Moral Values Reveal the Causality Implicit in Verb Meaning

Prior work has found that moral values that build and bind groups—that is, the binding values of ingroup loyalty, respect for authority, and preservation of purity—are linked to blaming people who have been harmed. The present research investigated whether people's endorsement of binding values predicts their assignment of the causal locus of harmful events to the victims of the events. We used an implicit causality task from psycholinguistics in which participants read a sentence in the form “SUBJECT verbed OBJECT because…” where male and female proper names occupy the SUBJECT and OBJECT position. The participants were asked to predict the pronoun that follows “because”—the referent to the subject or object—which indicates their intuition about the likely cause of the event. We also collected explicit judgments of causal contributions and measured participants' moral values to investigate the relationship between moral values and the causal interpretation of events. Using two verb sets and two independent replications (N = 459, 249, 788), we found that greater endorsement of binding values was associated with a higher likelihood of selecting the object as the cause for harmful events in the implicit causality task, a result consistent with, and supportive of, previous moral psychological work on victim blaming. Endorsement of binding values also predicted explicit causal attributions to victims. Overall, these findings indicate that moral values that support the group rather than the individual reliably predict that people shift the causal locus of harmful events to those affected by the harms.     

Discouraging unethicality versus encouraging ethicality: Unraveling the differential effects of prevention‐ and promotion‐focused ethical leadership

Theory on the impact of ethical leadership has traditionally been based on a deontological approach to morality. Underlying this perspective is the assumption that all leader behaviors that encourage “normatively appropriate conduct” will influence followers in a similar fashion. Put differently, the current consensus seems to suggest that actions that focus on preventing unethical behavior—attending to “the wrong”—will have the same impact as actions that focus on promoting ethical behavior—attending to “the right.” Taking a within‐person approach, we draw upon social exchange theory to challenge this consensus and build theory that suggests a follower's felt trust from their leader will be differentially impacted by prevention‐ versus promotion‐focused ethical leadership. We also explore how these different types of ethical leadership may indirectly, through felt trust, impact citizenship behavior and counterproductive work behavior. Finally, we consider how the role of the “moral manager” may interact with the “moral person” by identifying leader moral hypocrisy as an important between‐person moderator of these effects. Given the importance of ethical decision‐making in organizations and the calls for increased ethical leadership, our findings have important implications for both theory and practice.     

道德文本阅读中预期推理的许可效应的眼动研究

元分析表明道德许可效应具有一定的普遍性。为了直接检验这种效应作为认知偏差是否影响道德信息预期推理,本研究结合眼动追踪技术,比较了高/低善良被试在启动积极道德自我前后,阅读道德主题故事结果句的差异。阅读速度的眼动指标表明,启动主效应显著,积极道德结果的预期显著减弱,消极道德结果的预期显著增强,而且善良特质不能抑制这些倾向。这表明启动积极道德自我,会导致道德材料阅读加工速度产生许可效应。     

Perceptions of Religious Hypocrisy: When Moral Claims Exceed Moral Action

In this study, we investigated perceptions of hypocrisy among Christian and non-Christian individuals. Specifically, participants (N = 121) were asked to evaluate people of different religious orientations in terms of perceptions of both claimed morality, actual behavior, and general hypocrisy. Across all designations, perceptions of moral hypocrisy were determined to be greater to the extent that moral claims exceeded actual behavior. Among non-Christian participants, perceptions of hypocrisy were highest with respect to “devout” and “evangelical” Christian targets. In contrast, among Christian participants, the highest ratings of hypocrisy were reserved for “casual” Christians (i.e., Christians who do not incorporate their faith into their daily life). Our findings have both theoretical implications regarding the nature of religious hypocrisy perceptions, as well as real-world implications for understanding inter-faith perceptions and interactions.     

Cheating among children: Temptation,loss framing,and previous cheating

Although early economic approaches to misbehavior merely compare the monetary utility of accessible options, self-concept maintenance models introduce moral considerations to the equation. These assume that people trade off possible gains to be made from moral transgressions with associated decreases in self-esteem. On the basis of the assumption that the development of moral values among children is weaker than in adults, we expected children's behavior to be close to that of the hypothetical homo economicus, with their decisions as to whether to cheat therefore being influenced by decision theory elements: normative elements such as temptation magnitude, and behavioral elements such as framing. As children should pay no heed to moral considerations in dynamic multiple task settings, behavior opposite to “moral cleansing” was expected, with a first lie predicting later lies. In addition to testing the above ideas, the present study adopted a novel methodology. Our hypotheses were tested in a lab-in-the-field study using a modified “roll a die” method in a naturalistic setting for children of ages 7 to 10. We modified the method to identify both true and declared values of die rolls (a novel DICE+ electronic die was used). As expected, children were sensitive to temptation and cheated more willingly for more attractive prizes. Girls (but not boys) lied more (in terms of both frequency and magnitude) to avoid losses (with loss framing) than to make gains (with gain framing). Previous lying correlated positively with lying on subsequent tasks.     

Cognition in moral space: A minimal model

We describe moral cognition as a process occurring in a distinctive cognitive space, wherein moral relationships are defined along several morally relevant dimensions. After identifying candidate dimensions, we show how moral judgments can emerge in this space directly from object perception, without any appeal to moral rules or abstract values. Our reductive “minimal model” (Batterman & Rice, 2014) elaborates Beal’s (2020) claim that moral cognition is determined, at the most basic level, by “ontological frames” defining subjects, objects, and the proper relation between them. We expand this claim into a set of formal hypotheses that predict moral judgments based on how objects are “framed” in the relevant dimensions of “moral space.”     

Values and Antisocial Behavior Among Spanish Adolescents

A number of studies have indicated that delinquent adolescents have characteristic value systems. However, most of these studies have adopted a “known-groups” design—that is, they have compared institutionalized delinquents and non-institutionalized adolescents, assuming those adolescents to be non-delinquent. Designs of this type do not distinguish effectively between the statistical effects of delinquency and of institutionalization. In this study, the authors investigated relationships between values and self-reported antisocial behavior in three adolescent groups: 435 school-attending boys, 529 school-attending girls, and 95 delinquent boys in juvenile rehabilitation centers or prisons. The results indicate that antisocial behavior is associated with hedonistic values and a lack of interest in conventional values and social values. These relationships cannot be explained by the institutionalization effects.     

Common and Personal Values in Moral Education

It is arguable that beneath the fast and loose surface of recent official and/or semi-official documentation devoted to advice and guidance on moral education, there lurks systematic error about the bases of moral authority - turning upon a distinction between common and personal values. In what follows, it is claimed that the heart of this error lies in mistaking a logical distinction between different levels of moral evaluation for a statistical distinction concerned more with the distribution of moral values. To the extent that common value is identified with ideas of consensus or agreement, and personal value with values clarification and personal search, it seems that no coherent or viable conception of moral reason could possibly be constructed on the basis of currently available official guidance.     

Conceptualizations of Fair Play: A Factorial Survey Study of Moral Judgments by Badminton Players

There is much discussion in sports on whether certain behavior should be considered Fair Play. This moral judgment on Fair Play is influenced by the conceptualization of the term Fair Play as either “respect for the rules” or “respect for the spirit of the game,” as well as by other determinants. To uncover the moral judgment of athletes and which conceptualization of Fair Play dominates in practice, a factorial survey approach is used. The act and the level of the match played a role in the judgment, as well as the gender of the athlete. Our results showed that both conceptualizations “respect for the rules” and “respect for the spirit of the game” were important in this judgment, with the spirit conceptualization being more dominant.     

Neopragmatic Thought and Counseling Values: Reconsidering the Role of Values in Counseling From an Alternative Epistemological Foundation

The history of Western philosophical thought has been dominated by the search for transcendent truth. As a consequence of this history, various epistemological dualisms (such as fact/value and appearance/reality) have come to structure modes of inquiry. Reliance on such dualisms has resulted in a degradation of values discourse, which, along with other “soft” forms of inquiry, is often viewed as epistemologically inferior to the “hard” sciences. However, particularly within the last century, philosophers have proposed compelling challenges to these dualisms, which, in turn, have massive implications for values discourse. These challenges are overviewed, and implications for values discourse within the counseling profession are discussed.     

Motives and Values to Achieve: Different Constructs With Different Effects

ABSTRACT Motives to achieve and values associated with achievement were conceptualized as distinct and independent personality constructs, one nonconscious, the other conscious, each predictive of a different type of achievement-related behavior It was hypothesized that (a) motive and value measures would be uncorrelated, (b) motives would predict “operant” or spontaneous behaviors while values would predict “respondent” or stimulus-driven behaviors, and (c) motives and values would interact such that subjects with high values relating to achievement would perform better than those with low values, but only when their motives were also high Hypotheses (a) and (b) were strongly supported m two studies, and Hypothesis (c) was supported in Study 2 In that study, the motive for achievement was a particularly strong predictor of operant math performance among those subjects who valued achievement as opposed to affiliation The findings suggest that nonconscious (motive) and conscious (value) measures are both useful in different cases–the former for predicting “real” (doing) activity, the latter for predicting self-report (thinking) responses Questions concerning how motives and values might combine to predict different kinds of behavior are addressed     

“Internally Wicked”: Investigating How and Why Essentialism Influences Punitiveness and Moral Condemnation

Kant argued that individuals should be punished “proportional to their internal wickedness,” and recent work has demonstrated that essentialism—the notion that observable characteristics reflect internal, biological, unchanging “essences”—influences moral judgment. However, these efforts have yielded conflicting results: essentialism sometimes increases and sometimes decreases moral condemnation. To resolve these discrepancies, we investigated the mechanisms by which essentialism influences moral judgment, focusing on perceptions of actors’ control over their behavior, the target of essentialism (particular behaviors vs. actors’ character), and the component of essentialism (biology vs. immutability). Participants punished people described as having a criminal essence more than those with a non-criminal essence or no essence. Probing potential mechanisms underlying this effect, we found a mediating role for perceptions of control and weak influences of essentialism focus (behavior vs. character) and component of essentialism (biology vs. immutability). These results extend prior work on essentialism and moral cognition, demonstrating a causal link between perceptions of “internal wickedness” and moral judgment. Our findings also resolve discrepancies in past work on the influence of essentialism on moral judgment, highlighting the role that perceptions of actors’ control over their behavior play in moral condemnation.     

Moral prototypes and moral behavior: Specific effects on emotional precursors of moral behavior and on moral behavior by the activation of moral prototypes

The present studies investigated the extent to which three basic moral prototypes, “just,” “brave”, and “caring”, are related to moral, prosocial behavior. In five studies, we tested (a) whether people would associate three basic types of moral behavior (helping behavior, moral courage, and heroism) with three moral prototypes, and (b) whether specific emotional precursors of moral behavior and moral behavior itself could be promoted by activating the respective moral prototype. As expected, Studies 1–3 revealed that people associated helping behavior with the caring prototype, moral courage with the just prototype, and heroism with the brave prototype. Studies 4 and 5 showed that the activation of the three prototypes differentially influenced emotional precursors of the three types of moral behavior (Study 4) as well as actual moral behavior (Study 5). Thus, the five studies revealed that people associate different moral behaviors with different moral prototypes and that a certain moral behavior can be activated by the priming of the related prototype. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

When Values and Behavior Conflict: Moral Pluralism and Intrapersonal Moral Hypocrisy

The authors review the various ways moral hypocrisy has been defined and operationalized by social psychologists, concentrating on three general types: moral duplicity, moral double standards, and moral weakness. While most approaches have treated moral hypocrisy as an interpersonal phenomenon, requiring public claims, preaching (versus practicing), or judgments of others (versus oneself), this paper also considers intrapersonal moral hypocrisy – that is, conflicts between values and behavior that may exist even in the absence of public pronouncements or judgments. Current attempts to understand and combat intrapersonal moral hypocrisy are aided by moral pluralism, the idea that there are many different moral values, which may come into conflict both between and within individuals. Examples are given to illustrate how taking into account individual differences in values can help to reduce moral hypocrisy. The authors close by considering the possibility that in a pluralistic world, reducing intrapersonal moral hypocrisy might not always be a normatively desired end goal.     

数量对时间知觉的影响-来自抽象数量和实际数量的证据

本研究采用抽象数量和实际数量叠加的方式呈现刺激,进一步探讨数量对时间知觉的影响。两个实验都运用时间的系列比较任务,以抽象数量和实际数量这两种数量的一致和不一致为条件,将阿拉伯数字和其字体大小叠加及阿拉伯数字和其呈现个数叠加的方式系列呈现在屏幕中央,要求被试比较判断刺激呈现的时间长短。结果显示被试均依靠实际数量的大小判断时间长短,而似乎忽略了抽象数量的存在。这一结果表明实际数量对时间知觉的影响要比抽象数量大,支持并扩展了数量理论。     

Music is What Feelings Sound Like: The Role of Tonal and Atonal Music in Unethical Behavior

Governments and societies often have condemned music as being “indecent” and encouraging people to act unethically. Despite these accusations, research did not previously address the link between music and unethical acts. Here we argue that music may signal what is appropriate or inappropriate, hence moral behavior. We focus on the distinction between tonal and atonal music to examine the relation of music with unethical behavior. Results from an experimental study showed that harmonic or tonal music encouraged unethical behavior in adolescents and this was mediated by negative affect. Our findings suggest that music plays an integral role in driving (im)moral behavior.     

Vilification and Values

Social values are an important foundation of political attitudes, yet political controversies often embody conflicts between values, placing the citizen in an awkward position of having to prioritize competing values. One strategy is to consider the groups that are symbolically associated with the competing values. Groups held in high esteem will enhance associated values; groups held in disregard will diminish associated values. Persuasive communicators exploit this process by assailing groups that have been publicly associated with certain issue positions or values as “extreme” or “radical.” Even if the group represents a consensus value like equal opportunity, the extremist label suggests the group's agenda embodies an excessive and uncompromising imposition of this value. This article reports on four experiments that investigated how the extremist label can undermine support for a group's position. We further examine how reputation affects judgments of value priorities.     

AN EVALUATION OF THREE “ALTERNATIVE” SELECTION PROCEDURES1

A content-oriented strategy was used to develop three “alternative” selection inventories designed to reflect the content domain of positions held by attorneys employed with a large federal agency. These inventories and three “traditional” inventories were completed by 329 of the agency attorneys as part of a concurrent validation study. Criterion-related validities of two of the “traditional” inventories (a Background Inventory and an Interest and Opinion Inventory) and one of the alternative inventories (an “Accomplishment Record”_SM Inventory were shown to be both statistically and practically significant. The special features and advantages of the “Accomplishment Record” Inventory as an alternative selection procedure are discussed.     

Should Engineering Ethics be Taught?

Should engineering ethics be taught? Despite the obvious truism that we all want our students to be moral engineers who practice virtuous professional behavior, I argue, in this article that the question itself obscures several ambiguities that prompt preliminary resolution. Upon clarification of these ambiguities, and an attempt to delineate key issues that make the question a philosophically interesting one, I conclude that engineering ethics not only should not, but cannot, be taught if we understand “teaching engineering ethics” to mean training engineers to be moral individuals (as some advocates seem to have proposed). However, I also conclude that there is a justification to teaching engineering ethics, insofar as we are able to clearly identify the most desirable and efficacious pedagogical approach to the subject area, which I propose to be a case study-based format that utilizes the principle of human cognitive pattern recognition.     

Engineering Codes of Ethics and the Duty to Set a Moral Precedent

Each of the major engineering societies has its own code of ethics. Seven “common core” clauses and several code-specific clauses can be identified. The paper articulates objections to and rationales for two clauses that raise controversy: do engineers have a duty (a) to provide pro bono services and/or speak out on major issues, and (b) to associate only with reputable individuals and organizations? This latter “association clause” can be justified by the “proclamative principle,” an alternative to Kant’s universalizability requirement. At the heart of engineering codes of ethics, and implicit in what it is to be a moral agent, the “proclamative principle” asserts that one’s life should proclaim one’s moral stances (one’s values, principles, perceptions, etc.). More specifically, it directs engineers to strive to insure that their actions, thoughts, and relationships be fit to offer to their communities as part of the body of moral precedents for how to be an engineer. Understanding codes of ethics as reflections of this principle casts light both on how to apply the codes and on the distinction between private and professional morality.