Principled moral sentiment and the flexibility of moral judgment and decision making

Three studies test eight hypotheses about (1) how judgment differs between people who ascribe greater vs. less moral relevance to choices, (2) how moral judgment is subject to task constraints that shift evaluative focus (to moral rules vs. to consequences), and (3) how differences in the propensity to rely on intuitive reactions affect judgment. In Study 1, judgments were affected by rated agreement with moral rules proscribing harm, whether the dilemma under consideration made moral rules versus consequences of choice salient, and by thinking styles (intuitive vs. deliberative). In Studies 2 and 3, participants evaluated policy decisions to knowingly do harm to a resource to mitigate greater harm or to merely allow the greater harm to happen. When evaluated in isolation, approval for decisions to harm was affected by endorsement of moral rules and by thinking style. When both choices were evaluated simultaneously, total harm -- but not the do/allow distinction -- influenced rated approval. These studies suggest that moral rules play an important, but context-sensitive role in moral cognition, and offer an account of when emotional reactions to perceived moral violations receive less weight than consideration of costs and benefits in moral judgment and decision making.     

The consolidation/transition model in moral reasoning development

The consolidation/transition model conceptualizes development as entailing a cyclical pattern of alternating consolidation and transition phases and posits that stage advance is predicted by a specific distribution of reasoning across stages indicative of disequilibrium (more reasoning above than below the mode, with a high degree of mixture). The validity of this model was examined in the context of moral reasoning development with the use of standard statistical techniques as well as Bayesian techniques that can better account for classification error. In this longitudinal study. 64 children and adolescents participated in 5 annual administrations of the Moral Judgment Interview. The distribution of their reasoning across stages was used to predict subsequent development. The results support the hypotheses regarding cyclical patterns of change and predictors of stage transition and demonstrate the utility of Bayesian techniques for evaluating developmental change.     

决策与判断中的分解效应

分解效应是人类主观判断中的一种较稳固的行为偏差,并且判断结果会对随后的决策产生重要影响,因此,对该领域研究成果的全面梳理具有重要的理论意义和实际价值。本文主要介绍了支持理论中的分解效应,总结梳理了概率判断与时间判断中分解效应的研究,综述了其他社会判断中的分解效应研究成果,展望了决策与判断中的分解效应的未来研究方向。通过上述内容的阐述,希望能为该领域研究者提供新的思路,推动国内相关领域研究的发展。     

The relationship between indecisiveness and eye movement patterns in a decision making informational search task

Indecisiveness is a trait‐related general tendency to experience decision difficulties across a variety of situations, leading to decision delay, worry, and regret. Indecisiveness is proposed (Rassin, 2007) to be associated with an increase in desire for information acquisition and reliance on compensatory strategies—as evidenced by alternative‐based information search—during decision making. However existing studies provide conflicting findings. We conducted an information board study of indecisiveness, using eye tracking methodology, to test the hypotheses that the relationship between indecisiveness and choice strategy depends on being in the early stage of the decision making process, and that it depends on being in the presence of an opportunity to delay choice. We found strong evidence for the first hypothesis in that indecisive individuals changed shift behavior from the first to the second half of the task, consistent with a move from greater to lesser compensatory processing, while the shift behavior of decisive individuals suggested lesser compensatory processing over the whole task. Indecisiveness was also related to time spent viewing attributes of the selected course, and to time spent looking away from decision information. These findings resolve past discrepancies, suggest an interesting account of how the decision process unfolds for indecisive versus decisive individuals, and contribute to a better understanding of this tendency. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The difference between punishments and rewards in fostering moral concerns in social decision making

In social decision making, punishing non-cooperation and rewarding cooperation may not only affect cooperation because of instrumental reasons. They may also evoke moral concerns regarding cooperation as they signal that cooperation is socially approved of and non-cooperation socially disapproved of. I argue that punishments do this to a greater extent than rewards as punishments communicate an obligatory rule and rewards communicate a voluntary rule. Indeed, the first experiment shows that, in a social dilemma, the concept of punishment increased cooperation and the concept of a reward did not. The second experiment showed that participants showed more disapproval towards an offender when there was a punishment for non-compliance than when there was a reward for compliance. These findings suggest that punishing non-cooperation more strongly foster moral concerns regarding cooperation than rewarding cooperation. Possible implications for internalizations are discussed.     

Cognitive parallels between moral judgment and modal judgment

A central question in the study of moral psychology is how immediate intuition interacts with more thoughtful deliberation in the generation of moral judgments. The present study sheds additional light on this question by comparing adults’ judgments of moral permissibility with their judgments of physical possibility—a form of judgment that also involves the coordination of intuition and deliberation (Shtulman, Cognitive Development 24:293–309, 2009). Participants (N = 146) were asked to judge the permissibility of 16 extraordinary actions (e.g., Is it ever morally permissible for an 80-year-old woman to have sex with a 20-year-old man?) and the possibility of 16 extraordinary events (e.g., Will it ever be physically possible for humans to bring an extinct species back to life?). Their tendency to judge the extraordinary events as possible was predictive of their tendency to judge the extraordinary actions as permissible, even when controlling for disgust sensitivity. Moreover, participants’ justification and response latency patterns were correlated across domains. Taken together, these findings suggest that modal judgment and moral judgment may be linked by a common inference strategy, with some individuals focusing on why actions/events that do not occur cannot occur, and others focusing on how those same actions/events could occur.     

The role of emotion expectancies in adolescents' moral decision making

This study investigated the impact of emotion expectancies on adolescents’ moral decision making in hypothetical situations. The sample consisted of 160 participants from three different grade levels (mean age = 15.79 years, SD = 2.96). Participants were confronted with a set of scenarios that described various emotional outcomes of (im)moral actions and needed to decide what they would do if they were in the protagonist’s shoes. Findings demonstrate that emotion expectancies differentially influenced adolescents’ hypothetical decision making in antisocial versus prosocial behavioral contexts. Whereas negatively charged self-evaluative emotions over failing to act morally (e.g., guilt) were the strongest predictor for moral choice in antisocial behavioral contexts, positively charged self-evaluative emotions over acting morally (e.g., pride) most strongly predicted moral choice in prosocial contexts. Older adolescents paid greater attention to outcome-oriented emotions that make the decision to act morally less attractive (e.g., regret). Overall, the study suggests that emotion expectancies influence moral decision making in unique and meaningful ways.     

Gender bias and moral decision making: The moral orientations of justice and care

This study investigated gender related moral reasoning in student essays containing arguments on moral issues. Undergraduate students in a medical ethics course viewed two films on morally controversial issues. The students wrote brief essays about the films which were transcribed and numerically coded to conceal the author's gender from the evaluator. Using a coding scheme originated by Lyons, the evaluator classified each essay as a justice/right essay or a care/response essay or an equal response essay. Subsequently, calculations were made to determine the percentage of male authored essays that were justice/rights essays or care/response essays and the percentage of female authored essays that were justice/rights or care/response essays. The males (87.7%) tended to exhibit the justice/rights moral orientation, and the females (69.4%) exhibited the care/response moral orientation. Several different calculations were made to determine various degrees of gender related orientations also. The difference in orientation was highly statistically significant (p≤0.001). These data contribute to understanding moral orientation and development. Interpretations are given to explain some differences between the genders and help explain the traditional roles in society that males and females have played historically.     

Automatic and controlled components of judgment and decision making

The categorization of inductive reasoning into largely automatic processes (heuristic reasoning) and controlled analytical processes (rule-based reasoning) put forward by dual-process approaches of judgment under uncertainty (e.g., K. E. Stanovich & R. F. West, 2000) has been primarily a matter of assumption with a scarcity of direct empirical findings supporting it. The present authors use the process dissociation procedure (L. L. Jacoby, 1991) to provide convergent evidence validating a dual-process perspective to judgment under uncertainty based on the independent contributions of heuristic and rule-based reasoning. Process dissociations based on experimental manipulation of variables were derived from the most relevant theoretical properties typically used to contrast the two forms of reasoning. These include processing goals (Experiment 1), cognitive resources (Experiment 2), priming (Experiment 3), and formal training (Experiment 4); the results consistently support the author's perspective. They conclude that judgment under uncertainty is neither an automatic nor a controlled process but that it reflects both processes, with each making independent contributions.     

The relationship between stress, hemispheric preference and decision making among managers

Previous studies have shown important effects of stress on decision making (DM). In addition, individuals differ in their relative activation of the left and right hemispheres (hemispheric preference; HP), with possible implications for DM. This study tested the relationship between stress, HP and their interaction, with DM in managers. We included a sample of 114 managers from Israel, Italy and France. Stress was inversely and significantly related to DM thoroughness (r=-.333), left-HP (r=-.24) and was positively correlated with instinctiveness DM (r=.25; all p<.05). Importantly, a stress×HP interaction accounted for an additional and significant 9% of the variance in thoroughness, beyond their main effects, nationality and gender. In this interaction, only in right HP managers, but not in left HP managers, stress was inversely correlated with thoroughness. A stress×HP interaction was not found for instinctiveness. Theoretically, our results advise investigating both situational (stress) and personal or biological (HP) factors in the job stress field. Practically, it can guide stress specialists to whom to provide scarce counseling resources of stress management, to improve workers' DM and well-being.     

The relationship between stress,hemispheric preference and decision making among managers

Abstract

Previous studies have shown important effects of stress on decision making (DM). In addition, individuals differ in their relative activation of the left and right hemispheres (hemispheric preference; HP), with possible implications for DM. This study tested the relationship between stress, HP and their interaction, with DM in managers. We included a sample of 114 managers from Israel, Italy and France. Stress was inversely and significantly related to DM thoroughness (r=?.333), left-HP (r=?.24) and was positively correlated with instinctiveness DM (r=.25; all p<.05). Importantly, a stress×HP interaction accounted for an additional and significant 9% of the variance in thoroughness, beyond their main effects, nationality and gender. In this interaction, only in right HP managers, but not in left HP managers, stress was inversely correlated with thoroughness. A stress×HP interaction was not found for instinctiveness. Theoretically, our results advise investigating both situational (stress) and personal or biological (HP) factors in the job stress field. Practically, it can guide stress specialists to whom to provide scarce counseling resources of stress management, to improve workers’ DM and well-being.     

The role of moral commitments in moral judgment

Traditional approaches to moral psychology assumed that moral judgments resulted from the application of explicit commitments, such as those embodied in consequentialist or deontological philosophies. In contrast, recent work suggests that moral judgments often result from unconscious or emotional processes, with explicit commitments generated post hoc. This paper explores the intermediate position that moral commitments mediate moral judgments, but not through their explicit and consistent application in the course of judgment. An experiment with 336 participants finds that individuals vary in the extent to which their moral commitments are consequentialist or deontological, and that this variation is systematically but imperfectly related to the moral judgments elicited by trolley car problems. Consequentialist participants find action in trolley car scenarios more permissible than do deontologists, and only consequentialists moderate their judgments when scenarios that typically elicit different intuitions are presented side by side. The findings emphasize the need for a theory of moral reasoning that can accommodate both the associations and dissociations between moral commitments and moral judgments.     

Pushing moral buttons: The interaction between personal force and intention in moral judgment

In some cases people judge it morally acceptable to sacrifice one person’s life in order to save several other lives, while in other similar cases they make the opposite judgment. Researchers have identified two general factors that may explain this phenomenon at the stimulus level: (1) the agent’s intention (i.e. whether the harmful event is intended as a means or merely foreseen as a side-effect) and (2) whether the agent harms the victim in a manner that is relatively “direct” or “personal”. Here we integrate these two classes of findings. Two experiments examine a novel personalness/directness factor that we call personal force, present when the force that directly impacts the victim is generated by the agent’s muscles (e.g., in pushing). Experiments 1a and b demonstrate the influence of personal force on moral judgment, distinguishing it from physical contact and spatial proximity. Experiments 2a and b demonstrate an interaction between personal force and intention, whereby the effect of personal force depends entirely on intention. These studies also introduce a method for controlling for people’s real-world expectations in decisions involving potentially unrealistic hypothetical dilemmas.     

Motivated information processing in group judgment and decision making.

This article expands the view of groups as information processors into a motivated information processing in groups (MIP-G) model by emphasizing, first, the mixed-motive structure of many group tasks and, second, the idea that individuals engage in more or less deliberate information search and processing. The MIP-G model postulates that social motivation drives the kind of information group members attend to, encode, and retrieve and that epistemic motivation drives the degree to which new information is sought and attended to, encoded, and retrieved. Social motivation and epistemic motivation are expected to influence, alone and in combination, generating problem solutions, disseminating information, and negotiating joint decisions. The MIP-G model integrates the influence of many individual and situational differences and combines insight on human thinking with group-level interaction process and decision making.     

The role of moral utility in decision making: An interdisciplinary framework

What decisions should we make? Moral values, rules, and virtues provide standards for morally acceptable decisions, without prescribing how we should reach them. However, moral theories do assume that we are, at least in principle, capable of making the right decisions. Consequently, an empirical investigation of the methods and resources we use for making moral decisions becomes relevant. We consider theoretical parallels of economic decision theory and moral utilitarianism and suggest that moral decision making may tap into mechanisms and processes that have originally evolved for nonmoral decision making. For example, the computation of reward value occurs through the combination of probability and magnitude; similar computation might also be used for determining utilitarian moral value. Both nonmoral and moral decisions may resort to intuitions and heuristics. Learning mechanisms implicated in the assignment of reward value to stimuli, actions, and outcomes may also enable us to determine moral value and assign it to stimuli, actions, and outcomes. In conclusion, we suggest that moral capabilities can employ and benefit from a variety of nonmoral decision-making and learning mechanisms.     

Toward a methodology for moral decision making in medicine

The failure of medical codes to provide adequate guidance for physicians' moral dilemmas points to the fact that some rules of analysis, informed by moral theory, are needed to assist in resolving perplexing ethical problems occurring with increasing frequency as medical technology advances. Initially, deontological and teleological theories appear more helpful, but critcisms can be lodged against both, and neither proves to be sufficient in itself. This paper suggests that to elude the limitations of previous approaches, a method of moral decision making must be developed incorporating both coherence methodology and some independently supported theoretical foundations. Wide Reflective Equilibrium is offered, and its process described along with a theory of the person which is used to animate the process. Steps are outlined to be used in the process, leading to the application of the method to an actual case.     

The effects of physical contact and decision type on moral decision making: A study of harm to save moral behavior

This study examined the relationship between physical contact and decision type in predicting “harm to save” behavior. Participants were assigned to making either a judgment or a choice involving moral dilemmas. All participants were presented with dilemmas that either required or did not require having physical contact with potential victims. Participants were asked to decide whether to sacrifice fewer people to save more (utilitarian responses) or not to do so and thus more people would die (deontological responses). The study sample included 345 participants who completed a set of self‐report measures. Results indicated an interaction between physical contact and decision type. In the choice condition only, participants reported significantly less utilitarian responses to the dilemmas that required having physical contact with the person to be harmed than to dilemmas that did not require physical contact. This difference was not found in the judgment condition. These results contribute to a greater understanding of the nature and potential malleability of human morality.