What’s In It for Me? Beliefs About Relative Costs to Well-Being Explain Why People Deprioritize Moral Improvements

Most people are interested in improving themselves, but they show less interest in improving on moral traits. Why don’t people particularly want to be more moral, and why do people prioritize improving certain traits more than others? Across four preregistered studies of U.K.-based CloudResearch (NStudy 1 = 252; NSupplemental = 110) and Behavioral Research Lab (NStudy 2a = 303, NStudy 2b = 301) participants, we test four classes of explanations. Results rule out explanations based on the ideas that moral traits are seen as more difficult to change and as either more or less causally central. Instead, people are less interested in moral improvements because they believe (a) that they are already highly moral and (b) that nonmoral improvements would more effectively improve their happiness and goal attainment. These results clarify the perceived tradeoffs between well-being and morality and show that personal well-being is a central motivation for personality change.