365 Days With Self-Discipline: 365 Life-Altering Thoughts on Self-Control, Mental Resilience, and Success

Day 112: On Self-Licensin g

Past good deeds can liberate individuals to engage in behaviors that

are  immoral,  unethical,  or  otherwise  problematic,  behaviors  that  they

would otherwise avoid for fear of feeling or appearing immoral.

—Anna C. Merritt

 

107

Self-licensing,  also  known  as  moral  licensing,  is  a  phenomenon  in

which doing something good makes you more likely to do something bad.

This irrational behavior is visible in many walks of life, including political

correctness, prosocial behavior, and consumer choice.

Being  aware  of  this  danger  and  remaining  vigilant  when  it’s  most

likely  to  manifest  can  help  you  avoid  it.  Basically,  it  comes  down  to

monitoring your actions when a good behavior inflates your ego (say, you

resisted a temptation to eat a piece of cake at work), or when you’re telling

yourself that you’ve earned the right to indulge yourself, just because you

did something you consider good for your goals.

Here  are  several  situations  in  which  self-licensing  can  rear  its  ugly

head:

-  seeing  a  great  deal  when  shopping  and  thinking  that,  since  you’re

going to save so much money, it’s intelligent to buy it (but you don’t realize

that you don’t actually need it),

- going through an aisle with healthy food and buying something with

a  “healthy”  label,  and  then  proceeding  to  buy  some  sweets  because,  after

all, you’re eating healthy, so why not indulge yourself every now and then?

-  eating  a  huge  post-workout  meal  to  “recover”  after  exercise  and

fooling  yourself  that  you’ve  burned  so  many  calories  that  one  meal  isn’t

going to replenish them (while in fact you’re eating twice as much as you

burned during exercise).

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