Are we more moral than we think? Exploring the role of affect in moral behavior and moral forecasting

Can people accurately predict how they will act in a moral dilemma? Our research suggests that in some situations, they cannot, and that emotions play a pivotal role in this dissociation between behavior and forecasting. In the current experiment, individuals in a moral action condition cheated significantly less on a math task than participants in a forecasting condition predicted they themselves would cheat. Furthermore, we found that participants in the action condition displayed significantly more physiological arousal, as measured by preejection period, skin conductance response (SCR), and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), and that the underestimation effect was mediated by SCR and RSA together. This research suggests that the affective arousal present during real-life moral dilemmas may not be fully engaged during moral forecasting, and that this may account for the moral forecasting errors that individuals make. This research has the potential to inform past work in the field of moral psychology, which has largely ignored actual behavior.     

Are we all less risky and more skillful than our fellow drivers?

In this study subjects were asked about their competence as drivers in relation to a group of drivers. The results showed that a majority of subjects regarded themselves as more skillful and less risky than the average driver in each group respectively. This result was compared with similar recent findings in other fields. Finally, the consequences for planning and risk taking of seeing oneself as more competent than others were discussed briefly.     

Evolutionary debunking: Can moral realists explain the reliability of our moral judgments?

Evolutionary debunking arguments, notably Sharon Street’s Darwinian Dilemma (2006), allege that moral realists need to explain the reliability of our moral judgments, given their evolutionary sources. David Copp (2008) and David Enoch (2010) take up the challenge. I argue on empirical grounds that realists have not met the challenge and moreover cannot do so. The outcome is that there are empirically-motivated reasons for thinking moral realists cannot explain moral reliability, given our current empirical understanding.     

The dimensionality of counterproductivity: Are all counterproductive behaviors created equal?

Most studies of counterproductive work behavior (CWB) assess it as one or two overall dimensions that might obscure relationships of potential antecedents with more specific forms of behavior. A finer-grained analysis of the relationship between counterproductive work behavior and antecedents was conducted with the five-subscales (abuse toward others, production deviance, sabotage, theft, and withdrawal) taken from the 45-item Counterproductive Work Behavior Checklist, a measure that has been used in a number of prior studies. Described is the rationale for each of the five dimensions, which have been discussed individually in the literature. Data from three combined studies provide evidence for differential relationships with potential antecedents that suggest the use of more specific subscales to assess CWB. Most notably, abuse and sabotage were most strongly related to anger and stress, theft was unrelated to emotion, and withdrawal was associated with boredom and being upset. Finally, the distinct forms of CWB may suggest distinct underlying dynamics, that vary in their balance of hostile and instrumental motivational systems.     

Grape expectations: The role of cognitive influences in color–flavor interactions

Color conveys critical information about the flavor of food and drink by providing clues as to edibility, flavor identity, and flavor intensity. Despite the fact that more than 100 published papers have investigated the influence of color on flavor perception in humans, surprisingly little research has considered how cognitive and contextual constraints may mediate color–flavor interactions. In this review, we argue that the discrepancies demonstrated in previously-published color–flavor studies may, at least in part, reflect differences in the sensory expectations that different people generate as a result of their prior associative experiences. We propose that color–flavor interactions in flavor perception cannot be understood solely in terms of the principles of multisensory integration (the currently dominant theoretical framework) but that the role of higher-level cognitive factors, such as expectations, must also be considered.     

Managed care at the bedside: how do we look in the moral mirror?

Managed care per se is a morally neutral concept; however, as practiced today, it raises serious ethical issues at the clinical, managerial, and social levels. This essay focuses on the ethical issues that arise at the bedside, looking first at the ethical conflicts faced by the physician who is charged with responsibility for care of the patient and then turning to the way in which managed care exacts costs that are measured not in dollars but in compromises in the caring dimensions of the patient-physician relationship.     

Where do we look when we count? The role of eye movements in enumeration

Two experiments addressed the coupling between eye movements and the cognitive processes underlying enumeration. Experiment 1 compared eye movements in a counting task with those in a “look” task, in which subjects were told to look at each dot in a pattern once and only once. Experiment 2 presented the same dot patterns to every subject twice, to measure the consistency with which dots were fixated between and within subjects. In both experiments, the number of fixations increased linearly with the number of objects to be enumerated, consistent with tight coupling between eye movements and enumeration. However, analyses of fixation locations showed that subjects tended to look at dots in dense, central regions of the display and tended not to look at dots in sparse, peripheral regions of the display, suggesting a looser coupling between eye movements and enumeration. Thus, the eyes do not mirror the enumeration process very directly.     

Why is discrimination stressful? The mediating role of cognitive appraisal

This study attempts to shed light on past findings that experiences of racial and gender discrimination are associated with poor psychological and physical health outcomes by investigating the role of cognitive appraisal as a mediator of the relationship between experiences of discrimination and affective stress reactions. African American female college students (N = 115) imagined themselves in an audiotaped scenario in which they overheard 2 European American male classmates make negative evaluations of them. Participants then completed measures of causal attributions, cognitive appraisal, and affective stress reactions. Multiple regression analyses supported the hypotheses that attributions to racism and to discrimination that combines racism and sexism were associated with increased stress reactions. This relationship was mediated by cognitive appraisals of centrality.     

Elevation at work: The effects of leaders’ moral excellence

Leaders influence followers in many ways; one way is by eliciting positive emotions. In three studies we demonstrate that the nearly unstudied moral emotion of ‘elevation’ (a reaction to moral excellence) mediates the relations between leaders’ and their followers’ ethical behavior. Study 1 used scenarios manipulated experimentally; study 2 examined employees’ emotional responses to their leaders in a natural work setting; study 3 compared the effects of elevation to those of happiness, serenity, and positive affect. We found that leaders’ interpersonal fairness and self-sacrifice are powerful elicitors of elevation, and that this emotion fully mediates leaders’ influence on followers’ organizational citizenship behavior and affective organizational commitment. In the first study, we also observed a moderation effect of interpersonal fairness on self-sacrifice. Results underline the importance of positive moral emotions in organizations and shed light on the emotional process by which ethical leaders can foster positive organizational outcomes.     

The role of attention in the affordance effect: can we afford to ignore it?

It has been established that the task-irrelevant orientation of an object's graspable handle produces a stimulus-response compatibility effect, resulting in faster reaction times when the location of the response corresponds to that of the object's handle. There is ongoing debate whether to attribute this affordance effect to motoric or to attentional components. In an attempt to reconcile these two viewpoints, we employed a novel experimental approach for investigating the relationship between attention and affordance. Using 3-D positional sound, auditory spatial attention was manipulated in order to explore its effects on affordance. Subjects were presented images of everyday graspable objects and had to respond bimanually (left or right) whether the object (featuring a leftward or rightward handle) was presented upright or upside-down. Prior to each affording object, sound localization cues were manipulated so as to orient auditory attention to the left, or to the right of the interaural axis (control). We obtained a peculiar pattern of results, which not only appears to provide support for an attention-shift account of affordance but does so in a cross-modal context.     

Ethics in medicine: Are we blind? In support of teaching medical ethics at the bedside

The ability to recognize and respond to the ethical dimension of medicine is integral to providing health care that is comprehensive and humane. However, this aspect of medical practice is underemphasized in clinical and academic medicine, despite attempts to devise curricula in this field. This paper examines the origins and consequences of this deficiency through a case history of a Jehovah's Witness who reluctantly accepted a blood transfusion. It emphasizes the ubiquity of the ethical context in medicine and argues that blindness to this context stems from the prevailing scientific and technological paradigm in medicine. Innovations in medical education are called for to enhance health care providers' abilities to appreciate and cope with these complex situations.     

Are we aware of our ability to forget? Metacognitive predictions of directed forgetting

It is often important to accurately predict not only what information we will later remember, but also what information we are likely to forget. The present research examined these abilities in the context of item-method directed forgetting, to determine whether people are aware of their strategic control of remembering and forgetting, as well as what cues are used when making metacognitive judgments. Participants studied words, each of which was followed by a cue to remember (R) or forget (F) the word for an upcoming test, and also made predictions of how likely they would be to later recall each word. When asked to recall all of the words, regardless of cue, both recall and predicted recall were fairly sensitive to the R or F instructions, despite some overconfidence. A similar and stronger pattern was found when words were assigned positive or negative point values as cues to remember or forget. These findings suggest that item-based cues to remember or forget information can be successfully utilized when making metacognitive judgments, and that people are fairly aware of the control they have over both remembering and forgetting information.     

Social power tactics and subordinates’ compliance at work: The role of need for cognitive closure

IntroductionThe present research highlights the importance of subordinates’ motivation for compliance-related phenomena.ObjectivesThe aim of this research was to examine subordinates’ willingness to comply with their supervisors’ harsh and soft power tactics as a function of subordinates’ need for cognitive closure.MethodTwo cross-sectional studies were conducted in five different Italian organizations, namely, a bank, a federation of small businesses, a security company, an oil company, and a hospital.ResultsIt was found that subordinates high (vs. low) on need for closure reported greater willingness to comply with harsh social power tactics, but lower willingness to comply with soft power tactics.ConclusionOur findings nuance prior research by showing that soft (vs. harsh) power tactics are not always the most effective power tactics in organizational setting (e.g., Pierro et al., 2004; Raven et al., 1998).     

The role of personal resources in work–family conflict: Implications for young mothers' well-being

The purpose of the current study was to examine the role that personal resources (person–environment [PE] congruence and personality types associated with resilience) and work–family conflict (WFC) play in the sense of well-being (as reflected by burnout and life-satisfaction) of mothers of young children. A sample of 146 mothers holding demanding careers completed six questionnaires. Based on Baron and Kenny (1986), several regression analyses were conducted. The results indicated that PE congruence was not related to life satisfaction but was negatively related to burnout, a relationship fully mediated by both work-interferes-family (WIF) and family-interferes-work (FIW) conflict dimensions. Personality type was related to burnout and life-satisfaction (Resilients exhibited higher levels of well-being than both Undercontrollers and Overcontrollers), a relationship which was only partially mediated by WIF and FIW. Implications for career planning and counseling, particularly for women, are discussed.     

The cognitive foundations of visual consciousness: Why should we favour a processing approach?

How can we investigate the foundations of consciousness? In addressing this question, we will focus on the two main strategies that authors have adopted so far. On the one hand, there is research aimed at characterizing a specific content, which should account for conscious states. We may call this the content approach. On the other hand, one finds the processing approach, which proposes to look for a particular way of processing to account for consciousness. . Our aim, in this paper, is to develop arguments for the latter approach. We focus on a criticism of Jesse Prinz’s AIR theory of consciousness. We have chosen Prinz’s theory because it incorporates features of both the content and processing approaches, and discussing it will therefore allow us to compare the advantages and downsides of both. Our argument will focus in particular on the notion of intermediate-level. We will discuss how Prinz characterizes the intermediate-level according to a content approach, and argue that such a characterization is inadequate. Finally, we will argue in favor of processing approach to the problem of consciousness, which also accounts for the massive interaction of top-down and bottom-up processes in the brain. Even though consciousness remains an unsolved riddle, we claim that this is the best path towards a solution.     

The role of moral knowledge in everyday immorality: What does it matter if I know what is right?

In contrast to other well-known cognitive models of moral decision-making, social cognitive theory posits that individuals can disengage from their own moral standards thereby allowing themselves to commit immoral acts. While previous research largely supports the general premise of moral disengagement, we suggest that direct tests of moral disengagement processes and the commensurate diminished role of moral knowledge are conspicuously absent. In five studies, we use multiple methods to capture both knowledge of the immorality of an act and theorized in situ processes of moral disengagement. Ultimately, we find no evidence of the proposed processes associated with moral disengagement. Furthermore, our data suggests that moral knowledge is a key driver of moral behavior in everyday situations and is not easily set aside. We conclude by discussing the implications of this research for theory and practice.     

The role of team and sport social contexts: Are three-level models needed in studies of sport conduct?

In this work, I examined how variation in sport conduct is allocated across the three different levels (i.e., athlete, team, and sport) in order to consider how the team and sport environment might contribute to athletes' sport conduct. Specifically, three-level models were utilized for sportspersonship, technical and mental gamesmanship, and instrumental aggression to examine whether there is unique variance due to sport and team clustering with athletes (N = 1412) nested within teams (J = 92) that are in turn nested within sports (K = 17). Results showed that clustering due to sport accounted for unique variance above and beyond team clustering. However, sex and invasion team sport explained most of the sport-level variance. The implication is that it is important to account for the sport clustering. However, when accounting for the sport-level clustering is not feasible, controlling for sex is necessary at the very least.     

The dual role of ‘emergence’ in the philosophy of mind and in cognitive science

The concept of emergence is widely used in both the philosophy of mind and in cognitive science. In the philosophy of mind it serves to refer to seemingly irreducible phenomena, in cognitive science it is often used to refer to phenomena not explicitly programmed. There is no unique concept of emergence available that serves both purposes.