{{short description|Pejorative term}} {{Use dmy dates|date=February 2026}} {{Use British English|date=July 2025}}
'''Virtue signalling''' is a pejorative neologism for the expression of a moral viewpoint with the intent of communicating good character, frequently used to suggest hypocrisy.<ref name="Westra 2021">{{cite journal |last1=Westra |first1=Evan |title=Virtue Signaling and Moral Progress |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348818977_Virtue_Signaling_and_Moral_Progress |format=PDF |journal=Philosophy & Public Affairs |date=2021 |volume=49 |issue=2 |pages=156–178 |doi=10.1111/papa.12187 |issn=1088-4963 |via=ResearchGate |quote=It is easy to see why 'virtue signaling' is a pejorative term, and why many find it annoying.}}</ref>{{r|Stollznow 2020}}<ref name="Levy 2020">{{cite journal |last1=Levy |first1=Neil |date=2020 |title=Virtue signalling is virtuous |journal=Synthese |volume=198 |issue=10 |pages=9545–9562 |doi=10.1007/s11229-020-02653-9 |issn=1573-0964 |s2cid=215793854 |doi-access=free}} {{cc-notice|cc=by4|from this source=yes}}</ref> An accusation of virtue signalling can be applied to both individuals and companies.
Virtue signalling often describes behaviour meant to gain social approval without taking meaningful action, such as in ''greenwashing'', where companies exaggerate their environmental commitments. On social media, large movements such as Blackout Tuesday were accused of lacking substance, and celebrities or public figures are frequently charged with virtue signalling when their actions seem disconnected from their public stances. However, some argue that these expressions of outrage or moral alignment may reflect genuine concern, and that accusing others of virtue signalling can itself be a form of signalling. This inverse concept has been described as '''vice signalling''' and refers to the public promotion of negative or controversial views to appear tough, pragmatic, or rebellious, often for political or social capital.
== Definition and usage ==
According to the ''Cambridge Dictionary'', virtue signalling is "an attempt to show other people that you are a good person, for example by expressing opinions that will be acceptable to them, especially on social media... indicating that one has virtue merely by expressing disgust or favour for certain political ideas or cultural happenings".<ref name="Cambridge Dictionary">{{cite encyclopedia |title=Virtue signalling |encyclopedia=Cambridge Dictionary |date= |year= |last= |first= |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location= |id= |url=https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/virtue-signalling |quote=an attempt to show other people that you are a good person, for example by expressing opinions that will be acceptable to them, especially on social media |access-date=26 November 2021}}</ref> The expression is often used to imply that the virtue being signalled is exaggerated or insincere.<ref name="Eriksen 2021">{{Cite web |url=https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2021/08/02/virtue_signaling_what_is_it_and_why_is_it_so_dangerous_788208.html |title=Virtue Signaling: What Is It and Why Is It So Dangerous? |last=Eriksen |first=Olivia |work=RealClearEnergy |quote=Virtue signaling is defined at the act of publicly expressing opinions in order to demonstrate that you are a good person. However, this has become muddied with placing more importance on the appearance of moral correctness, than the correctness itself. |date=2 August 2021 |access-date=26 November 2021}}</ref>
The concept of virtue signalling is most often used by those on the political right to denigrate the behaviour of those on the political left.<ref name="Tosi 2020">{{cite book |last1=Tosi |first1=Justin |last2=Warmke |first2=Brandon |title=Grandstanding: The Use and Abuse of Moral Talk |date=2020 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-090015-1 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=C4_UDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA37 37]}}</ref><ref name="Stollznow 2020">{{cite web |last1=Stollznow |first1=Karen |date=28 September 2020 |title='Virtue signalling', a slur meant to imply moral grandstanding that might not be all bad |url=http://theconversation.com/virtue-signalling-a-slur-meant-to-imply-moral-grandstanding-that-might-not-be-all-bad-145546 |accessdate=4 September 2021 |website=The Conversation}}</ref> It is similar to the idea of ''grandstanding''.{{r|Tosi 2020}}<ref name="Hill 2023">{{cite journal |last2=Fanciullo |first2=James |last1=Hill |first1=Jesse |title=What's Wrong with Virtue Signaling? |journal=Synthese |date=2023 |volume=201 |issue=4 |id=article number 117 |url=https://philarchive.org/archive/FANWWW-2 |format=PDF |issn=1573-0964 |doi=10.1007/s11229-023-04131-4}}</ref> One practice sometimes cited as an example of virtue signalling is ''greenwashing'', when a company deceptively claims or suggests that its products or policies are more environmentally friendly than they actually are.<ref name="Eriksen 2021"/><ref name="Fancy 2021">{{Cite news |url=https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2021/11/04/tariq-fancy-on-the-failure-of-green-investing-and-the-need-for-state-action |title=Tariq Fancy on the failure of green investing and the need for state action |last=Fancy |first=Tariq |newspaper=The Economist |quote=We, along with virtually every other large asset manager, eagerly engaged in a form of financial virtue-signalling that has become de rigueur in the industry, exaggerating how beneficial ESG information had suddenly become to all our investment processes. |date=4 November 2021 |access-date=28 July 2024 |url-access=limited}}</ref> Some sustainability advocates have suggested ecological virtue signalling by corporations is not necessarily negative, as long as it is accompanied by taking responsibility for past environmental harms.<ref name="Sandhu 2024">{{cite web |last=Sandhu |first=Sukhbir |title=Individual action on climate was tarred as greenwashing or virtue signalling. But it still has a place |website=The Conversation |date=30 October 2024 |url=https://theconversation.com/individual-action-on-climate-was-tarred-as-greenwashing-or-virtue-signalling-but-it-still-has-a-place-239196 |access-date=22 January 2025}}</ref> Merriam-Webster editor Emily Brewster has likened ''virtue signalling'' to the term ''humblebragging''.<ref name="Peters 2015">{{cite news |last1=Peters |first1=Mark |title=Virtue signaling and other inane platitudes |url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2015/12/24/virtue-signaling-and-other-inane-platitudes/YrJRcvxYMofMcCfgORUcFO/story.html |access-date=28 July 2024 |work=The Boston Globe |date=24 December 2015 |url-access=subscription}}</ref>
== History == David Shariatmadari writes in ''The Guardian'' that the term has been used since at least 2004,<ref name="Shariatmadari 2016" /> appearing for example in religious academic works in 2010<ref>{{cite book |last1=Pyysiäinen |first1=Ilkka |title=Religion, Economy, and Cooperation |date=2010 |publisher=De Gruyter |isbn=978-3-11-024632-2 |page=36}}</ref> and 2012.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bulbulia |first1=Joseph |title=Spreading order: religion, cooperative niche construction, and risky coordination problems |journal=Biology & Philosophy |year=2012 |volume=27 |issue=1 |pages=1–27 |doi=10.1007/s10539-011-9295-x |pmid=22207773 |pmc=3223343 |quote=Other cultural evolutionary models show that prestige and success biases may combine with imitative learning and virtue-signalling to favour religious cultural transmission (Henrich 2009)}}</ref> Nassim Nicholas Taleb cites Matthew 6:1 as an example of "virtue signalling" being condemned as a vice in antiquity ("Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven").<ref name="Taleb 2019">{{cite book |last1=Taleb |first1=Nassim Nicholas |title=Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life |date=2019 |publisher=Penguin Books |location=London |isbn=978-0-14-198265-6 |pages=185–187}}</ref>
British journalist James Bartholomew claims to have originated the pejorative usage of the term "virtue signalling" in 2015.{{r|Peters 2015}} He wrote in ''The Spectator'' that:
{{blockquote|No one actually has to do anything. Virtue comes from mere words or even from silently held beliefs. There was a time in the distant past when people thought you could only be virtuous by doing things...<nowiki>[that]</nowiki> involve effort and self-sacrifice.<ref name="Bartholomew 2018">{{cite magazine |last1=Bartholomew |first1=James |title=The awful rise of 'virtue signalling' |url=https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-awful-rise-of-virtue-signalling/ |access-date=28 July 2024 |magazine=The Spectator |date=5 July 2018 |url-access=limited}}</ref>}}
== Examples ==
=== Social media ===
Angela Nagle, in her book ''Kill All Normies,'' described Internet reactions to the Kony 2012 viral video as "what we might now call 'virtue signaling{{'"}}, and that "the usual cycles of public displays of outrage online began as expected with inevitable competitive virtue signaling" in the aftermath of the killing of Harambe.<ref name="Nagle 2017">{{cite book |last1=Nagle |first1=Angela |author-link1=Angela Nagle |title=Kill All Normies |year=2017 |publisher=John Hunt Publishing |isbn=978-1-78535-544-8 |lccn=2017934035}}{{page needed|date=July 2024}}</ref> B. D. McClay wrote in ''The Hedgehog Review'' that signalling particularly flourished in online communities. It was unavoidable in digital interactions because they lacked the qualities of offline life, such as spontaneity. When one filled out a list of one's favourite books for Facebook, one was usually aware of what that list said about oneself.<ref name="McClay 2018">{{cite journal |last1=McClay |first1=B. D. |title=Virtue Signaling |journal=The Hedgehog Review |date=Summer 2018 |volume=20 |issue=2 |pages=141–144 |url=https://hedgehogreview.com/issues/identitieswhat-are-they-good-for/articles/virtue-signaling |issn=2324-867X}}</ref>
Blackout Tuesday, a 2020 collective action that was ostensibly intended to combat racism and police brutality mainly by businesses and celebrities through social media in response to the killings of several Black people by police officers, was criticized as a form of virtue signalling for the initiative's "lack of clarity and direction".<ref>{{Cite web |website=Variety |url=https://variety.com/2020/tv/columns/blackout-tuesday-instagram-blacklivesmatter-1234623358/ |title=Why Posting Black Boxes for #BlackoutTuesday, or Hashtags Without Action, Is Useless (Column) |first1=Caroline |last1=Framke |date=2 June 2020 |quote=this rush to virtue-signal support without providing substantive aid is an all too familiar instinct on social media, where an issue can become a trend that people feel the need to address in some way, whether or not it makes sense or does any actual good.}}</ref><ref name="Ho 2020">{{Cite web |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/social-media-blackout-enthralled-instagram-did-it-do-anything-n1230181 |title=A social media 'blackout' enthralled Instagram. But did it do anything? |last=Ho |first=Shannon |work=NBC |quote=The word "slacktivism" traces to 1995 as a portmanteau of "slacker" and "activism". As elements of life have moved online in the 25 years since, slacktivism has come to represent halfhearted social media-based activity, along with other terms like "virtue signaling" and "performative allyship". |date=13 June 2020 |access-date=26 November 2021}}</ref> thumb|Recycling and trash separator paired with a single can that co-mingles all waste, pretending to sort waste.
In 2024, the pro-Palestinian political slogan "All Eyes on Rafah" went viral after an AI-generated image of the phrase was shared on social media. Some users criticized the campaign as a form of virtue signalling and compared it to Blackout Tuesday, and believed that it would be more important for people to post actual pictures of Rafah.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Prinsley |first=Jane |date=29 May 2024 |title=What is 'All Eyes on Rafah' and what does it mean? |url=https://www.thejc.com/news/world/what-is-the-all-eyes-on-rafah-graphic-and-who-is-behind-it-el8yhxku |access-date=15 June 2025 |website=The Jewish Chronicle |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Why has the viral 'All Eyes on Rafah' graphic sparked so much anger? |url=https://www.middleeasteye.net/trending/war-gaza-why-viral-eyes-rafah-graphic-sparked-anger |access-date=15 June 2025 |website=Middle East Eye |language=en}}</ref>
=== Marketing ===
In addition to individuals, companies have also been accused of virtue signalling in marketing, public relations, and brand communication.<ref name="Mondalek 2020">{{cite web |last1=Mondalek |first1=Alexandra |title=As Brands Rush to Speak Out, Many Statements Ring Hollow |url=https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/marketing-pr/george-floyd-black-lives-matter-protest-fashion-brands-response-louis-vuitton-nike/ |access-date=28 July 2024 |url-access=subscription |date=2 June 2020 |website=The Business of Fashion}}</ref><ref name="Wallace 2020">{{cite journal |last1=Wallace |first1=Elaine |last2=Buil |first2=Isabel |last3=de Chernatony |first3=Leslie |title='Consuming Good' on Social Media: What Can Conspicuous Virtue Signalling on Facebook Tell Us About Prosocial and Unethical Intentions? |journal=Journal of Business Ethics |date=2020 |volume=162 |issue=3 |pages=577–592 |doi=10.1007/s10551-018-3999-7 |url=https://publications.aston.ac.uk/id/eprint/37230/1/JBE_Manuscript.pdf |issn=1573-0697}}</ref> Companies have also been accused of using virtue signalling as a form of marketing.<ref name="Andéhn 2025">{{cite journal |last1=Andéhn |first1=Mikael |last2=Haynes |first2=Paul |title=On signalling and control in the corporate virtue theatre. |journal=Consumption Markets & Culture |date=2025 |doi=10.1080/10253866.2025.2584258 |doi-access=free |issn=1025-3866}}</ref>
=== Film industry === {{see also|Oscar bait|message picture}} Actors and other celebrities may be accused of virtue-signalling if their actions are seen to contradict their expressed views.<ref name="Shrimsley 2019">{{Cite web |url=https://www.ft.com/content/cf4d3d5c-7129-11e9-bf5c-6eeb837566c5 |title=Once you're accused of virtue-signalling, you can't do anything right |last=Shrimsley |first=Robert |work=Financial Times |url-status=live |url-access=subscription |archive-url=https://archive.today/20190511145246/https://www.ft.com/content/cf4d3d5c-7129-11e9-bf5c-6eeb837566c5 |archive-date=11 May 2019 |quote=Virtue-signalling, for those who have never felt drawn to the term, is the apparently modern crime of trying to be seen doing the right thing...One regular whipping girl for this abuse is the actor Emma Thompson, who recently rocked up at the Extinction Rebellion protests to give her support, only to be caught days later sipping champagne while flying first class. How her opponents howled. |date=10 May 2019 |access-date=25 December 2021}}</ref>
== Reception ==
Psychologists Jillian Jordan and David Rand argue that virtue signalling is separable from genuine outrage towards a particular belief, but in most cases, individuals who are virtue signalling are, in fact, simultaneously experiencing genuine outrage.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/30/opinion/sunday/virtue-signaling.html |title=Opinion {{!}} Are You 'Virtue Signaling'? |last1=Jordan |first1=Jillian |date=30 March 2019 |work=The New York Times |access-date=25 November 2019 |last2=Rand |first2=David |issn=0362-4331 |url-access=limited}}</ref> Linguist David Shariatmadari argues in ''The Guardian'' that the very act of accusing someone of virtue signalling is an act of virtue signalling in itself.<ref name="Shariatmadari 2016">{{cite news |last1=Shariatmadari |first1=David |title=Opinion {{!}} 'Virtue-signalling' – the putdown that has passed its sell-by date |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/20/virtue-signalling-putdown-passed-sell-by-date |access-date=28 July 2024 |work=The Guardian |date=20 January 2016}}</ref> Zoe Williams, also writing for ''The Guardian'', suggested the phrase was the "sequel insult to champagne socialist".<ref name="Williams 2016">{{cite news |last1=Williams |first1=Zoe |title=Opinion {{!}} Forget about Labour's heartland – it doesn't exist |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/10/labour-heartland-doesnt-exist-voters |access-date=28 July 2024 |work=The Guardian |date=10 April 2016}}</ref>
== Vice signalling==
''Financial Times'' editor Robert Shrimsley suggested the term ''vice signalling'' as a counterpoint to virtue signalling:<ref name="Shrimsley 2019"/> <blockquote> A vice-signaller boasts about sneaking meat into a vegetarian meal. He will rush on to social media to denounce as a "snowflake" any woman who objects to receiving rape threats, or any minority unhappy at a racist joke ... Vice-signallers have understood that there is money to be made in the outrage economy by playing the villain. Perhaps, secretly, they buy their clothes at the zero-waste shop and help out at the local food bank, but cannot be caught doing so lest their image is destroyed. </blockquote>
Stephen Bush, also in the ''Financial Times'', describes vice signalling as "ostentatious displays of authoritarianism designed to reassure voters that you are 'tough' on crime or immigration", and that it "risks sending what is, in a democracy, the most dangerous signal of all: that politicians do not really care about their electorate’s concerns, other than as a device to win and to hold on to their own power". In particular, Bush cited Donald Trump's Mexican border wall pledge and Boris Johnson's Rwanda asylum plan.<ref name="Bush 2022">{{cite news |last1=Bush |first1=Stephen |title=How 'vice-signalling' swallowed electoral politics |url=https://www.ft.com/content/6d3090ae-bb3d-479c-8025-d7890dcb3947 |access-date=28 July 2024 |work=Financial Times |date=22 June 2022 |url-access=subscription |quote=Although the term’s precise origins are contested, it was popularised in a Spectator column by the writer James Bartholomew, who defined the act as 'indicating you are kind, decent and virtuous' while being anything but.}}</ref>
Examples of ''vice signalling'' have been described as "show[ing] you are tough, hard-headed, a dealer in uncomfortable truths, and, above all, that you live in 'the real world'", in a way that goes beyond what actual pragmatism requires,<ref name="Cohen 2018">{{cite magazine |last1=Cohen |first1=Nick |title=The Tories are the masters of 'vice signalling' |url=https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-tories-are-the-masters-of-vice-signalling- |website=The Spectator |access-date=28 July 2024 |date=25 May 2018 |url-access=limited |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211002231929/https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-tories-are-the-masters-of-vice-signalling- |archive-date=2 October 2021}}</ref> or to "a public display of immorality, intended to create a community based on cruelty and disregard for others, which is proud of it at the same time".<ref name="Berlatsky 2020">{{cite news |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200508144808/https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/bethany-mandel-grandma-killer-tweet-coronavirus-lockdown-protest-a9504391.html |archive-date=8 May 2020 |url-status=live |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/bethany-mandel-grandma-killer-tweet-coronavirus-lockdown-protest-a9504391.html |access-date=28 July 2024 |date=7 May 2020 |title=As Bethany Mandel's 'grandma killer' tweet proves, vice-signaling is the right's newest and most toxic trend |first=Noah |last=Berlatsky |work=The Independent}}</ref>
According to Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, "a vice signaler is trying to look bad—but not to everyone. A vice signaler typically violates moral or other standards of an out-group precisely in order to look good to the fellow members of some in-group...The moral commitments of the in-group are basically irrelevant: all that matters is owning the enemy."<ref name="Táíwò 2026">{{cite web |last1=Táíwò |first1=Olúfẹ́mi O. |author1-link=Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò |title=Empire of Vice |url=https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/empire-of-vice/ |publisher=Boston Review |access-date=18 January 2026 |date=8 January 2026}}</ref>
Austrian linguist Ruth Wodak described the "antisemitic and revisionist utterances" of Austrian politician Jörg Haider in the 1980s as an example of vice signalling.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Williams |first=Zoe |date=11 February 2026 |title=The rise of vice-signalling: how hatred poisoned politics |url=https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/11/vice-signalling-how-hatred-poisoned-politics |access-date=11 February 2026 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref>
== See also ==
{{Portal|Psychology|Society}}
* Conspicuous consumption — effort to signal wealth rather than virtue * Do-gooder derogation * Luxury belief * Moral high ground * Performative activism * Political correctness * Purity test * Signalling theory — namesake * Slacktivism * Social justice warrior * Status dog * Woke
== References == {{reflist}}
== Further reading == * {{cite magazine |last1=Hamilton |first1=Andrew |date=19 March 2019 |title='Virtue signalling' and other slimy words |url=https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/uploads/file/pdf/new/190310.pdf#page=12 |magazine=Eureka Street |pages=12–14 |volume=29 |issue=5 |issn=1036-1758}} * {{cite book |last1=Orlitzky |first1=Marc |editor1-last=Orlitzky |editor1-first=Marc |editor2-last=Monga |editor2-first=Manjit |title=Integrity in Business and Management: Cases and Theory |date=2018 |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |isbn=978-1-138-80877-5 |lccn=2017011721 |pages=172–182 |series=Routledge Studies in Business Ethics |chapter=Virtue Signaling: Oversocialized 'Integrity' in a Politically Correct World |doi=10.4324/9781315750477}} * {{cite journal |last1=Taiwo |first1=Olufemi |author1-link=Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò |title=Vice Signaling |journal=Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy |date=2022 |volume=22 |issue=3 |pages=295–316 |doi=10.26556/jesp.v22i3.1192 |url=https://jesp.org/index.php/jesp/article/view/1192 |format=PDF |language=en |issn=1559-3061 |doi-access=free}}
== External links == * {{Wiktionary inline|virtue signalling}}
Category:2010s neologisms Category:Moral psychology Category:Political neologisms Category:Social commentary Category:Social influence Category:Virtue Category:Hypocrisy