Decision-Making Bias: Past Goodness Makes You Bad
On the continuing quest to create a manual for life, I stumbled upon an amazing slide presentation about cognitive biases.
I've come across most of them before, but this stabbed me.
Moral Credential as defined by Wikipedia:
An individual's track record as a good egalitarian individual can establish an unconscious ethical certification, endorsement, or license within that individual and this will increase their likelihood of making less egalitarian decisions later. This moral credentialing effect occurs even when the individual's audience is unaware of the individual's previously established moral credential. For example, individuals who had the opportunity to recruit a woman or African American in one setting were more likely to say later, in a different setting, that a job would be better suited for a man or a Caucasian (Monin & Miller, 2001).
At it's least insidious, moral credential is a tendency to stop trying. To sell out. To rest on your laurels.
At it's worst, it means believing your bullshit, getting on a high horse, and discriminating without guilt.
The lesson is - past fairness has nothing to do with how fair you are being right now.
It doesn't matter if you did some good then if you are doing bad now.
A sidenote:
Last night, I rewatched V for Vendetta and was blown away by one particular line.
... fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words, they are perspectives.
And perspective can be lost.
The full slideshow:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_credential
Posted
by tinynow
