behavior.
542 Z. X. Xu, H. K. Ma
123
Method
Subjects
We posted the recruitment on the campus as well as on one
author’s Facebook wall. Data were reported from 50 adults
(30 females, 20 males, age 19–35, mean age 23.52). Par-
ticipants came with diversified backgrounds. Nineteen of
them were from Hong Kong, thirty of them from mainland
China, and one participant was from Malaysia.
Measures
Moral Identity We measured moral identity using Aquino
and Reed’s (2002) internalization scales. The rationale for
focusing on only the dimension of internalization is that
what is really important for cheating behavior is not what
people believe others think about their morality (measured
by the symbolization subscale) but rather is that they see
themselves as moral (the internalization subscale). We di-
vided the sample into two groups based on the mean of the
internalization score (M = 4.45, SD = 0.35). Half of the
sample (25) whose scores were over the mean score was
classified as the strong moral identity group, and the rest
(25) was the faint moral identity group.
Moral Judgment The vignette created in study 1 was
employed to measure each participant’s ethical predispo-
sition. Two coders used the same standard for coding each
participant’s preference. The proportional agreement be-
tween coders was .94 (47/50), indicating substantial con-
vergence in ratings. Disagreements were discussed and
finally solved.
Cheating Behavior We used a modified paradigm
originally developed by Greene and Paxton (2009) to
measure subjects’ cheating behavior (Xu and Ma 2014). In
order to protect subjects’ privacy rightfully, subjects were
asked to input a password as their subject ID at the be-
ginning. Subjects were required to use their intuitive ability
to participate in this game. Before the game began, they
needed to complete 12 practice trials to be familiar with the
task and ensure their task competence. At this moment, the
experimenter pretended to receive a call and had to handle
it immediately. After encouraging the subjects to follow
the directions and solve anything with their own judgment,
the experimenter left the room. Subjects were encouraged
to use their intuitive ability to predict whether the com-
puterized dice’s number was ‘‘big’’ or ‘‘small,’’ with 4, 5,
and 6 being ‘‘big’’ and 1, 2, and 3 being ‘‘small.’’ Trials
appeared in random order in a series of 36 trials for each
block. Of the total four blocks, two of them composed the
‘‘recording condition’’ (A), and the rest composed the
‘‘non-recording condition’’ (B) (four blocks appeared as
ABBA or BAAB). Under ‘‘recording condition,’’ subjects
needed to press the F key for ‘‘big’’ or the J key for
‘‘small,’’ which enables the computer to record their pre-
diction, while under ‘‘non-recording condition,’’ subjects
kept their prediction in mind and pressed the Space key to
continue. Then the dice appeared, and subjects were re-
quired to self-report whether their previous prediction was
right or wrong. If the prediction was right, they would win
the same money as the dice number. For example, if the
number was 5, and the self-report shown on their previous
prediction was right, then subjects would get $5 in the trial.
However, if the dice was 4, 5, or 6, and the self-report
result was wrong, which meant previous prediction was
‘‘small,’’ they would lose $2 (average of 1, 2, and 3). If the
Table 1 Study 1: The descriptive statistics of research variables
Variable M SD 1 2 3
1. Age 28.91 7.876
2. EPQ Lie 9.038 2.978 -.230**
3. Internalization 4.293 .637 .101* -.169**
4. Symbolization 3.838 .596 .064 -.320** .204**
N = 423. * p \ .05; ** p \ .01, two-tailed
Table 2 Study 1: The logic regression of moral identity on moral utilitarianism and deontology
Variable Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
B B B SE Wald (df = 1) p Exp(B)
Constant 0.408 -0.692 1.129 1.236 .835 .361 3.093
Age -0.129 -0.075 -.059 .095 .380 .537 .943
Gender -0.243 -0.184 -.112 .213 .273 .601 .894
Lie (social desirability) 0.086* .088* .038 5.225 .022 1.091
Internalization (moral judgment) -.593** .166 12.795 .000 .553
Symbolization (moral judgment) .141 .188 .560 .454 1.151
N = 423 for all models. Unstandardized regression coefficients are shown
Male = 0, female = 1; Utilitarianism = 1, deontology = 0. * p \ .05; ** p \ .01, two-tailed
Moral Identity and Moral Predisposition 543
123
dice was 1, 2, or 3, and the self-report result was wrong,
which meant their previous prediction was ‘‘big,’’ they
would lose $5 (average of 4, 5, and 6). The non-recording
condition provided subjects with opportunities for cheating
given that the prediction’s accuracy was totally based on
subjects’ self-report result. The self-reported accuracy un-
der the non-recording condition was an index of cheating
behavior. Other than the behavior data, we also paid at-
tention to subjects’ processing speed of their moral deci-
sion. The software Paradigm (http://www.paradigmexperi
ments.com) was used to record each participant’s reaction
time under the non-recording condition. This particular
data were closely related to the distinction between auto-
matic and controlled processing. Subjects were paid the
cumulative value of their gains/losses. Net losses were
capped at $40, and net winnings were capped at $400 (USD
1 = HKD 7.75).
Manipulation Check Table This table consisted of sev-
eral statements like ‘‘There was an opportunity to cheat.’’
Subjects were asked to rate the statements using a five-
point scale (1 = do not agree at all, 5 = agree very much).
Procedures
In order to ensure that subjects were capturing different
degrees of moral awareness and not social desirability
concerns, we used a cover story created by Greene and
Paxton (2009) to conceal the real purpose of this study.
Participants were led to believe that they were joining an
intuitive test which consists of several unrelated tasks.
Participants were first required to finish a questionnaire that
included the moral identity scale and EPQ-R short scale as
in study 1. Then they needed to read the vignette, which
measured their moral judgment. After that, they were in-
structed to play a gambling game on the computer.
When the experiment was over, participants completed a
postexperiment survey that consisted of a manipulation
check table and moral identity scale which had items in a
different sequence than the prior one. After debriefing and
getting the due rewards, each subject left the lab.
Result
The manipulation table with a five-point scale was used to
rate each participant’s perception of the experiment
(1 = do not agree at all, 5 = agree very much). The results
show that participants agreed that ‘‘the task can gauge
people’s intuitive ability in some sense’’ (M = 4.02,
SD = 0.82), ‘‘there was an opportunity to cheat’’
(M = 4.26, SD = 0.56), ‘‘I’m not secretly monitored dur-
ing the task’’ (M = 4.10, SD = 0.84), ‘‘my participation
was anonymous’’ (M = 4.56, SD = 0.67), and ‘‘I am
supposed to be honest’’ (M = 4.72, SD = 0.50). This result
indicates that participants agreed that they were supposed
to be behaving honestly in a task which provided an op-
portunity for obtaining gains dishonestly and anonymously.
In the debriefing, participants were asked to describe the
purpose of this study with their own words. No one realized
that the gambling game was used to assess dishonest be-
havior. Based on these results, it was convincing that
subjects were led to believe that (1) they had the oppor-
tunity to gain something dishonestly and anonymously, (2)
this defect was an inevitable arrangement of the ex-
perimental design, and (3) they were expected to behave
honestly during the task.
As expected, participants reported a significantly high
level of accuracy under the non-recording condition than
under the recording condition (M = 0.63, SD = 0.14 vs.
M = 0.54, SD = 0.09, t(49) = 4.97, p \ .001, Cohen’s
d = 0.777). The self-reported accuracy under the non-
recording condition was improperly higher than the expected
accuracy of .50 (t(49) = 6.68, p \ .001). Because the self-
reported accuracy was remarkably higher than the expected
value, we can safely claim that the inflation of accuracy
indicated participants’ dishonest behaviors. We emphasize
further that our manipulated effect for inducing dishonest
behavior was very rigid and conservative (p \ .001).
Of the 50 participants, 26 were identified as having a
preference for deontological ideals, and 24 were classified
as having a preference for utilitarian ideals. A Chi square
analysis was performed, and we found the relationship
between moral identity and moral judgment was significant
[v2(1) = 11.54, p = .001]. The results confirm the finding
in study 1 that individuals who preferred utilitarian ideals
usually had faint moral identity. In contrast, individuals
who depended on the deontological framework were more
likely to have strong moral identity. Furthermore, com-
pared to the individuals who preferred utilitarian ideals, the
individuals who preferred the deontological solution had
significantly fast reaction time under the non-recording
condition (M = 722.40, SD = 232.94 vs. M = 612.95,
SD = 130.71, t(47) = 2.06, p = .045, Cohen’s d =
0.579). This result provides evidence that formalists make
decisions from automatic processes so that it is relatively
fast, while utilitarian adherents make decisions from con-
trolled processes, which requires additional time.
Table 3 shows self-reported accuracy under the non-
recording condition among different participants. This
table depicts the motivational role of moral identity. It
seems that deontology coupled with strong moral identity
was the best predictor of moral behavior. It’s noteworthy
that if strong moral identity was linked with utilitarian
ideals, it also possibly led to immoral behavior.
We chose self-reported accuracy under the non-record-
ing condition as the dependent variable and conducted a
544 Z. X. Xu, H. K. Ma
123
http://www.paradigmexperiments.com
http://www.paradigmexperiments.com
MANOVA with moral identity and ethic predisposition as
two independent variables. As noted from Table 4, the
main effects of ethic predisposition and moral identity on
cheating behavior were both not significant. Preferences for
deontology or utilitarianism did not necessary lead to more
moral behavior. However, we did find a significant inter-
action between ethic predisposition and moral identity
(F(1,46) = 5.95, p = .019, partial g2 = 0.115). This result
indicates that moral judgment would interact with moral
identity to shape moral behavior.
Representations of the interaction effects are presented
in Fig. 1. With regard to the individuals who preferred a
utilitarian framework, no matter whether their moral
identity was strong or faint, the self-reported accuracies
were not significantly different [F(1,46) = 1.25, p = .27,
partial g2 = 0.027]. In contrast, for those who preferred
deontological ideals, if their moral identity was strong, they
cheated significantly less than the individuals whose moral
identity was faint [F(1,46) = 5.63, p = .022, partial
g2 = 0.109]. This result supports our main argument that
moral identity and moral judgment act together to shape
moral behavior.
Discussion
The results of study 2 provide additional evidence about
the relationships between moral identity, moral judgment,
and moral behavior. Individuals who preferred utilitarian
ideals usually had faint moral identity, while individuals
who preferred the deontological framework were more
likely to have strong moral identity. More importantly, we
found that neither moral judgment nor moral identity itself
was powerful enough to impact moral behavior. Moral
identity needs to couple with deontology, not utilitarian-
ism, so that it can lead to moral behavior. These results
support the main argument that moral identity and moral
judgment act together to shape moral behavior. Deontology
interacted with internalization in such a way that when
deontology was coupled with the motivating force of moral
identity, moral behavior was at its highest level. These
results are consistent with Reynolds and Ceranic’s (2007)
research. In the context of cheating, there was enough room
for moral ambiguity. Deontology condemned cheating as
immoral, while utilitarianism made cheating morally valid.
Initially, we proposed that deontology would be positively
related with moral behavior, but this argument was not
supported by the result. Though deontology pointed out the
right direction, this did not guarantee that people would do
the right thing. After a moral judgment was made, the
person needed the motivation to translate the moral judg-
ment to moral behavior. Overall, study 2 justifies the effort
of an integrated approach to moral behavior.
General Discussion
In this research, we first established the relationship be-
tween moral identity and moral judgment. After that, we
demonstrated how moral judgment can interact with moral
identity to determine moral behavior. Study 1 and study 2
Table 3 Study 2: Cheating behavior among different groups
Moral identity
Faint Strong
N M SD N M SD
Moral decision
Utilitarianism 18 .61 .14 6 .69 .11
Deontology 7 .74 .12 19 .60 .14
Table 4 Study 2: A MANOVA
test result: the effect of moral
judgment and moral identity on
cheating behavior
Source Sum of squares df Mean square F p Partial g2
Within cells 0.85 46 0.02
Moral judgment 0.00 1 0.00 0.19 .663 0.114
Moral identity 0.01 1 0.01 0.65 .424 0.014
Moral identity 9 moral judgment 0.11 1 0.11 5.95 .019* 0.115
Model 0.13 3 0.04 2.30 .090
Total 0.98 49 0.02
0.61
0.74
0.69
0.60
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
u�litarianism deontology
Moral judgment
ch
ea
�
ng
b
eh
av
io
r
MI_IN
MI_IN
Fig. 1 The interaction of internalization and moral judgment on
cheating behavior. Cheating was measured by the self-reported
accuracy at non-recording condition
Moral Identity and Moral Predisposition 545
123
both provide evidence that there was a relationship be-
tween moral identity and moral judgment. Individuals with
strong moral identity were likely to depend on the deon-
tological framework when making a moral judgment, while
individuals with faint moral identity preferred utilitarian
ideals when making a moral decision. Study 2 shows that
neither moral identity nor moral judgment was strong
enough to determine moral behavior. Moral identity played
the motivating role in moral behavior, but that power
would not lead to moral behavior without moral judgment
presenting the right direction. Equally, moral judgment
pointed out the right direction, but people would not follow
the right direction if they were not motivated to. Generally
speaking, these results confirm the necessity to incorporate
moral identity and moral judgment in studying moral
behavior.
Previous research exploring moral decisions from a
dual-process perspective has largely focused on the error-
prone and biased part of deontology in hypothetical moral
dilemmas. Greene and his colleagues have collected con-
vincing behavioral and neurobiological evidence to show
that deontological judgments are cognitive errors and often
lead to undesirable results (e.g., Greene et al. 2001; Greene
2007; Greene and Paxton 2009). Some researchers, such as
Baron and Ritov (2009), make the assumption that deci-
sions made on the basis of deontological principles usually
lead to pervasive and dangerous errors in moral judgment.
The present study, however, demonstrates that making
decisions on the basis of the deontological framework does
not necessarily lead to immoral behavior if the individuals
have a strong moral identity. While for individuals who
preferred utilitarian framework, whether their moral iden-
tities were strong or faint, the behavior was not sig-
nificantly different. Utilitarianism may be appropriate in
hypothetical scenarios that involve harming one to save
many. In daily life, deontology is more likely to lead to
moral behavior if people have practiced moral patterns and
principles frequently so that moral schemas are easily ac-
cessible. In daily life, individuals who have strong moral
identity have practiced the moral scripts and principles
numerous times; those deontological rules and values used
by them constitute a world view, also called world model,
which serves as a tool for decision process (Pugh 1977).
Individuals need this model of the environment to evaluate
the consequences of alternatives. If a society succeeds in
indoctrinating and encouraging those values, individuals
would strive to follow the rules as efficiently as they can.
This mode of behavior is inevitable because that is how the
individual is designed as an adaptive-driven system from
evolutionally perspective (Pugh 1977). In the daily con-
texts of repetition, reputation, and sanctions, moral be-
haviors are also typically beneficial to them so that these
behaviors become people’s intuitive responses. These
arguments are consistent with the finding by Rand et al.
(2012) that intuition supports cooperation in social
dilemmas.
This research contributes to our knowledge about the
unique qualities of internalization and symbolization. In-
ternalization had a more robust relationship with moral
judgment and moral behavior than did symbolization. In-
ternalization reflected the personal representation of moral
concepts (Aquino and Reed 2002; Aquino et al. 2009).
Reynolds and Ceranic (2007) argued that an internalized
moral identity seems consistent with traditional concepts
of acting morally, whereas symbolization does not. For
individuals who have high internalization and their moral
schemas have attained chronic accessibility, their radar
screens are sensitive to moral concepts so that their pref-
erence for the deontological framework emphasizes the
patterns and rules of behavior (Lapsley and Narvaez
2004). Deontological concepts act as some prototypical
programs or strategies for decision making. The moral
values such as justice and care are the conceptual repre-
sentations in the dual-process model (Kahneman 2003).
For those individuals who have strong moral identity, they
have rich experiences in practicing these conceptual rep-
resentations in everyday life, so that these moral values,
which are deontological in nature, are often invoked,
usually implicitly, in solving moral problems. Further-
more, since they strongly value morality and pursue the
goal of being a moral person, their moral compasses are
more likely to lead them to present moral behavior in a
moral dilemma (Gino et al. 2011). In contrast, if the in-
ternalized part of moral identity is not salient, moral
schemas and the rules of behavior are not accessible at the
moment of moral judgment. Accordingly, individuals
would be dominated by utilitarian ideals and focus on the
outcome of the behavior. In this case, individuals possibly
fail to see the moral elements of a situation and present
unethical behavior.
As mentioned earlier, we argued that compared with the
ethical adherents of utilitarianism, who focused on the
outcome of behavior, formalists were responsive to prin-
ciples and behavior norms, and they labeled cheating as
immoral behavior, so it was reasonable to expect that those
people would commit less cheating even when they had the
chance. However, the result indicates that moral judgment
did not exert enough effect on moral behavior. Though
people know what is right and wrong at the cognitive level,
this does not mean they would practice what they know.
This result is an echo to the literature on moral hypocrisy
(e.g., Batson and Thompson 2001; Batson et al. 1999). It is
a sort of weakness of present work that rather than using
well-validated instruments to measure moral judgment, we
introduced a new vignette to explore individuals’ moral
judgment. Though suffering from losing part of the
546 Z. X. Xu, H. K. Ma
123
validity, it is noteworthy to emphasize that the inherent
structure of the vignette and the experiment are quite
similar. We argue that it is enlightening to compare indi-
viduals responses in these two similar tasks. The recording
condition in the experiment was comparable to the old rule
in the vignette in which a produced chair would be paid
after a quality check, and the non-recording condition was
similar to the new rule that all made chairs would be paid
without a quality examination. The claim that people
would not practice what they thought in mind is more
alarming when we saw the inconsistency between the
moral judgment in a hypothetical scenario and the moral
behavior in a similar real situation. This result provides
additional evidence about the limitations of cognitive ap-
proaches in studying moral behavior (e.g., Blasi 1980,
2004; Krebs and Denton 2005).
Perhaps the most important result of this research is
that it provides additional evidence of the need for an
integrated approach to the study of moral behavior (Hardy
2006; Reynolds and Ceranic 2007). The interaction effect
between moral identity and moral judgment delimitates
the complexity of morality and moral behavior. Reynolds
and Ceranic (2007) found that internalization interacted
with both utilitarianism and deontology to lead an indi-
vidual to the most extreme or idyllic of solutions. This
means that consequentialists with a strong moral identity
would demonstrate the most utilitarian way, while for-
malists with a strong moral identity would follow the
most deontological manner. In our study, we also found
that deontological ideals coupled with a moral motivation
led to moral behavior; however, the interaction effect
between utilitarianism and moral identity was not sig-
nificant. One reason for this inconsistency is that the
combined effect of internalization and utilitarianism on
behavior is not as robust as the joint effect of internal-
ization and deontology, which was also demonstrated in
Reynolds and Ceranic’s (2007) research. The other reason
is possibly that our result was based on a relatively small
sample. Though the data show the trend that when con-
sequentialists were motivated with strong moral identity,
they would cheat more, the result did not reach the sta-
tistically significant level. More generally, the results re-
mind us that neither moral identity nor moral judgment
guarantees moral behavior as we thought previously (e.g.,
Blasi 1980; Reynolds 2003). A moral agent under a moral
dilemma is like a man driving a car in the sense that
moral identity acts like the accelerator that provides the
power, while the moral judgment acts like the steering
wheel that controls the direction. The person needs both
the power and the direction so that he can successfully go
through the moral dilemma and arrive at the morally right
place.
The limitations of this research show directions for
further study. First, rather than the traditional practice of
measuring moral judgment by moral developmental stage
(e.g., Rest 1986), we conceptualized moral judgment as the
ethical predisposition. Measuring moral judgment by
ethical predisposition is a worthy try; however, we ac-
knowledge that reexamining the results of this research
from the perspective of the cognitive developmental model
would locate the conclusions in the mainstream of moral
psychology (Kohlberg 1984; Rest 1986). Second, moral
behavior in this study was limited to one specific moral
behavior—cheating behavior. As we discussed earlier,
there is moral ambiguity regarding cheating behavior.
Reasoning from deontology or utilitarianism leads to op-
posite directions. In Reynolds and Ceranic’s (2007) opin-
ion, people did not have a high social consensus regarding
cheating behavior. Reynolds (2006) found that preferences
for utilitarianism and deontology can influence moral
awareness. Formalists recognized both harm and the
violation of a behavioral norm as indicators of the moral
issue, whereas utilitarianism adherents responded only to
harm. We argue that cheating behavior is a moral issue that
only violated behavioral norms. Cheating as a moral issue
is what formalists are sensitive to, not the utilitarianism
adherents. This partly explains the reason why the effect of
utilitarianism on behavior was not significant in our re-
search. Future studies would benefit from efforts that in-
cluded different moral issues, such as investigating
behavior that harms other people. Third, we measured
moral identity and predisposition at the same time in pre-
sent study. Though we introduced these tasks as unrelated,
it is still concerned that the measurement of moral identity
might influence the behavior. In the further studies, it is
more appropriate to measure moral identity and predispo-
sition independent of moral behavior in a separate session
or at least counterbalance the order of measures.
Conclusion
Moral identity influences individual ethical predispositions
when making moral decisions. For individuals who have
successfully internalized moral standards and principles,
morality-related schemas are salient in their life experi-
ences. They demonstrate the preference for deontological
ideals and are more sensitive to rule-based behavior than
outcome-based behavior. More importantly, neither moral
judgment nor moral identity itself was powerful enough to
exert moral behavior. Deontology interacted with inter-
nalization in such a way that when deontology was coupled
with the motivating force of moral identity, moral behavior
was at its highest level.
Moral Identity and Moral Predisposition 547
123
Acknowledgments This paper was based partially on a doctoral
dissertation submitted to the Hong Kong Baptist University by the
first author and was supervised by the second author.
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Journal of Business Ethics is a copyright of Springer, 2016. All Rights Reserved.
- How Can a Deontological Decision Lead to Moral Behavior? The Moderating Role of Moral Identity
Abstract
Introduction
Social Cognitive Perspective on Moral Identity
Moral Judgment and Moral Identity
An Integrated Approach to Moral Behavior
Methodology
Study 1: A Survey on Moral Identity and Moral Judgment
Method
Sample
Measures
Dependent Variable
Independent Variable
Control
Result
Discussion
Study 2: An Experimental Study of Moral Identity, Moral Judgment, and Moral Behavior
Method
Subjects
Measures
Procedures
Result
Discussion
General Discussion
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
References