Objective and subjective compliance: how 'moral wiggle room' opens

We propose a cognitive-dissonance model of norm compliance to identify conditions for strategic information acquisition. The model distinguishes between: (i) objective norm compliers, for whom the right action is a function of the state of the world; (ii) subjective norm compliers, for whom it is a function of their belief. The former seek as much information as possible; the latter acquire only information that lowers, in expected terms, normative demands. The source of `moral wiggle room' is not belief manipulation, but the coarseness of normative prescriptions. In a novel experimental setup, we find evidence for such strategic information uptake.