Moral Standing
When and why “staying out of it” backfires in moral and political disagreements
Ike Silver & Alex Shaw
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, forthcoming
Abstract:
People care where others around them stand on contentious moral and political issues. Yet when faced with the prospect of taking sides and the possibility of alienating observers with whom they might disagree, actors often try to “stay out of it” — communicating that they would rather not to take a side at all. We demonstrate that despite its intuitive appeal for reducing conflict, opting not to take sides over moralized issues can harm trust, even relative to siding against an observer’s viewpoint outright. Across eleven experiments (N = 4,383) using controlled scenarios, real press video clips, and incentivized economic games, we find that attempts to stay out of the fray are often interpreted as deceptive and untrustworthy. When actors choose not to take sides, observers often ascribe concealed opposition, an attribution of strategic deception which provokes distrust and undermines real-stakes cooperation and partner choice. We further demonstrate that this effect arises only when staying out of it seems strategic: Actors who seem to hold genuine middle-ground beliefs or who lack incentives for impression management are not distrusted for avoiding conflict. People are often asked to take sides in moral and political disagreement. Our findings outline a reputational risk awaiting those who opt not to do so.
The Price Entitlement Effect: When and Why High Price Entitles Consumers to Purchase Socially Costly Products
Saerom Lee & Karen Page Winterich
Journal of Marketing Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
This research investigates when and why consumers purchase products with social costs (e.g., environmental harm). Six studies demonstrate that upper-class consumers are more likely to purchase a product with social costs when it has a higher price due to experiencing greater entitlement, which we term ‘the price entitlement effect,’ allowing for purchase justification. In contrast, lower-class consumers do not feel entitled to purchase a product with social costs when it is higher-priced. This effect occurs because upper-class consumers tend to have a greater self-focus with a higher price entitling them to more resources than others. Consistent with the entitlement mechanism, when egalitarian values are made salient, the price entitlement effect is mitigated, reducing upper-class consumers’ purchase of socially costly products. Notably, the price entitlement effect occurs only when products have social costs rather than for all higher-priced products. However, when the social costs of a product are severe, price entitlement does not sufficiently justify product purchase. This research provides theoretical and practical insights regarding when and why higher price entitles purchase of socially costly products, contributing to research on social class and socially responsible (vs. costly) consumption as well as choice justification.
Material Benefits Crowd Out Moralistic Punishment
Tage Rai
Psychological Science, May 2022, Pages 789-797
Abstract:
Across four experiments with U.S.-based online participants (N = 1,495 adults), I found that paying people to engage in moralistic punishment reduces their willingness to do so. In an economic game with real stakes, providing a monetary bonus for engaging in third-party punishment of unfair offers nearly cut participants’ willingness to do so in half. In judgments of hypothetical transgressions, participants viewed punishers who accepted payment as having worse character and rated the punishers’ punitive actions as less morally acceptable. Willingness to engage in punishment was restored if participants were offered large enough payments or were told that punishment accompanied by payment still signals moral virtue. Data were consistent with a signal-corruption mechanism whereby payment interferes with the prosocial signal that moralistic punishment provides about a punisher’s motives. These findings have implications for the cultural evolution of punishment and suggest that understanding perpetrators’ sociomoral incentives is essential to implementing conflict-reduction policies.
The moral repetition effect: Bad deeds seem less unethical when repeatedly encountered
Daniel Effron
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, forthcoming
Abstract:
Reports of moral transgressions can “go viral” through gossip, continuous news coverage, and social media. When they do, the same person is likely to hear about the same transgression multiple times. The present research demonstrates that people will judge the same transgression less severely after repeatedly encountering an identical description of it. I present seven experiments (six of which were preregistered; 73,265 observations from 3,301 online participants and urban residents holding 55 nationalities). Participants rated fake-news sharing, real and hypothetical business transgressions, violations of fundamental “moral foundations,” and various everyday wrongdoings as less unethical and less deserving of punishment if they had been shown descriptions of these behaviors previously. Results suggest that affect plays an important role in this moral repetition effect. Repeated exposure to a description of a transgression reduced the negative affect that the transgression elicited, and less-negative affect meant less-harsh moral judgments. Moreover, instructing participants to base their moral judgments on reason, rather than emotion, eliminated the moral repetition effect. An alternative explanation based on perceptions of social norms received only mixed support. The results extend understanding of when and how repetition influences judgment, and they reveal a new way in which moral judgments are biased by reliance on affect. The more people who hear about a transgression, the wider moral outrage will spread; but the more times an individual hears about it, the less outraged that person may be.
Collaborative Cheating in Hierarchical Teams: Effects of Incentive Structure and Leader Behavior on Subordinate Behavior and Perceptions of Leaders
Simon Tobias Karg et al.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
What facilitates collaborative cheating in hierarchical teams, and what are its outcomes for those engaged? In two preregistered studies (N = 724), we investigated how subordinates are influenced by leaders signaling a willingness to engage in collaborative cheating, and how subordinates perceive such leaders. Participants performed a task in which they could either report their performance honestly, or cheat for financial gain. Each participant was assigned a leader who could choose to check the report’s veracity. In Study 1, leaders who checked less often were perceived as more moral, trustworthy, competent, and psychologically closer than leaders who checked more often. This trustworthiness bonus translated to investments in a subsequent trust game. Study 2 revealed that these relationship benefits specifically arise for collaborative cheating, compared to competitive cheating (at the leader’s expense). We conclude that collaborative cheating in subordinate–leader dyads strengthens in-group bonds, bringing people closer together and cultivating trust.
Morals for the sake of movement: Locomotion and sensitivity to norms in moral dilemmas
James Cornwell & Antonio Fabio Bella
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Recent research on moral dilemmas has delineated preferences for utilitarian vs. deontological judgments along three parameters: sensitivity to consequences, sensitivity to norms, and general preferences for inaction (Gawronski et al., 2017; Körner, et al., 2020). However, research has not yet determined whether motivational differences contribute to these three parameters in moral judgment. Across two studies, using regulatory mode theory, we demonstrate that a motivation to initiate and sustain smooth movement (locomotion), independent of a motive to engage in critical evaluation and reflection (assessment), is associated with greater sensitivity to norms in moral judgments. We demonstrate this association through both a chronic measure of individual differences (Study 1), and through a preregistered experimental induction (Study 2). Implications of our findings for moral judgment and motivation are discussed.
Cover your mouth! Disease avoidance predicts the stigmatization of yawning
Mitch Brown, Samuel Snowden & Andrew Gallup
Personality and Individual Differences, forthcoming
Abstract:
Despite presenting several physiological and social benefits, yawning remains a highly stigmatized behavior across various cultures. Given evidence for an association between illness and the proclivity to yawn, it could be possible that yawning provides a heuristic cue to disease transmission between conspecifics. This aversion to yawning could thus serve as a disease avoidance strategy. The current study identified how individual differences in disease avoidance motivations could foster stigmatization of yawning. Participants completed personality inventories, including those related to disease avoidance and disgust, while indicating their attitudes toward various bodily functions. Individual differences in germ aversion and pathogen disgust were particularly associated with stigmatization of yawning, such that higher levels of these traits fostered greater aversion toward yawning. These data provide initial evidence for how fundamental social motives can facilitate reactions to involuntary behaviors.
Situational factors shape moral judgements in the trolley dilemma in Eastern, Southern and Western countries in a culturally diverse sample
Bence Bago et al.
Nature Human Behaviour, forthcoming
Abstract:
The study of moral judgements often centres on moral dilemmas in which options consistent with deontological perspectives (that is, emphasizing rules, individual rights and duties) are in conflict with options consistent with utilitarian judgements (that is, following the greater good based on consequences). Greene et al. (2009) showed that psychological and situational factors (for example, the intent of the agent or the presence of physical contact between the agent and the victim) can play an important role in moral dilemma judgements (for example, the trolley problem). Our knowledge is limited concerning both the universality of these effects outside the United States and the impact of culture on the situational and psychological factors affecting moral judgements. Thus, we empirically tested the universality of the effects of intent and personal force on moral dilemma judgements by replicating the experiments of Greene et al. in 45 countries from all inhabited continents. We found that personal force and its interaction with intention exert influence on moral judgements in the US and Western cultural clusters, replicating and expanding the original findings. Moreover, the personal force effect was present in all cultural clusters, suggesting it is culturally universal. The evidence for the cultural universality of the interaction effect was inconclusive in the Eastern and Southern cultural clusters (depending on exclusion criteria). We found no strong association between collectivism/individualism and moral dilemma judgements.