Moral Licensing in Mission Driven Organizations

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A phenomenon called a moral licensing, the idea developed by psychologist bena monin and dale miller. If you think of yourself as having a certain level of morality, then it licenses you to be less moral on other dimensions. And so that might also occur in the whistle blowing context. I mean, some ways, the idea is that if you are basically already, you know, putting money in your moral piggy bank by doing a good thing,. By being part of a mission driven organization or a humanitarian organization, it now becomes a little easier to take money out of that piggy bank when when you're u when you're called upon to do so.

Have you ever been in a position where you had to choose between someone you care about and a value that you hold dear? Maybe you had to decide whether to report a friend who was cheating on an exam, or a co-worker who was stealing from the tip jar. This week, we tell the story of a Detroit police officer who found himself in this sort of dilemma, forced to choose between people he loved and the oath he swore to serve his community. What happens in our minds when we have to decide what is right and what is wrong?

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