Abstract: Moral hypocrisy reflects the current direction on disengagement between moral cognition and moral behaviors. Prior studies indicated that some theories, including social learning theory, cognitive dissonance theory, social influence theory and the newly emerging dual-processing theory could be employed to interpret its generating mechanism in some sense. Other existing studies focused on its generality effect, self-deception strategies and influence factors. Furthermore, many researchers found that it shared a close relation with cognitive dissonance, and it may enhance people’s pro-social behaviors and organizations’ development. Studies in future seem to reexamine its effect in indigenous and cross cultures by reaction time and implicit measurement technologies.

Key words: moral hypocrisy, cognitive dissonance theory, moral judgment, dual processing