The Psychological Consequences of Advice Giving: Advisors’ Moral Self-Evaluations, Memory Errors and the Impact of Prosocial Cost

When advisors’ interests conflict with those of recipients, they may give selfish advice. Previous research has extensively examined the factors influencing advisors’ tendencies to offer self-serving advice but has rarely investigated the psychological consequences of such advice-giving. Based on moral self-threat theory, this study investigated advisors’ moral self-evaluations and memory errors, focusing on the role of prosocial cost. Across three studies, participants played the role of an advisor, making repeated choices between selfish and altruistic options in scenarios with either high or low prosocial costs. They later recalled their choices. The results consistently showed that the number of prosocial advice choices was positively associated with advisors’ moral self-evaluations, regardless of whether the prosocial cost was high or low, a pattern consist with the moral self-threat. Furthermore, participants who made few prosocial advice choices (i.e., relatively selfish advisors) showed self-serving memory errors, recalling themselves as more altruistic than they were. Interestingly, participants who made many prosocial advice choices (i.e., relatively altruistic advisors) showed no memory bias under low prosocial cost but displayed self-defeating errors under high prosocial cost, inaccurately recalling that they gave less altruistic advice than they actually did. These findings extend our understanding of the psychological consequences of advice-giving and highlight the novel phenomenon of self-defeating memory errors.