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The purpose of this paper is to present research on motivated bias and self-deception in ethical decision-making in public relations. Self-deception might explain how professionals evade mental stress in conflicting situations and manage to be persuasive even when they have to act contrary to their own morals or to public interests. Since self-deception impedes moral reasoning, the research purpose is to gain insights on its origins so that effective counter-measures can be developed.

First, the state of research on moral dilemmas in public relations and on self-deception in psychology is outlined. Second, four professionals are interviewed to explore typical conflicts of interest and to develop a realistic scenario that gives rise to a moral dilemma. Third, a small sample of professionals (n=9) is confronted with the developed scenario in a qualitative online questionnaire to analyze their reasoning.

Results indicate that self-deception in response to moral dilemmas exists in public relations practice. Typical conflicts of interest, boundary conditions for motivated bias and counter-measures are identified. Experienced professionals in leading positions seem to have the confidence to reject mandates they perceive as immoral. Counter-measures against self-deception should therefore address young professionals and practitioners with low advisory influence.

While public relations research mostly presumes professionals as rational actors, this study sheds light on irrational practices. In contrast to common practice of expert interviews, an indirect and implicit methodological approach is applied to capture unconscious processes of motivated reasoning.

In today's volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world, organizations deal with fragmented publics in contested public spheres. At the core, public opinion is not so much divided by issues per se but by deeply rooted moral concerns. Hence, while normative perspectives on morality prevail in strategic communication research, understanding the moral motives of stakeholders and publics from a descriptive standpoint becomes vital. In this light, the present conceptual paper discusses the implications of moral foundations theory (MFT), as an influential evolutionary-anthropological approach to morality, for strategic communication research and practice.

Adopting micro-, meso- and macro-perspectives, MFT's potential contribution to strategic communication research is explored regarding three foci: (1) moral framing, (2) narratives and (3) public discourse dynamics.

The paper concludes that frames and more complex narratives in strategic communication allude to MFT's five foundations – care, fairness, loyalty, authority and purity – in diverse ways and are given different readings by stakeholders and publics. Building on MFT, novel empirical tools are available to access and understand the complex web of moral meaning infused in public discourses.

For the first time, MFT is discussed systematically and in detail in the context of strategic communication research. The theory contributes to deepening the understanding of the conditions, e.g. for issues management and strategic mobilization. On broader view, this paper adds to the discussion on evolutionary perspectives in strategic communication research.