Social cognitive theory of morality

About: Social cognitive theory of morality is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 5842 publications have been published within this topic receiving 250337 citations.

How Emotions Shape Moral Behavior: Some Answers (and Questions) for the Field of Moral Psychology

Abstract: Within the past decade, the field of moral psychology has begun to disentangle the mechanics behind moral judgments, revealing the vital role that emotions play in driving these processes. However, given the well-documented dissociationbetweenattitudesand behaviors,we propose thatanequally important issue is how emotions inform actual moral behavior – a question that has been relatively ignored up until recently. By providing a review of recent studies that have begun to explore how emotions drive actual moral behavior, we propose that emotions are instrumental in fueling real-life moral actions. Because research examining the role of emotional processes on moral behavior is currently limited, we push for the use of behavioral measures in the field in the hopes of building a more complete theory of real-life moral behavior.

Explaining Unethical Behaviour Among People Motivated to Act Prosocially

Abstract: Moral reasoning theorists working in the constructivist tradition have tended to explain unethical behaviour by assuming that a breakdown occurs in the link between a person's moral judgement within a particular situation and his ultimate behaviour in that situation. This breakdown is usually seen as being the result of the individual ignoring his deontic judgement in favour of meeting a competing, non-moral social obligation or of fulfilling a selfish interest. This model of unethical behaviour has led to suggestions that moral educators focus on fostering the incorporation of morality into people's self-concepts and on building moral character. An argument is presented that unethical behaviour, especially that involving relatively minor moral breaches, is often not the result of a moral judgement-behaviour hiatus but rather a corruption of the construal process. This corruption, driven by a desire for personal gain, results in the erroneous conclusion that an unethical action is actually morally accepta...

Moral Stress: Considering the Nature and Effects of Managerial Moral Uncertainty

Abstract: To better illuminate aspects of stress that are relevant to the moral domain, we present a definition and theoretical model of “moral stress.” Our definition posits that moral stress is a psychological state born of an individual’s uncertainty about his or her ability to fulfill relevant moral obligations. This definition assumes a self-and-others relational basis for moral stress. Accordingly, our model draws from a theory of the self (identity theory) and a theory of others (stakeholder theory) to suggest that this uncertainty arises as a manager faces competing claims for limited resources from multiple stakeholders and/or across multiple role identities. We further propose that the extent to which the manager is attentive to the moral aspects of the claims (i.e., moral attentiveness) moderates these effects. We identify several consequences of managerial moral stress and discuss theoretical, empirical, and practical implications of our approach. Most importantly, we argue that this work paves an important path for considering stress through the lens of morality.