Preregistered Replication and Extension of "Moral Hypocrisy: Social Groups and the Flexibility of Virtue"

The tendency for people to consider themselves morally good while behaving selfishly is known as “moral hypocrisy.” Influential work by Valdesolo & DeSteno (2007) found evidence for intergroup moral hypocrisy, such that people are more forgiving of transgressions when they were committed by an in-group member than an out-group member. We conducted two experiments to examine moral hypocrisy and group membership in an online paradigm with Prolific Workers from the US: a direct replication of the original work with minimal groups (N = 610, nationally representative) and a conceptual replication with political groups (N = 606, 50% Democrat and 50% Republican). Although the results did not replicate the original findings, we observed evidence of in-group favoritism in minimal groups and out-group derogation in political groups. The current research finds mixed evidence of intergroup moral hypocrisy and has implications for understanding the contextual dependencies of intergroup bias and partisanship