False Virtue

Together, our studies clarify why your co-worker’s hypocrisy is so irritating, even though he has a positive environmental impact by encouraging people to reduce their consumption. It’s not simply that he fails to practice what he preaches or that he criticizes others for transgressions he, too, commits. It’s that his outspoken moralizing falsely conveys his own virtue, earning him undue reputational benefits — and at the expense of the individuals whom he publicly shames. He would be better off if he simply admitted that he sometimes falls short of these ideals himself.
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