Morality, deterrability, and offender decision making

Deterrence describes a process in which perceived risks and rewards influence offending decisions, whereas deterrability refers to the capacity or inclination to engage in this process. There are alternative forms of undeterrability. Incorrigible individuals offend regardless of how high the potential legal costs are and acute conformists refrain from crime regardless of how low the potential legal costs are. Using data from a nationwide survey of Americans (n = 955), the current study distinguishes two manifestations of morality hypothesized to underlie acute conformity. Results suggest that people's moral identity, which reflects their degree of commitment to ethical and prosocial ideals, informs their specific moral attitudes, or appraisals of the wrongfulness of particular behaviors. These constructs operate in tandem to produce acute conformity. Additionally, moral attitudes are found to vary by behavior resulting in within person heterogeneity in the acute conformity characterization. We discuss our findings as it relates to theoretical advancement of deterrability and policy that promotes conformity