Historically, major topics of study in the domain of moral behavior have included violence and altruism,[91][92] bystander intervention and obedience to authority (e.g., the Milgram experiment[93] and Stanford prison experiment[94]).[1][95] Recent research on moral behavior uses a wide range of methods, including using experience sampling to try and estimate the actual prevalence of various kinds of moral behavior in everyday life.[96][97] Research has also focused on variation in moral behavior over time, through studies of phenomena such as moral licensing.[98][99] Yet other studies focusing on social preferences examine various kinds of resource allocation decisions,[14][100] or use incentivized behavioral experiments to investigate the way people weighted their own interests against other people's when deciding whether to harm others, for example, by examine how willing people are to administer electric shocks to themselves vs. others in exchange for money.[101]
James Rest reviewed the literature on moral functioning and identified at least four components necessary for a moral behavior to take place:[102][103]
Sensitivity – noticing and interpreting the situation
Reasoning and making a judgment regarding the best (most moral) option
Motivation (in the moment but also habitually, such as moral identity)
Implementation - having the skills and perseverance to carry out the action
Reynolds and Ceranic researched the effects of social consensus on one's moral behavior. Depending on the level of social consensus (high vs. low), moral behaviors will require greater or lesser degrees of moral identity to motivate an individual to make a choice and endorse a behavior. Also, depending on social consensus, particular behaviors may require different levels of moral reasoning.[104]
More recent attempts to develop an integrated model of moral motivation[105] have identified at least six different levels of moral functioning, each of which has been shown to predict some type of moral or pro-social behavior: moral intuitions, moral emotions, moral virtues/vices (behavioral capacities), moral values, moral reasoning, and moral willpower. This social intuitionist model of moral motivation[106] suggests that moral behaviors are typically the product of multiple levels of moral functioning, and are usually energized by the "hotter" levels of intuition, emotion, and behavioral virtue/vice. The "cooler" levels of values, reasoning, and willpower, while still important, are proposed to be secondary to the more affect-intensive processes.
Moral behavior is also studied under the umbrella of personality psychology. Topics within personality psychology include the traits or individual differences underlying moral behavior, such as generativity, self-control, agreeableness, cooperativeness and honesty/humility,[107][108][109] as well as moral change goals,[110] among many other topics.
Regarding interventions aimed at shaping moral behavior, a 2009 meta analysis of business ethics instruction programs found that such programs have only "a minimal impact on increasing outcomes related to ethical perceptions, behavior, or awareness."[111] A 2005 meta analysis[112] suggested that positive affect can at least momentarily increase prosocial behavior (with subsequent meta analyses also showing that prosocial behavior reciprocally increases positive affect in the actor[