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Moral Observer-Licensing in Cyberspace

Ran, Yawei, Hou, Yubo, Dong, Zhiwen, Wang, Qi·2022·Behavioral Sciences
DOI 10.3390/bs12050148

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Abstract

Moral observer-licensing happens when observers condone actors’ morally questionable conduct due to the actors’ history of moral behaviors. In four studies (N = 808), we investigated this phenomenon in the context of cyberspace and its contributing factors and boundary conditions. The pilot study determined what participants perceived as typically moral and immoral behaviors in cyberspace. Then, in Study 1, participants condemned a story character’s online immoral behavior less often when they were informed of the character’s prior online moral behavior than when they were not, which indicates moral observer-licensing in cyberspace. Study 2 confirmed the presence of moral observer-licensing in cyberspace and further demonstrated that a character’s prior moral or immoral behavior online respectively reduces or intensifies the perceived negativity of the character’s subsequent immoral behavior. Finally, Study 3 showed that participants who identified with the victim in a hypothetical scenario showed less forgiveness and more condemnation of a character’s immoral behavior than those who identified with the perpetrator or the bystander. These findings are of theoretical and practical significance for our understanding of cyber ethics.

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Metadata

Authors
Ran, Y., Hou, Y., Dong, Z., & Wang, Q.
Venue
Behavioral Sciences
Publisher
MDPI AG
Published
2022-05-17
Volume
12
Issue
5
Pages
148
ISSN
2076-328X
DOI
10.3390/bs12050148
Cited by
1
References
3
Language
en
Licence
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (vor)
Funders
National Natural Science Foundation of China (31528014, 31671159)

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Moral Observer-Licensing in Cyberspace. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.3390/bs12050148
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Ran, Y., Hou, Y., Dong, Z., & Wang, Q. (2022). Moral Observer-Licensing in Cyberspace. Behavioral Sciences. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs12050148