Moral Identity: Moving Toward Better Understanding the Moral Judgment-Action Gap by Sam A. Hardy

In 2004, Mark Hacking, a 28 year old man from Utah, made headlines. He was from a very religious, educated, and financially successful family, had been married for 10 years, and his wife was expecting a baby. He supposedly had graduated with honors in psychology from the University of Utah, and had been accepted into medical school at the University of North Carolina. In reality, he had not even received a bachelor’s degree, and most certainly was not accepted into medical school. As he and his wife were planning to move to North Carolina, he told her of the lie he had been living. Later that night he shot her to death, disposed of her body, and reported her missing. Although he knew that dishonesty and killing were morally wrong, his behavior did not follow from that knowledge, and it ultimately landed him in prison.

Unfortunately, examples like the one above are all too familiar. As we watch the news each day we wonder which politicians, athletes, musicians, or Hollywood stars will have the skeletons in their closet revealed. People, including less famous people like ourselves, often do things we know are wrong. This observation led me to wonder what motivates people to be moral, and why sometimes people do not do what they know is right. The issue at stake is what we often call moral integrity. Some of the early moral philosophers such as Socrates and his student Plato thought that “to know the good is to do the good.” Lawrence Kohlberg (1969), a pioneer in research on moral development, largely agreed with this. He argued that morality is primarily about the reasoning we undergo as we decide whether certain actions are morally right or wrong. But, he didn’t spend much time accounting for how such reasoning might lead to moral action. Rather, he assumed that if people have a good understanding of right and wrong, such understanding is sufficient to motivate moral action. One problem with this idea is that it simply is not in accord with the all-too-frequent personal experience of knowing what is right but not doing it. Further, although moral judgment is fairly consistently predictive of moral action in empirical research, the associations are rather modest in size, and differ somewhat depending on the type of action (Blasi, 1980). Hence, we have what is called the “moral judgment-action gap,” which is the discrepancy that sometimes emerges between what we know is right and what we actually end up doing (Walker, 2004; Frimer & Walker, 2008).

Defining Moral Identity
The concept of moral identity emerged in an effort to understand this gap (Blasi, 1983; Walker, 2004; for reviews, see Hardy & Carlo, 2005; Hardy & Carlo, in press). Generally speaking, moral identity concerns the degree to which morality is an important part of a person’s identity. However, there are different perspectives on what exactly this means. Most approaches to moral identity can be lumped into two categories: character perspectives and social cognitive perspectives. From character perspectives, moral identity is about the importance of moral ideals, traits, and actions to a person’s sense of identity. In other words, some people see morality as so central to who they are that to act immorally would constitute self-betrayal. Similarly, when people have a strong sense of moral identity, there is little conflict between what they know is right and what they really want to do (Blasi, 2004; Colby & Damon, 1992). What they want most is also what is moral, so being moral does not entail much conflict to them, and they act morally without hesitation.

On the other hand, social cognitive scholars assert that moral identity is primarily about having moral schemas (Aquino & Reed, 2002; Lapsley & Narvaes, 2004). Schemas are considered knowledge structures in the mind that represent various aspects of ourselves, our relationships, and our experiences. Two schemas perhaps most relevant to moral identity are one’s mental image of what it means to be a moral person (or moral prototype) and memories (or scripts) of morally-relevant events or interactions (such as opening a door for someone). When such schemas are easily activated in our minds, they can play an important role in social information processing. In other words, people who have a clear and salient idea of what it means to be a moral person may be more readily guided by this image in their interactions with others. Additionally, a person who frequently opens doors for others as a kind gesture may enjoy doing so, feel it is a good thing to do, and eventually become an expert at opening doors for others such that it becomes habitual. Over time, this repeated gesture may become part of a behavioral repertoire and part of his or her concept of self (e.g., “I’m the type of person who likes to open doors for others.”).

Moral Identity Development
How does moral identity develop? Notions of moral identity development seem grounded in how moral identity is conceptualized. From character perspectives, moral identity formation is about the integration of two developmental systems: moral development and identity formation. One key development of adolescence is that morality and identity both become more ideological, or based on ideals. This sets the stage for youth to define themselves by their moral ideals, signifying a coming together of moral development and identity formation. In contrast, morality and identity are more distinct with young children, which is why quite often they do not feel personally responsible for doing what they know is right (Nunner-Winkler, 2007). Put differently, adolescents and adults have more personal investment in morality – hence, it is more binding. Research has found a number of individual (e.g., personality traits) and contextual (e.g., parenting style) factors predictive of this integration of morality and identity (Hardy & Carlo, in press; Hart, 2005).

Social cognitive perspectives on moral identity development focus on the building of rich networks of moral schemas. Becoming a moral person is like becoming an expert at morality (Lapsley & Narvaez, 2004). Those with a moral identity have cognitive structures (moral schemas) in place that allow them to more readily (sometimes automatically) respond to moral situations. Such moral schemas may partly emerge due to social learning; for example, my colleagues and I are currently examining links between parents’ and teens’ conceptions of what it means to be a moral person. But, other moral schemas might develop through social behaviors. For example, the more teens help others the more they become experts at doing so (such that they can do so more quickly with less deliberation), and the more these experiences are a part of their autobiographical memories. “Practice makes perfect” in moral development, too!

Outcomes of Moral Identity
Moral identity is an interesting construct, but, is it really an important part of moral development? The jury is still out, but, there is growing evidence to suggest that it is (for an extensive review, see Hardy & Carlo, in press). This evidence comes in four varieties. First, studies of moral exemplars (people identified as being highly moral) show that adult moral exemplars seem to have a lot of congruence between their personal desires and their moral goals (Colby & Damon, 1992), and adolescent moral exemplars tend to describe their self-concept using moral terms more so than comparison youth (Hart & Fegley, 1995; Reimer, 2003; Reimer, DeWitt Goudelock, & Walker, 2009). In narrative research (Pratt, Arnold, & Lawford, 2009), people whose life stories show greater salience of themes related to moral identity are more likely to be involved in community service and have a greater desire to make a different in the world (i.e., generativity). Correlational studies using quantitative measures of moral identity have shown that moral identity is associated with moral actions (e.g., donating money to charities and altruistic helping; e.g., Aquino & Reed, 2002; Frimer & Walker, 2009; Hardy, 2006), moral emotions (e.g., guilt following behavior inconsistent with one's sense of morality; e.g., Stets & Carter, 2006), and concern for out-group members (Aquino & Reed, 2002; Hardy, Bhattacharjee, Aquino, & Reed, 2010). Lastly, experimental studies have demonstrated the effects of priming moral identity (by having participants write brief stories about themselves using moral trait terms) on moral emotions and behaviors (Aquino, Reed, Thau, & Freeman, 2007; Aquino, Freeman, Reed, Lim, & Felps, 2009). In short, empirical support is mounting regarding correlates and characteristics of moral identity.

Conclusion
In conclusion, issues of moral integrity have captivated scholarly minds throughout history, and they continue to fascinate me and my colleagues today. The concept of moral identity is gaining interest in the field as a way of better understanding moral integrity and the motivations behind moral action. Perhaps it is ideas like moral identity that may help us understand and address issues of individual, relational, and societal well-being that are at the heart of much public discourse these days. In terms of adolescents specifically, moral identity may be the developmental ideal or endpoint of two important developmental systems that are very active during adolescence: moral development and identity formation. Knowledge of moral identity may also aid efforts to improve the lives of young people through prevention, intervention, moral or character education, and youth development programs. Still, we should keep an open mind regarding what moral identity is and the extent to which it really matters (for criticism of moral identity, see Nucci, 2004). Future theoretical and empirical work will help us in this regard.

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