Legitimate
Exposure to justice diminishes moral perception
Ana Gantman & Jay Van Bavel
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, December 2016, Pages 1728-1739
Abstract:
Evidence suggests that people have a lower threshold for the conscious awareness of moral words. Given the potential motivational relevance of moral concerns, the authors hypothesized and found that motivational relevance of moral stimuli enhanced the detection of moral words. People who saw a CrimeStoppers advertisement in which a majority (vs. minority) of wanted murderers had been brought to justice exhibited reduced detection of moral words (Experiment 1). Similarly, people who read that an assailant was arrested (vs. escaped punishment) exhibited reduced detection of moral words (Experiment 2). In both experiments, the effect of justice motives on moral word detection was specific to words presented near (vs. distant) to the threshold for perceptual awareness. These findings suggest that satiating (vs. activating) justice motives can reduce the frequency with which moral (vs. non-moral) words reach perceptual awareness. Implications for models of moral psychology, particularly the role of perception in morality, are discussed.
---------------------
Value Corruption: Instrumental Use Erodes Sacred Values
Rachel Ruttan & Loran Nordgren
Northwestern University Working Paper, September 2016
Abstract:
Sacred values like environmental-protection, patriotism, and diversity are increasingly leveraged by organizations, marketers, and individuals to yield profits and favorable reputations. In the current research, we investigated a potentially perverse consequence of this tendency: that observing values used instrumentally (i.e., in the service of self-interest) will negatively impact observers' perceptions of those values. Six studies demonstrate support for this value corruption hypothesis. Following exposure to the instrumental use of a sacred value, people perceived that value to be less sacred as assessed by both explicit (Studies 1-6) and implicit (Study 4) measures, and were less willing to act in value-consistent ways (Studies 4 and 5). Study 3 found that the value corruption effect was specific to sacred values, and was attenuated when a non-sacred value was used instrumentally. These results have important implications: People and organizations that use values instrumentally may ultimately undermine the values from which they intend to benefit. The results also suggest that introducing market norms into previously untouched domains will ultimately come at a cost.
---------------------
Variation in the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) is associated with differences in moral judgment
Regan Bernhard et al.
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, December 2016, Pages 1872-1881
Abstract:
Moral judgments are produced through the coordinated interaction of multiple neural systems, each of which relies on a characteristic set of neurotransmitters. Genes that produce or regulate these neurotransmitters may have distinctive influences on moral judgment. Two studies examined potential genetic influences on moral judgment using dilemmas that reliably elicit competing automatic and controlled responses, generated by dissociable neural systems. Study 1 (N = 228) examined 49 common variants (SNPs) within 10 candidate genes and identified a nominal association between a polymorphism (rs237889) of the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) and variation in deontological vs utilitarian moral judgment (that is, judgments favoring individual rights vs the greater good). An association was likewise observed for rs1042615 of the arginine vasopressin receptor gene (AVPR1A). Study 2 (N = 322) aimed to replicate these findings using the aforementioned dilemmas as well as a new set of structurally similar medical dilemmas. Study 2 failed to replicate the association with AVPR1A, but replicated the OXTR finding using both the original and new dilemmas. Together, these findings suggest that moral judgment is influenced by variation in the oxytocin receptor gene and, more generally, that single genetic polymorphisms can have a detectable effect on complex decision processes.
---------------------
Dirty Money: The Role of Moral History in Economic Judgments
Arber Tasimi & Susan Gelman
Cognitive Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Although traditional economic models posit that money is fungible, psychological research abounds with examples that deviate from this assumption. Across eight experiments, we provide evidence that people construe physical currency as carrying traces of its moral history. In Experiments 1 and 2, people report being less likely to want money with negative moral history (i.e., stolen money). Experiments 3-5 provide evidence against an alternative account that people's judgments merely reflect beliefs about the consequences of accepting stolen money rather than moral sensitivity. Experiment 6 examines whether an aversion to stolen money may reflect contamination concerns, and Experiment 7 indicates that people report they would donate stolen money, thereby counteracting its negative history with a positive act. Finally, Experiment 8 demonstrates that, even in their recall of actual events, people report a reduced tendency to accept tainted money. Altogether, these findings suggest a robust tendency to evaluate money based on its moral history, even though it is designed to participate in exchanges that effectively erase its origins.
---------------------
Sarah Rom, Alexa Weiss & Paul Conway
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, March 2017, Pages 44-58
Abstract:
Whereas considerable research examines antecedents of moral dilemma judgments where causing harm maximizes outcomes, this work examines social consequences: whether participants infer personality characteristics from others' dilemma judgments. We propose that people infer the roles of affective and cognitive processing underlying other peoples' moral dilemma judgments, and use this information to inform personality perceptions. In Studies 1 and 2, participants rated targets who rejected causing outcome-maximizing harm (consistent with deontology) as warmer but less competent than targets who accepted causing outcome-maximizing harm (consistent with utilitarianism). Studies 3a and 3b replicated this pattern and demonstrated that perceptions of affective processing mediated the effect on warmth, whereas perceptions of cognitive processing mediated the effect on competence. In Study 4 participants accurately predicted that affective decision-makers would reject harm, whereas cognitive decision-makers would accept harm. Furthermore, participants preferred targets who rejected causing harm for a social role prioritizing warmth (pediatrician), whereas they preferred targets who accepted causing harm for a social role prioritizing competence (hospital management, Study 5). Together, these results suggest that people infer the role of affective and cognitive processing underlying others' harm rejection and acceptance judgments, which inform personality inferences and decision-making.
---------------------
Beyond Purity: Moral Disgust Toward Bad Character
Roger Giner-Sorolla & Hanah Chapman
Psychological Science, January 2017, Pages 80-91
Abstract:
Previous studies support a link between moral disgust and impurity, whereas anger is linked to harm. We challenged these strict correspondences by showing that disgust is activated in response to information about moral character, even for harm violations. By contrast, anger is activated in response to information about actions, including their moral wrongness and consequences. Study 1 examined disgust and anger in response to an action that suggests bad moral character (animal cruelty) versus an action that is seen as inherently more wrong (domestic abuse). Animal cruelty was associated with more disgust than domestic abuse was, whereas domestic abuse was associated with more anger. Studies 2 and 3 manipulated character by varying the agent's desire to cause harm and also varied the action's harmful consequences. Desire to harm predicted only disgust (controlling for anger), whereas consequences were more closely related to anger (controlling for disgust). Taken together, these results indicate that disgust arises in response to evidence of bad moral character, not just to impurity.
---------------------
Corporate Personhood: Lay Perceptions and Ethical Consequences
Arthur Jago & Kristin Laurin
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, forthcoming
Abstract:
Modern conceptions of corporate personhood have spurred considerable debate about the rights that society should afford business organizations. Across eight experiments, we compare lay perceptions of how corporations and people use rights, and also explore the with consequences of these judgments. We find that people believe corporations, compared to humans, are similarly likely to use rights in protective ways that prevent harm but more likely to use rights in nonprotective ways that appear independent from - or even create - harm (Experiments 1a through 1c and Experiment 2). Because of these beliefs, people support corporate rights to a lesser extent than human rights (Experiment 3). However, people are more supportive of specific corporate rights when we framed them as serving protective functions (Experiment 4). Also as a result of these beliefs, people attribute greater ethical responsibility to corporations, but not to humans, that gain access to rights (Experiments 5a and 5b). Despite their equitability in many domains, people believe corporations and humans use rights in different ways, ultimately producing different reactions to their behaviors as well as asymmetric moral evaluations.
---------------------
Thomas Denson et al.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, March 2017, Pages 71-78
Abstract:
Poor self-control is a root cause of aggression and criminality. But people can improve their self-control through repetitive practice. Because self-control involves acting in accordance with personal values, practicing self-control can promote attainment of value-consistent goals. The present research tested the hypothesis that practicing self-control could both decrease and increase obedient aggression. In Experiment 1, relative to the active control group, participants who practiced self-control were more hesitant to engage in mock violence (e.g., "cutting" the experimenter's throat with a rubber knife), especially for participants high in dispositional empathy. In Experiment 2, practicing self-control increased obedience to kill insects, but only among participants who felt little moral responsibility for their actions. There was a trend for decreased killing among participants who felt morally responsible for their actions. Our findings suggest that when asked to behave aggressively, self-control promotes adherence to personal values, which may or may not fuel aggression.
---------------------
Jacquie Vorauer & Matthew Quesnel
Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, forthcoming
Abstract:
What power dynamics are instantiated when a minority group member empathizes with a dominant group member during social interaction? How do these dynamics compare to those instantiated when the dominant group member instead does the empathizing? According to a general power script account, because empathy is generally directed "down" toward disadvantaged targets needing support, the empathizer should come out "on top" with respect to power-relevant outcomes no matter who it is. According to a meta-stereotype account, because adopting an empathic stance in intergroup contexts leads individuals to think about how their own group is viewed (including with respect to power-relevant characteristics), the dominant group member might come out on top no matter which person empathizes. Two studies involving face-to-face intergroup exchanges yielded results that overall were consistent with the meta-stereotype account: Regardless of who does it, empathy in intergroup contexts seems more apt to exacerbate than mitigate group-based status differences.
---------------------
Adam Trahan
Criminal Justice Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Recent research suggests that public attitudes toward capital punishment are fundamentally value expressive rather than instrumental. This study explores the value-expressive basis of capital punishment attitudes by analyzing the relationships between various domains of life and the law. Logistic regression of data from the 1972-2012 cumulative data file of the General Social Survey was used to analyze whether composite variables for opposition to legal abortion, euthanasia, and suicide could predict capital punishment attitudes. Findings show that main effects of opposition to legal abortion, suicide, and euthanasia increased the odds of opposing capital punishment. Among 3 two-way interaction terms, only opposition to suicide and euthanasia was significant, and it was associated with increased support for capital punishment rather than opposition. These findings lend qualified support to the consistent life ethic framework and value-expressive basis of capital punishment attitudes.