I deserve it! The science of moral licensing
REPORT
9 Oct 2015
I deserve it! The science of moral licensing

Been for a run? Have a Mars bar. Donated to charity? Splurge on a dress. A growing body of research has highlighted an interesting quirk of human behaviour – moral licensing. Dr. Paul Conway, who studies the psychology of morality, explains to Canvas8 how good actions license bad behaviour.

Paul Conway

Paul Conway is a senior lecturer at the University of Portsmouth's Department of Psychology, studying moral decision-making. He earned a PhD from the University of Western Ontario and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Cologne and assistant professor at Florida State University. He won the 2014 Dissertation Award from the Society for Experimental Social Psychology, the 2014 Governor General of Canada’s Gold Medal for Academic Excellence, and the 2020 Rising Star Award from the Association for Psychological Science. He has published over 40 articles and has been cited over 2,000 times.