KNOW-THYSELF: Increasing Self-Knowledge to Promote Moral Behavior

How insight into one’s own moral character can foster prosocial behavior and drive long-term personality change

Background
The functioning of societies and the quality of social relationships depend on moral behaviors such as fairness, cooperation, and honesty. Conversely, immoral behaviors – including exploitation, dishonesty, and fraud – carry significant societal costs. Understanding how to promote moral behavior and reduce immoral behavior is therefore a central challenge in the social and behavioral sciences.

Traditional approaches in this regard often focus on modifying the situation, for example through rewards or sanctions. Although these interventions can work in the short term, their effects rarely generalize beyond the specific context in which they are applied.

Yet a largely untapped resource for sustainable behavior change lies within the individual: self-knowledge, defined as an accurate understanding of one’s own traits and tendencies. In the moral domain, self-knowledge is often limited by self-enhancement: the widespread tendency to see oneself as more moral than one’s actions indicate. This bias reduces motivation to improve and constrains desirable personality development.

KNOW-THYSELF investigates whether increasing self-knowledge about moral character can promote prosocial behavior and support lasting personality development.

Project Aims and Research Questions
The project addresses the following central questions:

1. What exactly is self-knowledge and how can it best be measured?
2. How can self-knowledge about moral traits be effectively enhanced?
3. How does increased self-knowledge influence moral behavior across different contexts?
4. Can improved self-knowledge lead to long-term changes in personality traits that support moral behavior? 

Methodology
KNOW-THYSELF employs an innovative multi-method approach. To inform conceptual and measurement-related questions, the team has implemented an expert-based Delphi process and applies large language models. Laboratory experiments, online experiments, and real-world data collection, including experience sampling methods, are then used to examine how self-knowledge can be enhanced, how it influences moral behavior across contexts, and whether it can lead to lasting changes in personality traits that support moral behavior. 

Expected Impact
By linking self-perception with moral behavior and personality development, KNOW-THYSELF aims to advance theoretical understanding of how self-knowledge shapes moral action. The project provides new insights into how self-knowledge can be enhanced and leveraged to promote desirable behavior consistently across situations, with potential applications for reducing antisocial outcomes such as dishonesty, exploitation, and crime. In addition, the methodological innovations developed – ranging from a Delphi-informed consensus process to the use of large language models and intensive real-world data collection – offer tools that can benefit broader research on personality and behavior change.

Key Publications

Newspaper Articles (in German)