I’m reading a book ‘How confidence works’ by Ian Robertson and I just came across a description of this phenomenon: apparently when people initially do something good they feel licensed to later act in morally ambiguous way. This could explain what I noticed when living in Poland, which is pretty much a Catholic country: people who are very religious are often not very nice.

It does seem to me sometimes that British equivalent of church goers are those who frequently give to charities.

I used to give to charity when I was working full time, and also I used to be quite religious in my 20s and I really don’t feel I ever felt into moral licensing trap. What causes me to feel into this trap is an excessive socialising; one moment I just decide I cannot take any more of that effort and decide to be mean to people instead. Thank god that didn’t happen since after my diagnosis.