Investigating Factors that Influence Attributions of Moral Hypocrisy: The Role of Signaling Value

When people condemn actions like taking illegal drugs, having premarital sex, and getting an abortion, they send a signal to others about their moral reputation. If they later act in a way that is inconsistent with their previous condemnation, they are perceived to be hypocrites. But are all inconsistencies equally hypocritical? Across two preregistered experiments (N = 413), we examined how the signaling value (i.e., the extent to which condemning something signals one's moral character) of condemning an act influences how hypocritical a person is perceived to be when they act inconsistently with respect to this act. In both studies, as expected, we found that moral inconsistency leads people to see others as hypocritical, but more importantly we also predicted and found a significant interaction effect such that the difference in ratings of hypocrisy between the condemnation and non-condemnation conditions was bigger for transgressions that were higher in signaling value. These results support the false-signaling account of hypocrisy, suggesting that the signaling value of condemning particular acts offers a strong cue to one's moral character, leading to harsher judgments when a person acts inconsistently with respect to such violations.