Fluctuating Morality: The Effects of Moral Identity and Self-affirmation on Pro-Social Behavior

Although the self-affirmation and self-consistency theories emphasize the maintenance of self-concept, there are differences in the way for the two theories to view the topic. Thus, the two theories differ with regard to pro-social behaviors. In this study, experiments are conducted to investigate two separate aspects of self-concept, moral identity and self-affirmation. The findings reveal that the degree of moral dissonance experienced by the participants is regulated by one's moral identity through self-affirmation and that the regulation affects subsequent donation behavior. This study quantifies the degree of moral dissonance and preliminarily addresses the divergences between the self-affirmation and self-consistency theories with respect to pro-social behaviors.