What drives disagreement about moral hypocrisy? Perceived comparability and how people exploit it to criticize enemies and defend allies

Charges of hypocrisy are meant to be damning. Yet there is often substantial disagreement about who is or is not a hypocrite. Why? Three pre-registered experiments conceptualize and test the role of perceived comparability in evaluating hypocrisy. Charging someone with hypocrisy typically entails invoking a comparison—one meant to highlight internal contradiction and thus cast the target’s moral character into question. Yet there is ambiguity about which sorts of comparisons are valid in the first place. We argue that disagreements about moral hypocrisy often boil down to disagreements about comparability. Although the comparability of two situations should not depend on whose behavior is being scrutinized, observers shift comparability judgments in line with social motives to criticize or defend. In short, we identify a cognitive factor that can help to explain why, for similar patterns of behavior, people see hypocrisy in their enemies but consistency in themselves and their allies.