Exemplification: The self‐presentation of moral character

Abstract How do people come to terms with moral self‐presentations and disconfirming behaviors? Subjects were exposed to the self‐presentation of either an exemplifier (presenting himself as morally virtuous) or a pragmatist (presenting himself as morally adaptable) and then learned whether the self‐presenter had or had not cheated for self‐serving reasons in an earlier experiment Subjects clearly distinguished between exploitativeness and hypocrisy in their attributions, and considered a cheating exemplifier more hypocritical and self‐deluding, but less exploitative and devious than a cheating pragmatist A second experiment manipulated subjects' involvement with the cheating of an exemplifier and a pragmatist by making half of the subjects its victims As in Experiment 1, uninvolved subjects considered the cheating exemplifier more hypocritical and less exploitative than a cheating pragmatist, however, involved subjects (victims) considered a cheating exemplifier more hypocritical but no less exploitative than a cheating pragmatist The results are discussed in terms of strategic self‐presentation and the attribution of moral character