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Objective: The psychological profile of the moral person might depend on whose perspective is being used. Here, we decompose moral impressions into three components: (a) Shared Moral Character (shared variance across self‐ and informant reports), (b) Moral Identity (how a person uniquely views their morality), and (c) Moral Reputation (how others uniquely view that person's morality). Method: In two samples (total N = 458), we used an extended version of the Trait‐Reputation‐Identity model to examine the extent to which each perspective accounts for the overall variance in moral impressions and the degree to which social and personal outcomes were associated with each perspective, controlling for method variance (i.e., positivity and acquiescence bias). Results: Results suggest that moral character impressions are strongly influenced by positivity and largely idiosyncratic. All components were related to higher levels of agreeableness. For the most part, however, the three components had unique correlates: people higher in Shared Moral Character tended to have higher standings on conscientiousness and honesty‐humility, were more respected, and donated more during an in‐lab game; people higher in Moral Identity endorsed various moral foundations to a greater extent; and people higher in Moral Reputation valued the loyalty foundation less. Conclusion: These results demonstrate the value of considering multiple perspectives when measuring moral character. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: What types of moral improvements do people wish to make? Do they hope to become more good, or less bad? Do they wish to be more caring? More honest? More loyal? And why exactly do they want to become more moral? Presumably, most people want to improve their morality because this would benefit others, but is this in fact their primary motivation? Here, we begin to investigate these questions. Method: Across two large, preregistered studies (N = 1818), participants provided open‐ended descriptions of one change they could make in order to become more moral; they then reported their beliefs about and motives for this change. Results: In both studies, people most frequently expressed desires to improve their compassion and more often framed their moral improvement goals in terms of amplifying good behaviors than curbing bad ones. The strongest predictor of moral motivation was the extent to which people believed that making the change would have positive consequences for their own well‐being. Conclusions: Together, these studies provide rich descriptive insights into how ordinary people want to be more moral, and show that they are particularly motivated to do so for their own sake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most people want to change some aspects of their personality, but does this phenomenon extend to moral character and to close others? Targets (n = 800) rated their personality traits and reported how much they wanted to change on each trait; well-acquainted informants (n = 958) rated targets' personality traits and how much they wanted the targets to change on those same traits. Targets and informants reported a lower desire to change more morally relevant traits (e.g., honesty, compassion, fairness) compared with less morally relevant traits (e.g., anxiety, sociability, productiveness)—even after we controlled for current trait levels. Moreover, although targets generally wanted to improve more on traits that they had less desirable levels of, and informants wanted their targets to improve more on those traits as well, targets' moral change goals were less calibrated to their current trait levels. Finally, informants wanted targets to change in similar ways, but to a lesser extent, than targets themselves did. These findings suggest that moral considerations take a back seat when it comes to self-improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]