Why do humans act immorally despite knowing moral standards? Psychological theories explore failures in self-regulation and how to guide moral behavior.
Humans can be aware of universal moral norms and still act immorally. In explaining why these immoral behaviors occur and how to guide moral behavior, modern psychological theories have implications for moral education, centered on the concept of self-regulation. Self-regulation is the attempt to change one’s thoughts, feelings, desires, and behaviors in order to achieve a goal, and success in self-regulation is defined as the achievement of the goal and failure as the failure of self-regulation. Two of the most prominent theories are Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory and Roy Baumeister’s self-regulatory force theory.
Bandura’s social cognitive theory posits that humans have an innate ability to self-regulate. Humans with this trait act to acquire what they value or to avoid what they fear. According to Bandura, self-regulation works through a process of three sub-functions: self-censorship, self-judgment, and self-reaction. Self-censorship is the first step in self-regulation, and involves the individual’s supervision and observation of their current behavior and the situation they are in in relation to their goals, without preconceived notions or emotions. Self-judgment is when you decide what you want to do by taking into account your personal standards, which are your internal criteria for achieving your goals, the situation you are in, and the emotions you will feel after your actions. Self-reaction refers to the emotional phenomenon that you attribute to yourself after your behavior, such as satisfaction or pride when your behavior meets your personal standards related to your goal, and guilt or shame when your behavior does not.
Baumeister’s self-regulatory force theory, on the other hand, emerged as a result of the trend to find a natural scientific basis for human psychological phenomena while maintaining the basic framework of social cognitive theory. According to this theory, self-regulation consists of personal standards related to goal achievement, monitoring to observe one’s behavior, motivation to reach personal standards, and energy to self-regulate. Baumeister places particular emphasis on the quantitative aspect of self-regulation because he believes that the amount of energy is decisive in determining whether or not a goal is achieved. According to Baumeister, in various self-regulatory tasks, individuals use their own energy, which is limited in quantity and must be used efficiently in order to be consistently successful in self-regulation. However, even when we use a lot of energy, we never run out of it completely. This is because humans reserve some of their energy for urgent needs or exceptional circumstances.
In today’s moral education, based on Bandura and Baumeister’s concept of self-regulation, human immoral behavior can be seen as a failure of self-regulation in that it fails to achieve the goal of moral behavior. According to Bandura, humans fail to self-regulate because they engage in self-exonerating thoughts such as moral justification and blame-shifting. In general, when humans make self-judgments, they predict their reactions, and if they predict the guilt they will feel if they violate a moral standard, a universal moral code that they have internalized through socialization such as education, they will self-regulate and act in line with the moral standard, which is the success of self-regulation. However, if it is impossible to predict guilt due to self-exonerating thoughts in the self-judgment process, humans will act contrary to the moral standard, which is a failure of self-regulation. Therefore, Bandura emphasizes the importance of self-efficacy for the success of self-regulation in the goal of moral behavior. Self-efficacy is the belief that one can successfully regulate oneself in a specific situation. Increasing self-efficacy through the experience of achieving one’s goals can lead to self-regulatory success in the goal of moral behavior.
Bandura’s theory emphasizes that the process of self-regulation is not a simple matter of willpower, but a complex process that interacts with environmental factors. This suggests the importance of improving the individual’s environment and strengthening their support system in moral education. For example, it is necessary to provide consistent support and feedback at school and at home so that students can consistently practice moral behavior.
On the other hand, according to Baumeister, it is possible to explain that humans fail to self-regulate in terms of their personal standards of behaving according to universal moral norms because they use energy inefficiently for self-regulatory tasks. Since human energy is finite, using too much energy in a self-regulatory task inevitably leads to a state of reduced self-regulatory capacity, or ego exhaustion. This makes it difficult to perform the subsequent self-regulatory task. Thus, Baumeister emphasizes the importance of automating self-regulation for the success of self-regulation in the goal of moral behavior. Automatization of self-regulation means that it takes less energy to perform a self-regulatory task than before. Automation of self-regulation through practice and training, including the experience of achieving one’s own goals, can lead to more efficient use of energy, which in turn can lead to success in the goal of moral behavior.
Automatization of self-regulation requires repetitive training and consistent practice. Programs or workshops to consistently practice moral behavior can help students make moral behavior a habit. In addition, various strategies to strengthen self-regulation can be introduced, such as meditation or mindfulness training. This helps students develop the ability to stay calm and self-regulate in stressful situations.
In conclusion, human moral and immoral behavior can be explained by the success or failure of self-regulation. Bandura and Baumeister’s theories offer a variety of approaches to fostering self-regulation in moral education, which can be used to promote moral behavior. In order to maximize the effectiveness of moral education, it is important to synthesize these two theories to help students consistently practice behaviors that meet moral standards.
