It is common to assume that people who act morally are normally

It is common to assume that people who act morally are normally motivated to act so, while those who act immorally lack moral motivation. However, research carried out by Monin and Miller strongly points to the existence of a moral licensing effect, according to which the performance of morally commendable actions in turn licenses subjects to later engage in dubious behavior. This work suggests that individuals are motivated to perform moral acts not by innate goodness on their part, but by a desire to appear to be moral people, whether to themselves or others.

Researchers continue to disagree whether licensing is best understood as involving moral credentials, in which subjects interpret their later, dubious activity in terms of the moral identity they have supposedly established for themselves in prior acts, or as involving moral credits, where subjects see themselves as having built up a surplus that they can then “trade-in” by acting selfishly. The research strongly suggests, however, that individuals care about their moral self-image (how they think about themselves morally), and not merely about what others think of them. Khan and Dhar, for example, found that subjects who were asked to merely imagine performing a generous act, such as tutoring a student, were later less likely to donate a portion of their earnings to charity than those who were asked to imagine engaging in a morally neutral activity; that is, those who simply imagined their own generosity then gave themselves license to be selfish. If individuals are normally motivated to at least strive for a moral self-image in this way, we should not be too hasty to discount the common-sense assumption that moral motivation is typically behind moral action.

Q1. The author refers to a study by Khan and Dhar in order to demonstrate that

A. individuals can perform moral actions without giving themselves moral license
B. there is no correlation between individuals’ giving themselves moral license and individuals’ moral behavior
C. there is no relation between individuals’ moral self-image and their moral standards
D. individuals appear to take any kind of moral behavior to count toward or against their moral credits or credentials
E. individuals can give themselves moral license without performing any moral action


Q2. Which of the following results of a later study, if true, would weaken the conclusion stated in last sentence of the passage?

I. Subjects who, on a scale of generous to selfish, rated themselves as more generous were no more or less likely to act generously than subjects who rated themselves as more selfish.

II. Subjects who acted the most generously in a spontaneous situation were largely unable to identify clear reasons for their actions.

III. Subjects who acted generously in the first phase of an experiment were less likely to act generously in the next phase of the experiment.

A. I only
B. II only
C. I and II only
D. I and III only
E. II and III only