License to spill: the influence of moral licensing survey primes on deviant behavior reporting

Surveys on deviant behaviors often face underreporting, as respondents may hesitate to disclose morally sensitive actions. This tendency is particularly strong among individuals with high social desirability bias, many of whom are women, due to gendered norms surrounding self-presentation. While prior research has examined framing strategies to reduce defensiveness in self-reporting, the potential of moral licensing - where recalling prior good deeds provides psychological permission to acknowledge questionable behavior, remains unexplored in this context. Across two experiments, we test whether a licensing prime increases willingness to report deviant behaviors and how effects vary by gender and social desirability bias. Experiment 1 compares the licensing prime with a control and two established primes: forgiving language and contrast behavior. Experiment 2 examines moderating effects of gender and social desirability bias. Results show that the licensing prime leads to higher self-reported rates of deviant behavior, especially among those high in social desirability bias, who were more likely to be women. These findings suggest that moral licensing can be incorporated into survey design to reduce underreporting in sensitive domains, contributing to methodological advances in measuring deviant behavior and theoretical insights into moral reasoning and gendered self-presentation.