Most people think of themselves as being principled. College students regard themselves as more principled than the typical person and believe they behave consistently with their principles most of the time (Miller & Schlenker, 2009). Yet data document an increasingly prevalent “culture of cheating” and breakdown of traditional ethical behavior (Callahan, 2004), with dramatic increases in cheating over the last 30 years in the United States (Kleiner & Lord, 1999; McCabe, Treviño, & Butterfield, 2001). In one recent study, 75% of college students admitted to cheating on exams and papers, 70% admitted to stealing, and 89% said they broke promises (Schlenker, 2008). Principled conduct is admirable in the abstract, but the temptations and pressures of daily life often encourage expediency.

It is the thesis of this chapter that personal commitment to a principled ethical ideology, as opposed to a more expedient ideology, determines the strength of the relationship between moral beliefs and behavior. Personal commitment links the self-system to moral principles, producing a sense of obligation to perform consistently with those principles, a sense of responsibility for relevant conduct, and an unwillingness to condone and rationalize ethical failures and transgressions. With high personal commitment, a principled ethical ideology becomes a dominant schema for interpreting events and for guiding conduct. As such, the strength of commitment to a principled ideology has implications for a wide range of social activities. The remainder of this chapter will elaborate these ideas.