Awareness of Consequences and the Influence of Moral Norms on Interpersonal Behavior.

It is proposed that awareness of the consequences of one's potential acts for the welfare of others moderates the relationships of moral norms to behavior. One hundred eighteen male college students, members of nine small residential units, indicated their personal and perceived group norms and rated their peers' behavior in specific moral interactions. No relationships among norms and peer ratings of behavior were found among those scoring low on a projective index of Awareness of Consequences (AC); but increasingly positive relationships emerged among subsamples showing Progressively hither levels of AC. AC itself was positively correlated (pc.<1) with peer ratings of behavior, but not with norms. Given the situations studied, the findings are interpreted as evidence that AC activates norms, thereby permitting them to influence action.