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Bounded Self-Righteousness and Heroism

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  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Heroism Studies

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Synonyms

Egocentricity; Self-enhancement; Self-promotion; Self-serving bias

Definition

Bounded self-righteousness refers to the tendency of people to self-enhance more reliably in evaluations of immoral actions than in evaluations of moral actions.

When it comes to exporting scientific findings to laypeople, social psychologists are forever indebted to self-enhancement. It makes us appear charismatic in classrooms and dinner parties. Mention any of the common findings that people think they are more likely than the average person to do all manner of moral and prosocial actions such as give blood, donate money, or give up one’s seat for a pregnant woman on a crowded bus – and this will reliably produce hearty laughter and nods of agreement. People seem to readily accept descriptions of the self-concept as self-righteous, with the implication that people systematically view themselves as more moral and ethical than others (Fetchenhauer and Dunning 2006; Goethals 1986; Kruger and...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Organisational Behaviour, INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France

    Nadav Klein

Authors
  1. Nadav Klein
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nadav Klein .

Section Editor information

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Richmond, Richmond, VA, USA

    Scott T. Allison

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Klein, N. (2023). Bounded Self-Righteousness and Heroism. In: Encyclopedia of Heroism Studies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17125-3_179-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17125-3_179-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-17125-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-17125-3

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