Are Past Normative Behaviors Predictive of Future Behavioral Intentions?

Abstract

We acknowledge the limitations in measures of moral reasoning and pursue an alternative technique by investigating past behaviors as they relate to present behavioral intentions. Our purpose is to evaluate the merits of patterned normative behavior for predicting present and future, morally relevant outcomes. Participants (N = 177) completed a policy capturing experimental design responding to questions that orthogonally varied the situational nature of the decision context. Results indicate that past normative behaviors are significantly and directly related to ethical behavioral intentions. Moreover, they moderate the relationships between situational factors and intended outcomes as well as moral reasoning and intended outcomes.

Keywords:

• patterned normative behavior
• ethical decision making
• person–situation interaction

Notes

¹The scale and test scenarios are available from the first author at [email protected].

***p = .001.

^† p ≤ .10.

*p ≤ .05.

**p ≤ .01.

***p ≤ .001.