People are more skeptical of others’ public virtue motivations than their own

Public virtuous acts inspire moral behavior but are judged more harshly than private ones, often seen as reputational rather than principled (virtue discounting). Why, then, do people persist in public virtue despite social costs? Across three primary studies, we tested whether the Better-Than-Average Effect (BTAE)—the tendency to view oneself more favorably—reduces the perceived threat of virtue discounting. Study 1 replicated virtue discounting but found no evidence of a BTAE in moral goodness ratings. Study 2 showed that while people discounted others’ public virtue, they expected their own to be judged as more principled. Study 3 extended this pattern—participants judged their own public virtue more favorably than others’ and expected observers to discount third-party actors more than they would discount the participants themselves. These findings reveal a fundamental asymmetry: people anticipate leniency for their own public virtue while expecting and applying greater skepticism toward others’.