Integrity and Moral Flexibility

Abstract: People with high integrity should stubbornly insist on maintaining their moral stances regardless of how their stances will make them appear. However, we examined whether people who claim to be high in integrity will express different moral stances to appear high in integrity. Participants ( N = 433) self-reported their integrity and then read and responded to hypothetical moral dilemmas that introduced tension between utilitarian and deontological moral principles. Participants reported their willingness to choose the utilitarian (vs. deontological) option in each dilemma under conditions in which choosing the utilitarian option signaled high integrity (utilitarian-signals-high-integrity condition) or choosing the deontological option signaled high integrity (deontological-signals-high-integrity condition). Generally, participants reported greater willingness to choose the utilitarian (vs. deontological) option in the utilitarian-signals-high-integrity (vs. deontological-signals-high-integrity) condition, but this effect was greater amongst people higher in self-proclaimed integrity. Additional analyses produced similar effects after accounting for participant sex, other moral personality traits, and experimenter demand. Broadly, the findings support the possibility that self-proclaimed integrity may be partly based on a self-presentation process.