The “Arnold Schwarzenegger Effect”: Is strength of the “victim” related to misinterpretations of harm intrusions?

The present study used an in vivo paradigm to examine whether the victim's vulnerability in a harm-related intrusion affects beliefs about the importance of thoughts (i.e., Thought Action Fusion; TAF). Sixty-six undergraduate students at a large university were randomly assigned to imagine either a vulnerable (e.g., elderly man) or able-bodied individual (e.g., strong youthful male) they know getting into a car accident and provided in vivo ratings of anxiety, guilt, likelihood, moral wrongness, and urges to neutralize. Results indicated that thinking of car accident involving a vulnerable, compared to an able-bodied person, provoked more distress (anxiety and guilt), stronger feelings of moral wrongness, greater urges to cancel the effects of thinking such thoughts, and higher estimates of the likelihood that the collision would occur. The findings of our study broadly support Rachman's (1998) assertion that more significance and importance is attached to negative thoughts about vulnerable or helpless people. Current findings are discussed in terms of the cognitive-behavioral model of obsessions and clinical implications are addressed.     

The relationship between religion and thought-action fusion: Use of an in vivo paradigm

Research has demonstrated that higher levels of religiosity are positively correlated with thought-action fusion (TAF), a set of cognitive biases found to be associated with obsessive-compulsive symptoms. However, previous studies have exclusively relied on a nomothetic approach to measuring TAF using a single self-report instrument, the thought-action fusion scale. The current study examined the relationship between religiosity and TAF using an in vivo behaviorally-based assessment in which participants thought about and wrote down thoughts of negative events involving loved ones. Forty-three highly religious Protestant Christians were compared to 30 Atheists/Agnostics on their in vivo ratings of anxiety, estimates of likelihood, and moral wrongness related to the negative thoughts. Results indicated that compared to the non-religious participants, those who were highly religious believed that writing and thinking about the negative events was more morally wrong and increased the likelihood of the event. Results are discussed in terms of the potential relationship between certain religious teachings and TAF-related beliefs about the importance, significance, and influence of thoughts.     

The role of analytic thinking in moral judgements and values

While individual differences in the willingness and ability to engage analytic processing have long informed research in reasoning and decision making, the implications of such differences have not yet had a strong influence in other domains of psychological research. We claim that analytic thinking is not limited to problems that have a normative basis and, as an extension of this, predict that individual differences in analytic thinking will be influential in determining beliefs and values. Along with assessments of cognitive ability and style, religious beliefs, and moral values, participants judged the wrongness of acts considered disgusting and conventionally immoral, but that do not violate care- or fairness-based moral principles. Differences in willingness to engage analytic thinking predicted reduced judgements of wrongness, independent of demographics, political ideology, religiosity, and moral values. Further, we show that those who were higher in cognitive ability were less likely to indicate that purity, patriotism, and respect for traditions and authority are important to their moral thinking. These findings are consistent with a “Reflectionist” view that assumes a role for analytic thought in determining substantive, deeply-held human beliefs and values.     

MORAL RELEVANCE AND CETERIS PARIBUS PRINCIPLES

My goal in this paper is twofold: to provide an account of what makes properties morally relevant, and to indicate the role such properties have in our moral thinking. I suppose that a property is morally relevant just in case it must, ceteris paribus, determine the moral status (the rightness or wrongness) of actions having it. The main part of the paper concerns the conditions under which the ceteris paribus caveat is satisfied, that is, when other things are equal. I argue that the caveat is satisfied when, with respect to a proposed set of morally relevant properties, an act differs from its alternatives at most in the degree to which it has one of those properties. Since other things are seldom equal, it is natural to wonder why what is true when they are equal should be important when they are not. That is, why is moral relevance, as I characterize it, a useful moral notion? I suggest that it is only by recognizing the moral relevance of properties that we are able to engage in useful moral thinking about the future.     

Accounting for Moral Conflicts

In his recent book The Dimensions of Consequentialism (2013), Martin Peterson defends, amongst other things, the claim that moral rightness and wrongness come in degrees and that, therefore, the standard view that an act’s being morally right or wrong is a one-off matter ought to be rejected. An ethical theory not built around a gradualist conception of moral rightness and wrongness is, according to Peterson, unable to account adequately for the phenomenon of moral conflicts. I argue in this paper that Peterson’s defence of this claim is not convincing. Over and above this negative result, a careful assessment of Peterson’s case for degrees of rightness reveals that the theoretical corridor for accounting for moral conflicts without a gradualist conception of rightness and wrongness is relatively narrow. As I show, the only way of avoiding the conclusion of Peterson’s argument is to reject his conception of the ‘final analysis’ that an ethical theory provides, i.e. of what the theory ultimately has to say about individual acts and their normative properties. According to Peterson, such a final analysis should be seen as comprising the all-things-considered judgements yielded by the theory, and nothing else. As it turns out, the only alternative to this account that is compatible with the standard view about moral rightness and wrongness is to conceive of the final analysis as also containing judgements about morally relevant factors, or aspects, and the way in which they are normatively relevant.     

Killing, wrongness, and equality

This paper examines accounts of the moral wrongness of killing persons in addition to determining what conclusions, if any, can be drawn from the morality of killing persons about the (in)equality of persons, and vice versa. I will argue that a plausible way of thinking about the moral wrongness of killing implies that the permissibility of killing innocent, nonthreatening persons depends on a person’s age. I address objections to this conclusion and discuss some potential implications of the view.     

The Effect of a Brief Mindfulness Training on Distress Tolerance and Stress Reactivity

Poor distress tolerance (DT) is considered an underlying facet of anxiety, depression, and a number of other psychological disorders. Mindfulness may help to increase DT by fostering an attitude of acceptance or nonjudgment toward distressing experiences. Accordingly, the present study examined the effects of a brief mindfulness training on tolerance of different types of distress, and tested whether trait mindfulness moderates the effect of such training. Undergraduates (n = 107) naïve to mindfulness completed a measure of trait mindfulness and underwent a series of stress tasks (cold pressor, hyperventilation challenge, neutralization task) before and after completing a 15-minute mindfulness training or a no-instruction control in which participants listened to relaxing music. Participants in the mindfulness condition demonstrated greater task persistence on the hyperventilation task compared to the control group, as well as a decreased urge to neutralize the effects of writing an upsetting sentence. No effect on distress ratings during the tasks were found. Overall trait mindfulness did not significantly moderate task persistence, but those with lower scores on the act with awareness facet of mindfulness demonstrated greater relative benefit of mindfulness training on the hyperventilation challenge. Mediation analyses revealed significant indirect effects of mindfulness training on cold pressor task persistence and urges to neutralize through the use of the nonjudge and nonreact facets of mindfulness. These results suggest that a brief mindfulness training can increase DT without affecting the subjective experience of distress.     

Global and local evaluations of public speaking performance in social anxiety

Differences in the relative use of global and local information (seeing the forest vs. the trees) may explain why people with social anxiety often do not benefit from corrective feedback, even though they pay close attention to details in social situations. In the current study, participants high (n = 43) or low (n = 47) in social anxiety symptoms gave a series of brief speeches, and then self-rated their speaking performance on items reflecting global and local performance indicators (self-assessment) and also received standardized performance feedback from an experimenter. Participants then completed a questionnaire asking how they thought the experimenter would rate their performance based on the feedback provided (experimenter assessment). Participants completed the self- and experimenter assessments again after 3 days, in addition to a measure of postevent processing (repetitive negative thinking) about their speech performance. Results showed that, as hypothesized, the High SA group rated their performance more negatively than the Low SA group. Moreover, the High SA group's ratings of global aspects of their performance became relatively more negative over time, compared to their ratings of local aspects and the Low SA group's ratings. As expected, postevent processing mediated the relationship between social anxiety group status and worsening global performance evaluations. These findings point to a pattern of progressively more negative global evaluations over time for persons high in social anxiety.     

Old,but gold? A dual-pathway model of age bias in personnel selection decisions

We present a dual-pathway model that differentiates two underlying mechanisms by which age affects selection decisions. In two experimental studies, one with lay persons (n = 316) and one with experienced Human Resource professionals (n = 103), we demonstrate that the relationship between older age and hireability is negatively mediated by perceived appearance, indicating that older candidates receive less favorable ratings because they are perceived as being less physically appealing. Moreover, we demonstrate that the relationship between older age and hireability is positively mediated by perceived experience, indicating that older candidates receive more favorable ratings because they are perceived as being more experienced. Importantly, these two pathways neutralize each other, yielding a null effect when their effects are neglected.     

The Role of Temporal Comparison, Social Comparison, and Direct Appraisal in the Elderly's Self-Evaluations of Health

Elderly persons (n= 91) were interviewed about self- perceptions of physical health and the contribution of social comparison, temporal comparison, and direct appraisal to these judgments. Consistent with previous studies, self-assessments tended to be mainly positive (67% reported their health as “good” or “excellent”), though tempered somewhat by the individual's objective physical condition (i.e., number of chronic diseases or disabilities). Independent of objective health, respondents' ratings were more negative if they mentioned thinking about past or anticipated health. Respondents were more concerned about their health if they thought about their past or anticipated health or mentioned comparing with a specific other person. Direct feedback had no effect on health ratings. Among those who reported social comparison, ratings were more positive when worse-off others were mentioned. Temporal comparisons may be associated with more negative ratings because the elderly's past health is likely to have been better and their future (anticipated) health can be expected to become worse. If using temporal and social comparison information is associated with more negative assessments then what accounts for the generally positive self-assessments? We propose that the elderly compare themselves with a cognitively constructed stereotypical standard of the frail elderly rather than with a specific other. Because few elderly actually “fit” this stereotype, most elderly feel they are doing well.     

Moral Thought and Action in Sport and Student Life: A Study of Bracketed Morality

The present study examined differences in moral behavior and judgment in sport and student life. Participants (N = 372) were students at a British university who responded to moral dilemmas pertaining to sport and student life. They indicated the likelihood that they would act antisocially or prosocially and provided judgment ratings of the behaviors described in the dilemmas. Likelihood to act antisocially was higher toward opponents in sport than other students at university, whereas likelihood to behave prosocially was lower toward opponents in sport than other students at university. Finally, antisocial behavior was less likely toward teammates than other students. The sport–university difference in antisocial opponent/student behavior was fully mediated by moral judgment, whereas the difference in prosocial behavior was partially mediated by moral judgment. These findings reveal a more nuanced aspect to bracketed morality that considers in-group loyalty when understanding moral judgment and behavior in and outside of the sport context.     

Initial examination of a multidimensional model of trauma-related guilt: Applications to combat veterans and battered women

Guilt is conceptualized as a multidimensional construct consisting of negative affect and a set of interrelated cognitions. Guilt magnitude is thought to be a function of the magnitudes of six variables posited as primary components of guilt: a negative event, distress, perceptions of responsibility, lack of justification, wrongdoing, and false beliefs about preoutcome knowledge. The model was tested with samples of Vietnam veterans and battered women. Participants rated their reactions to and perceived roles in trauma-related events. Among Vietnam veterans, distress ratings were highly correlated with guilt severity. Cognitive guilt-component variables were significantly correlated with guilt in both groups. In multiple regression, guilt components accounted for 61% of variance in veterans' guilt and 44% of variance in women's guilt. Among veterans, distress ratings were highly correlated with measures of PTSD and depression. In both groups, cognitive guilt-component variables were positively correlated with psychopathology. Results support the view that beliefs about one's role in trauma are important factors in posttrauma adjustment.     

Believe in yourself: Manipulating beliefs about memory causes checking

One of the most common compulsions in obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) is repeated checking. Although individuals often report that they check to become more certain, checking has been shown to have the opposite effect – increased checking causes increased uncertainty. However, checking may also be thought of as beginning because of memory uncertainty. Beliefs about responsibility, over-estimation of threat, intolerance of uncertainty, perfectionism, and importance of and control of thoughts are already known to affect different aspects of OCD symptomatology. Beliefs about memory, however, are not currently considered to influence compulsive behaviour. In the current study, beliefs about memory were manipulated to test whether or not they affected urges to check. Ninety-one undergraduate participants received (positive or negative) false feedback about their performance on aspects of a standardized memory test, and then completed two additional memory tasks. Their urges to check following these tasks were assessed. Consistent with our hypotheses, individuals in the low memory confidence condition had greater urges to check following the memory tasks than those in the high memory confidence condition, demonstrating that manipulations of beliefs about memory can influence checking. Results and implications are discussed in terms of cognitive-behavioural models of and treatments for OCD.     

The who and whom of help giving: An attributional model integrating the help giver and the help recipient

In this article, we investigate the influence of responsibility, moral emotions, and empathy on help giving for stigmatized persons in need. Both characteristics of the recipient of help and the help giver are analyzed within a general theoretical framework. Based on an online study (N = 332), structural equation models confirm and extend an attributional explanation of help‐giving, based on a thinking‐feeling‐acting model. Conditions promoting help giving are identified: (i) A potential help giver who regards himself or herself as responsible for the recipient's misfortune is likely to experience guilt, regret, and shame, thus increasing the likelihood of help. (ii) A potential recipient of help who is regarded as being not responsible for his or her plight elicits sympathy and is thus more likely to receive help. In contrast, when the person in need is regarded as being responsible for his or her plight, anger and even schadenfreude are elicited, and likelihood of help giving decreases. (iii) Different aspects of empathy as a stable personal characteristic exert direct and indirect (i.e., emotionally mediated) effects on help giving. Using structural equation modeling, we outline an attributional model of helping conceptualizing helping behavior within an actor–observer system integrating a variety of moral emotions involved in help giving.     

Abstract

Although Aristotle did not mention it, integrity can be understood in an Aristotelian framework. Seeing it in these terms will show that it is an executive virtue which concerns the existential well being of an agent. This analysis is not offered as an exegesis of Aristotle's text, but as an attempt to use an Aristotelian framework to understand a virtue deemed important today. This account will have the benefit of solving some problems relating to motivational internalism and, as such, will contribute to that recent current of thought which has been highlighting the importance of virtue thinking in moral theory. I will distinguish moral judgement from decision and show that moral judgement is dependent upon virtue more strongly than it is upon impartial rationality. I will suggest that integrity is the virtue to which moral judgement gives expression and is the virtue which links judgement to decision so as to overcome akrasia.     

Empathy and values as predictors of care development

Juujärvi, S., Myyry, L. & Pesso, K. (2012). Empathy and values as predictors of care development. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 53, 413–420. This study investigates values and affective empathy as predictors for care‐based moral development. Fifty‐three students from a university of applied sciences were interviewed with Skoe’s Ethic of Care Interview at the beginning of their studies and two years later. Value priorities were measured by Schwartz et al.’s Portrait Value Questionnaire, empathy variables by Davis’ Interpersonal Reactivity Index, and feelings of sympathy were rated using a real‐life moral conflict. The results showed that students in care‐oriented fields progressed in care reasoning. Real‐life sympathy and the value of self‐direction positively predicted development in care reasoning, whereas personal distress was a negative predictor. The results indicate that care‐based moral development is more closely connected with affective empathy than personal values. Individuals who feel empathy for others, and who prefer independent thinking and action, achieve the greatest gains in care development. In conclusion, educators should encourage students’ empathy and moral reasoning in authentic moral conflicts.     

Harm concerns predict moral judgments of suicide: Comment on Rottman,Kelemen and Young (2014)

Two prominent theories offer different perspectives on the role of harm in moral cognition. Dyadic morality suggests that harm-related concerns are pervasive, whereas moral pluralism suggests that these concerns apply only to canonically harmful violations (e.g., murder), and not impure violations (e.g., suicide). Rottman et al. (2014) contrast these two theories by examining moral judgments of suicide. They conclude that suicide wrongness is independent of harm, therefore arguing against dyadic morality and for moral pluralism. However, these conclusions may be overstated; across all these studies, a meta-analysis reveals that harm is a significant predictor of suicide judgments. Moreover, the association between harm and suicide wrongness may be suppressed in individual studies by insufficient power, restrictive exclusion criteria, a single bivariate outlier, and reliance upon the conventional significance threshold of p < .05. In revised analyses harm is robustly associated with suicide wrongness, consistent with dyadic morality.     

Partner unsupportive responses, avoidant coping, and distress among women with early stage breast cancer: patient and partner perspectives.

This 18-month longitudinal study examined the associations among partner unsupportive behavior, avoidant coping, and distress experienced by 219 women with early stage breast cancer. The role of patient and partner ratings of unsupportive behavior were evaluated. Results indicated that patient and partner ratings of unsupportive behavior were highly correlated. Growth curve modeling suggested that unsupportive behavior, from both patient and partner perspectives, predicted more avoidant coping and distress. When partner and patient perceptions were placed in the same model, patient perceptions mediated the association between partners' ratings of their unsupportive behavior and patient distress. Avoidance also mediated the association between unsupportive behavior and distress, extending prior cross-sectional findings. Results highlight the long-term detrimental effects of partners' unsupportive behavior on the quality of life of women with early stage breast cancer.