Greater Good
A veil of ignorance can promote fairness in a mammal society
Harry Marshall et al.
Nature Communications, June 2021
Abstract:
Rawls argued that fairness in human societies can be achieved if decisions about the distribution of societal rewards are made from behind a veil of ignorance, which obscures the personal gains that result. Whether ignorance promotes fairness in animal societies, that is, the distribution of resources to reduce inequality, is unknown. Here we show experimentally that cooperatively breeding banded mongooses, acting from behind a veil of ignorance over kinship, allocate postnatal care in a way that reduces inequality among offspring, in the manner predicted by a Rawlsian model of cooperation. In this society synchronized reproduction leaves adults in a group ignorant of the individual parentage of their communal young. We provisioned half of the mothers in each mongoose group during pregnancy, leaving the other half as matched controls, thus increasing inequality among mothers and increasing the amount of variation in offspring birth weight in communal litters. After birth, fed mothers provided extra care to the offspring of unfed mothers, not their own young, which levelled up initial size inequalities among the offspring and equalized their survival to adulthood. Our findings suggest that a classic idea of moral philosophy also applies to the evolution of cooperation in biological systems.
Moral Judgments Impact Perceived Risks from COVID-19 Exposure
Cailin O'Connor et al.
University of California Working Paper, May 2021
Abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic has created enormously difficult decisions for individuals trying to navigate both the risks of the pandemic and the demands of everyday life. Good decision making in such scenarios can have life and death consequences. For this reason, it is important to understand what drives risk assessments during a pandemic, and, in particular, to investigate the ways that these assessments might deviate from ideal risk assessments. Two studies (N = 841) investigate risk judgments related to COVID-19. The results indicate that risk judgments are sensitive to factors unrelated to the objective risks of infection. In particular, activities that are morally justified are perceived as safer while those that might subject people to blame, or culpability, are seen as riskier.
Power Increases Perceptions of Others' Choices, Leading People to Blame Others More
Yidan Yin, Krishna Savani & Pamela Smith
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Under what circumstances do people adopt a choice mindset? Three studies (two preregistered) tested whether higher power leads people to construe others as having more choice. When power was either measured (Study 1) or manipulated (Studies 2 and 3), high-power perceivers viewed others, even low-power others (Study 3), as having more choice than did low-power perceivers. Consequently, high-power individuals blamed others more for poor performance (Studies 1-3), and were more likely to punish them (Studies 1 and 2). The findings document a direct link between power and choice by showing that the psychological consequences of a choice mindset (i.e., greater blame) can be evoked by power and that effects of power (e.g., on blame) can be mediated by perceptions of choice.
Are people more selfish after giving gifts?
Evan Polman & Zoe Lu
Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, forthcoming
Abstract:
How people choose gifts is a widely studied topic, but what happens next is largely understudied. In two preregistered studies, one field experiment, and an analysis of secondary data, we show that giving gifts has a dark side, as it can negatively affect subsequent interpersonal behavior between givers and receivers. In Study 1, we found that giving a gift to one's romantic partner changes givers' interpretation of which behaviors constitute infidelity. Specifically, we found that givers (vs. nongivers) classified their questionable behaviors (e.g., sending a flirtatious text to someone other than their partner) less as a form of cheating on their partner. In Study 2, we examined how politely participants behave when delivering bad news to a friend. We found that givers (vs. nongivers) wrote significantly less polite messages to their friend. In Study 3, we tested real gifts that people give to friends and found givers (vs. nongivers) subsequently made more selfish decisions at their friends' expense. In all, our research refines the oft-cited axiomatic assumption that gift giving strengthens relationships and illuminates the potential for future research to examine how decision making can alter interpersonal, romantic relationships.
Proscriptive Injunctions Can Elicit Greater Reactance and Lower Legitimacy Perceptions Than Prescriptive Injunctions
Louisa Pavey, Susan Churchill & Paul Sparks
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Based on previous research investigating proscriptive injunctions (requesting that one should not do something) versus prescriptive injunctions (requesting that one should do something), we propose that proscription leads to greater reactance than does prescription for a range of actions, and that this effect is associated with lower perceived legitimacy of the injunction. Across five experimental studies, our student and general population samples received proscriptions or prescriptions and reported their reactance. Proscription led to greater reactance than did prescription in all five studies. This effect was accentuated by an authoritative source (Study 2), was mediated by the perceived legitimacy of the request (Study 3 and Study 4), and was attenuated by a self-affirmation intervention (Study 5). We suggest that proscriptions are viewed as more obligatory than prescriptions, limit the scope of behavioral alternatives, restrict perceived autonomy, and elicit greater reactance. The findings have implications for the design of effective persuasive communications.
Algorithm exploitation: Humans are keen to exploit benevolent AI
Jurgis Karpus et al.
iScience, June 2021
Abstract:
We cooperate with other people despite the risk of being exploited or hurt. If future artificial intelligence (AI) systems are benevolent and cooperative towards us, what will we do in return? Here we show that our cooperative dispositions are weaker when we interact with AI. In 9 experiments, humans interacted with either another human or an AI agent in 4 classic social dilemma economic games and a newly designed game of Reciprocity that we introduce here. Contrary to the hypothesis that people mistrust algorithms, participants trusted their AI partners to be as cooperative as humans. However, they did not return AI's benevolence as much and exploited the AI more than humans. These findings warn that future self-driving cars or co-working robots, whose success depends on humans' returning their cooperativeness, run the risk of being exploited. This vulnerability calls not just for smarter machines but also better human-centered policies.
Alcohol unleashes homo economicus by inhibiting cooperation
Paul Zak et al.
PLoS ONE, June 2021
Abstract:
Human behavior lies somewhere between purely self-interested homo economicus and socially-motivated homo reciprocans. The factors that cause people to choose self-interest over costly cooperation can provide insights into human nature and are essential when designing institutions and policies that are meant to influence behavior. Alcohol consumption can shed light on the inflection point between selfish and selfless because it is commonly consumed and has global effects on the brain. The present study administered alcohol or placebo (N = 128), titrated to sex and weight, to examine its effect on cooperation in a standard task in experimental economics, the public goods game (PGG). Alcohol, compared to placebo, doubled the number of free-riders who contributed nothing to the public good and reduced average PGG contributions by 32% (p = .005). This generated 64% higher average profits in the PGG for those who consumed alcohol. The degree of intoxication, measured by blood alcohol concentration, linearly reduced PGG contributions (r = -0.18, p = .05). The reduction in cooperation was traced to a deterioration in mood and an increase in physiologic stress as measured by adrenocorticotropic hormone. Our findings indicate that moderate alcohol consumption inhibits the motivation to cooperate and that homo economicus is stressed and unhappy.
When does being paid an hourly wage make it difficult to be a happy volunteer?
Sanford DeVoe & Jieun Pai
Journal of Applied Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
When people willingly volunteer their time, how does the salience of the opportunity costs of their time influence their experience of the activity? Study 1 uses the American Time Use Survey Well-Being module to examine whether the subjective experience of happiness while volunteering is influenced by how people are paid and the opportunity costs of their time spent volunteering. Among hourly paid workers for whom there is a salient heuristic for the opportunity costs of time, we found that higher opportunity costs of time as indicated by income and duration of the activity were associated with diminished happiness experienced during volunteering. No differences across income and duration emerged among non-hourly workers for whom there was not a salient heuristic for the opportunity costs of time. Using a student population who all volunteered for the same charity activity, Study 2 tested whether making the opportunity costs salient caused less happiness to be reported from the activity than those in the control condition. These studies contribute to our understanding of the psychological consequences of thinking about time in terms of money and how it may influence the hedonic experience of activities people choose to undertake in the applied context of volunteering.