Moral judgment toward relationship betrayals and those who commit them

In three experimental studies (total N = 1,056), we examined moral judgments toward relationship betrayals, and how these judgments depended on whether characters and their actions were perceived to be pure and loyal compared to the level of harm caused. In Studies 1 and 2, the focus was on confessing a betrayal, whereas in Study 3, the focus was on the act of sexual infidelity. Perceptions of harm/care were inconsistently and less strongly associated with moral judgment toward the behavior or the character, relative to perceptions of purity and loyalty, which emerged as key predictors of moral judgment across all studies. Our findings demonstrate that a diversity of cognitive factors play a key role in the moral perception of relationship betrayals.     

Unraveling: Betrayal and the Loss of Goodness in the Analytic Relationship

Reacting to a general distrust of government and authority that many people are feeling these days, this paper follows some developments of trust and of its betrayal in both the normal and clinical situations. It suggests that many are profoundly anxious about betrayal and that adequate parenting helps us learn how to overcome inevitable betrayal traumas and continue without losing hope. It recalls Freud’s own feelings of betrayal when he learned that hysterics lie and later when Dora stopped treatment, and it suggests that these betrayals may have been one factor in his turn from the clinical to the theoretical. It discusses trust in the clinical situation through the lens of the Freud–Ferenczi controversy and with special emphasis on early trauma and the kind of setting that may be necessary for the reestablishment of basic trust.     

Does betrayal aversion really guide trust decisions towards strangers?

Trust is a double-edged sword. When warranted, it leads to positive and rewarding interactions. When not, it leads to disappointment and anger. Therefore, it has been argued that people will display “betrayal aversion” in trust situations (i.e., avoid trusting to avoid betrayal). Yet, people also feel tense and uneasy when they signal distrust to another person and thus show signs of “principled trustfulness” (i.e., choosing to trust others although being skeptical of their trustworthiness). These two theoretical orientations imply directly opposite influences on trust behavior. Thus, we conducted two laboratory studies (with a total of 841 participants) with binary trust games (implying a risk of being betrayed) and extended lottery games (implying no such risk). In both studies, we varied the payoff structures of both games. Further, we made sure that the average perceived likelihood of winning or losing money when choosing the risky option was identical in both games, as was the distribution of these likelihoods. Neither study showed any sign of betrayal aversion. Rather, participants were more willing to risk their money in the trust game than they were to invest their money in a lottery, supporting the principled trustfulness view. We discuss possible explanations why, unlike previous studies, we did not find any indication of betrayal aversion.     

The lure of choice

We report three studies demonstrating the ‘lure of choice’ people prefer options that allow them to take further choices over those that do not, even when the extra choices cannot improve the ultimate outcome. In Studies 1 and 2, participants chose between two options: one solitary item, and a pair of items between which they would then make a further choice. Consistent with the lure of choice, a given item was more likely to be the ultimate choice when it was initially part of a choice pair than when it was offered on its own. We also demonstrate the lure of choice in a four‐door version of the Monty Hall problem, in which participants could either stick with their original choice or switch to one of two unopened doors. Participants were more likely to switch if they could first ‘choose to choose’ between the two unopened doors (without immediately specifying which) than if they had to choose one door straightaway. We conclude by suggesting that the lure of choice is due to a choice heuristic that is very reliable in the natural world, but much less so in a world created by marketers. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Lax monitoring versus logical intuition: The determinants of confidence in conjunction fallacy

The general assumption that people fail to notice discrepancy between their answer and the normative answer in the conjunction fallacy task has been challenged by the theory of Logical Intuition. This theory suggests that people can detect the conflict between the heuristic and normative answers even if they do not always manage to inhibit their intuitive choice. This theory gained support from the finding that people report lower levels of confidence in their choice after they commit the conjunction fallacy compared to when their answer is not in conflict with logic. In four experiments we asked the participants to give probability estimations to the options of the conflict and no-conflict versions of the tasks in the original set-up of the experiment or in a three-option design. We found that participants perceive probabilities for the options of the conflict version less similar than for the no-conflict version. As people are less confident when choosing between more similar options, this similarity difference is proposed to serve as a mediator in the task in a way that the conflict and no-conflict conditions have their effects on confidence ratings through manipulating the similarity of the answer options.     

Eye Movements in Risky Choice

We asked participants to make simple risky choices while we recorded their eye movements. We built a complete statistical model of the eye movements and found very little systematic variation in eye movements over the time course of a choice or across the different choices. The only exceptions were finding more (of the same) eye movements when choice options were similar, and an emerging gaze bias in which people looked more at the gamble they ultimately chose. These findings are inconsistent with prospect theory, the priority heuristic, or decision field theory. However, the eye movements made during a choice have a large relationship with the final choice, and this is mostly independent from the contribution of the actual attribute values in the choice options. That is, eye movements tell us not just about the processing of attribute values but also are independently associated with choice. The pattern is simple—people choose the gamble they look at more often, independently of the actual numbers they see—and this pattern is simpler than predicted by decision field theory, decision by sampling, and the parallel constraint satisfaction model. © 2015 The Authors. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.     

Examining the role of moral foundations in promoting intergroup contact willingness

Improving people's motivation to seek meaningful intergroup contact is considered key to facilitating intergroup harmony. Based on moral foundations theory, this study examines how moral foundations as individual traits predict contact willingness with three minority groups (foreign domestic helpers, LGBT, and Chinese expats) and how moral emotions mediate such associations. We tested our hypotheses based on survey data across Hong Kong and Singapore. We found that care/harm foundation positively predicted contact willingness with foreign domestic helpers and LGBT people, mediated by compassion. Sanctity/degradation foundation negatively predicted contact willingness with LGBT people only in Singapore. Loyalty/betrayal foundation served as a positive predictor of willingness to contact Chinese expats. We also found care/harm foundation to be exclusively associated with compassion and promoted willingness to contact with helpers and LGBT people. Our findings highlight the influence of moral foundations, and possibly norms and intergroup dynamics at the societal level in predicting willingness to contact outgroups.     

Anger, disgust, and presumption of harm as reactions to taboo-breaking behaviors

Three experiments investigated the relationship between the presumption of harm in harmfree violations of creatural norms (taboos) and the moral emotions of anger and disgust. In Experiment 1, participants made a presumption of harm to others from taboo violations, even in conditions described as harmless and not involving other people; this presumption was predicted by anger and not disgust. Experiment 2 manipulated taboo violation and included a cognitive load task to clarify the post hoc nature of presumption of harm. Experiment 3 was similar but more accurately measured presumed harm. In Experiments 2 and 3, only without load was symbolic harm presumed, indicating its post hoc function to justify moral anger, which was not affected by load. In general, manipulations of harmfulness to others predicted moral anger better than moral disgust, whereas manipulations of taboo predicted disgust better. The presumption of harm was found on measures of symbolic rather than actual harm when a choice existed. These studies clarify understanding of the relationship between emotions and their justification when people consider victimless, offensive acts.     

Determinants of perceived choice,number of options,and perceived time in making a selection

An experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of number of choice options and perceived time taken to make a selection upon perceived choice. College students were asked to make a selection from a set of options which varied in numerosity; after making their selection, they were given information which varied their perception of time in making the selection. As predicted, perceived choice was found to be greater (1) the greater the number of options when a person perceived that he had taken a relatively short time; (2) if the selection involved a moderately large number of options than if it involved either a small or a very large number when a person perceived that he had taken a relatively long time; (3) the longer the time a person thought he had taken, except when the selection involved a very large number of options-in which case, perceived choice was greater the shorter the perceived time. The experiment also provided evidence about the relationship between perceived choice and perceived competence.     

How choice ecology influences search in decisions from experience

Research into human decision-making has often sidestepped the question of search despite its importance across a wide range of domains such as search for food, mates, allies, visual targets or information. Recently, research on decisions from experience has made progress in finding out how individual characteristics shape search for information. Surprisingly little is known, however, about how the properties of the choice ecology shape people's search. To fill this void, we analyzed how two key ecological properties influence search effort: domain of choice (gains vs. losses) and experienced variance (variance vs. no variance). Many people search longer when facing the prospect of losses relative to gains. Moreover, most people search more in options in which they experience variance relative to options they experience as invariant. We conclude that two factors that have been identified as important determinants of choice also influence search of information.     

Gun attitudes on campus: United and divided by safety needs

All people share a need for safety. Yet people’s pursuit of safety can conflict when it comes to guns, with some people perceiving guns as a means to safety and others perceiving guns as a threat to safety. We examined this conflict on a U.S. college campus that prohibits guns. We distinguished between people (N = 11,390) who (1) own a gun for protection, (2) own a gun exclusively for reasons other than protection (e.g., collecting, sports), and (3) do not own a gun. Protection owners felt less safe on campus and supported allowing guns on campus. They also reported that they and others would feel safer and that gun violence would decrease if they carried a gun on campus. Non-owners and non-protection owners felt the reverse. The findings suggest that protection concerns, rather than gun-ownership per se, account for diverging perceptions and attitudes about guns and gun control.     

Too good to be true? Psychological responses to uncommon options in risk–reward environments

Risks and rewards, or payoffs and probabilities, are inversely related in many choice environments. We investigated people's psychological responses to uncommon combinations of risk and reward that deviate from learned regularities (e.g., options that offer a high payoff with an unusually high probability) as they evaluated risky options. In two experiments (N = 183), participants first priced monetary gambles drawn from environments in which risks and rewards were negatively correlated, positively correlated, or uncorrelated. In later trials, they evaluated gambles with uncommon combinations of risk and reward—that is, options that deviated from the respective environment's risk–reward structure. Pricing, response times, and (in Experiment 2) pupil dilation were recorded. In both experiments, participants took more time when responding to uncommon compared to foreseeable options or when the same options were presented in an uncorrelated risk–reward environment. This result was most pronounced when the uncommon gambles offered higher expected values compared to the other gambles in the set. Moreover, these uncommon, high‐value options were associated with an increase in pupil size. These results suggest that people's evaluations of risky options are based not only on the options' payoffs and probabilities but also on the extent to which they fit the risk–reward structure of the environment.     

Choice-Process Satisfaction: The Influence of Attribute Alignability and Option Limitation

This research investigates how choice-process satisfaction is influenced by limitation of choice option and by the types of features used to represent the options. Studies of choice satisfaction have focused on how satisfied the decision maker feels about the choice that has been made and have overlooked the importance of the process through which the decision maker makes a choice, i.e., choice-process satisfaction. We show that the comparability of choice options through alignable features increases choice-process satisfaction, whereas option limitation (i.e., making one option unavailable from a set of equally attractive options) decreases choice-process satisfaction. Further, this decrease in satisfaction, relative to all options being available, occurs for people who are given a set of options in which the difference features are alignable (i.e., differences of a corresponding dimension) but not for people who are given a set of options in which the difference features are nonalignable (i.e., differences of unique dimensions). We propose that alignable differences are easier to compare and have more weight in people's attribute processing, and thus give rise to a perception of a greater amount of information about the option set that is relevant for choice. Making an option unavailable in this case would have a bigger impact than in a situation in which all options have nonalignable differences. Nonalignable differences are difficult to process and are less likely to make people aware that there is very much information about the options for decision making. This explanation and the interaction effect between option limitation and feature alignability are tested in four experiments.     

Priming family values: How being a parent affects moral evaluations of harmless but offensive acts

In modern liberal societies people are generally reluctant to morally condemn acts that they find personally distasteful so long as those acts are not harmful or unfair to others. However, in providing character education for their children, parents often have to censure harmless but offensive acts. Thus, we hypothesize that the parental role broadens the scope of morality beyond narrow considerations of harm and fairness. To test this idea we asked parents and nonparents to morally evaluate harmless/offensive acts and a control harmful act. We manipulated whether the parental role was primed before they evaluated these acts. Parents and nonparents did not differ in their moral objections to the control act regardless of parental role priming. However, when the parental role was primed parents were more morally opposed to harmless but offensive acts than were nonparents. We discuss the implications of these results for understanding the dynamics of moral judgment and the recruitment of parents into moral reform movements.     

Betrayal: A psychological analysis

Betrayal is the sense of being harmed by the intentional actions or omissions of a trusted person. The most common forms of betrayal are harmful disclosures of confidential information, disloyalty, infidelity, dishonesty. They can be traumatic and cause considerable distress. The effects of betrayal include shock, loss and grief, morbid pre-occupation, damaged self-esteem, self-doubting, anger. Not infrequently they produce life-altering changes. The effects of a catastrophic betrayal are most relevant for anxiety disorders, and OC D and PTSD in particular.Betrayal can cause mental contamination, and the betrayer commonly becomes a source of contamination. In a series of experiments it was demonstrated that feelings of mental contamination can be aroused by imagining unacceptable non-consensual acts. The magnitude of the mental contamination was boosted by the introduction of betrayal themes. Feelings of mental contamination can also be aroused in some ‘perpetrators’ of non-consensual acts involving betrayal. The psychological significance of acts of betrayal is discussed.     

Regarding a Risk‐Pooling System of compensation

In this paper, I propose and defend a distinct and novel approach to compensation for risk impositions. I call it the Risk‐Pooling System of compensation. This system suggests that when X performs an action that imposes a risk of harm to Y, then X is liable to Y, and is therefore obliged to make an ex ante compensation that is roughly equivalent to the expected cost of potential harm to a social‐ risk pool. If and when Y suffers harm as a result of the risk imposed by X, they then receive an ex post compensation roughly equivalent to the cost of actual harm suffered. This system of compensation creates a social buffer between the risk imposer – the one who has the duty to pay compensation into the pool – and the victim – the one who has the right to receive compensation from the social pool. I contend that the Risk‐Pooling System is an improvement over its alternatives due to its capacity to produce the best social utilities, particularly, in terms of reducing information costs, obtaining optimal deterrence in the society and creating incentives for people to be engaged in social activities.     

Understanding choice utterances

When individuals offer choices, they intend them to be mandatory (requiring action) or permissive (not requiring action), and they intend them to be open (allowing the choice of both options) or closed (not allowing the choice of both options). In two studies subjects were presented with sets of syntactically equivalent disjunctive sentences with varying content designed to represent four patterns of permitted choice. The research indicates that individuals distinguish four distinct uses of “or” in deontic contexts, and that individuals more often judge choices as mandatory than permissive. The research also compared responses to questions about choice giver intent and receiver choice. The data indicate that when judging intent, individuals are inclined to understand some choices to be permissive. However, when judging what action they might take as choice receiver, subjects tend to regard action to be mandatory. It appears that although people have some facility in assessing a permission giver's intent, they often apply a more restrictive rule to themselves than is required by the choice giver.     

The case of the drunken sailor: On the generalisable wrongness of harmful transgressions

There is a widespread conviction that people distinguish two kinds of acts: on the one hand, acts that are generalisably wrong because they go against universal principles of harm, justice, or rights; on the other hand, acts that are variably right or wrong depending on the social context. In this paper we criticise existing methods that measure generalisability. We report new findings indicating that a modification of generalisability measures is in order. We discuss our findings in light of recent criticisms of moral/conventional research.