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.     

The relation of elementary-school children's externalizing behaviour to emotion attributions,evaluation of consequences,and moral reasoning

This study examined the relation of elementary-school children's externalizing behaviour to emotion attributions, evaluation of consequences, and moral reasoning. Externalizing behaviour was rated by the parents using the Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL/4 – 18). Moral development was assessed by three stories describing different types of rule violation and a moral conflict in friendship including obligations and self-interest. The children were asked about the emotions they would attribute to the hypothetical victimizer (or protagonist) and the self-as-victimizer (or protagonist), the evaluation of the interpersonal consequences of the rule violation (or action decision) as well as their justifications. Boys who made selfish action decisions and attributed positive emotions to the protagonist of the moral dilemma displayed more externalizing behaviour than girls. Furthermore, boys with consistent moral (negative) emotion attributions to the self-as-victimizer across the rule violations showed less externalizing behaviour than boys with inconsistent moral emotion attributions. Younger children who anticipated negative interpersonal consequences of transgressions displayed higher rates of externalizing behaviour than younger children who anticipated less negative consequences. Moral reasons in the context of emotion attributions to the self-as-victimizer were negatively associated with externalizing behaviour.     

Moral vs. non-moral attribution in adolescence: Environmental and behavioural correlates

According to the domain theory, moral rules are universal, not contingent on rules and authority, and are activated by avoiding harm to other people. Not all individuals, however, interpret moral events in terms of domain in a similar manner. The hypotheses of the present research were: (i) a high exposure to deviant context will affect the manner in which adolescents interpret moral events and their involvement in antisocial behaviour; (ii) the moral attribution style will directly affect involvement in antisocial behaviour and mediate the relationship between deviant context and antisocial behaviour. Four hundred fifty-three adolescents completed self-report questionnaires about their involvement in antisocial behaviours, their friends' involvement, and their exposure to community violence as a witness. Moral versus non-moral attribution (MNMA) was evaluated through a questionnaire consisting of hypothetical scenarios of moral violations followed by questions related to the above-mentioned criteria. Findings, obtained testing a model, were consistent with the hypotheses. Adolescents who live in violent contexts and attend deviant friends tend to interpret moral violation in terms of non-moral domains and are more engaged in antisocial behaviours. Results are discussed with respect to the literature about normativeness of deviance and its consequences.     

Validating the Media,Morals, and Youth Questionnaire (MMaYQue): A Scale to Assess Media Preference and Moral Judgement of Antisocial Media Content

The aim of this study was to test the psychometric quality of a scale to measure adolescents' preferences and moral judgements of media portraying antisocial, risky and norm-crossing behaviours, titled the Media, Morality, and Youth Questionnaire (MMaYQue). We applied confirmatory factor analyses with two independent samples of adolescents (N = 666 and 780). A model with method effects and two correlated constructs (i.e., media preferences and moral judgements), fitted the data best and measurement invariance was confirmed. In addition, the MMaYQue successfully discriminates between groups and significantly correlates with relevant personality traits and related measures, supporting good discriminant, convergent and criterion validity of the MMaYQue. Findings provide evidence for the validity and applicability of the MMaYQue in various research designs, including experiments, to incorporate media use in research regarding youth and adolescent development.     

Cognitive processing of moral and social judgements: A comparison of offenders,students, and control participants

Examining cognitive processes related to offenders’ moral and social judgements is important in order to better understand their criminal behaviour. In the present study, 30 offenders, 30 students, and 24 control participants were administered the moral-conventional judgements computer task, which requires responding under strict time constraints. Participants read scenarios and were asked to judge whether the act was acceptable or unacceptable when rules were either assumed or removed. Additionally, participants completed an executive function (EF) task in order to examine the relation between EF and moral and social judgements. The findings revealed that, as expected, controls and students had faster reaction times (RTs) and a higher percentage of normative judgements than offenders. Additionally, offenders had a low percentage of normative judgements, particularly in the conventional rule removed condition. Finally, RTs of moral and conventional judgements in most conditions were related to EF among students but not controls or offenders. We conclude that offenders, as compared to controls and students, may rely more on rule-oriented responding and may rely less on EF when making moral and social judgements.     

Religious factors in moral decision-making: Towards an integrated,socio-cultural,developmental, model

Abstract

For far too long, developmental approaches in the psychology of religion have paid insufficient attention to the richness and variety of social and cultural factors in human development and their relationship to religious belief, practice, belonging, identity, and world views, and often, related framing of spiritual questions, concerns, and disciplines. If scholars in the psychology of human development and psychology of religion have offered critical appraisals of the shortcomings of the neo-Piagetian, cognitive-developmental models that have dominated the scientific literature, and offered promising contributions and needed correctives to the omissions of cognitive-developmental approaches, the field is still in need of an integrated, socio-cultural developmental approach to human development and religious functioning. In this article we propose one way of moving toward a more integrated approach in these fields, with special attention to the advantages of such an effort in the study of religious elements in moral decision-making and moral development.     

Causal uncertainty and metacognitive inferences about goal attainment

These four studies investigated G. Weary and J. A. Edwards’ (1996) hypothesis that causal uncertainty feelings serve as input to perceivers regarding the adequacy of their causal knowledge and thus determine the amount of processing accorded a given task. Participants worked on a task until they had satisfied an assigned stop rule. In three experiments, high causally uncertain people processed more information under a sufficiency of information rule and less under an enjoyment rule, whereas low causally uncertain people generally did not differentiate between the rules. In the last experiment, low causally uncertain people exhibited a similar pattern to the chronic causally uncertain individuals in the first experiments, but only after their causal uncertainty beliefs and feelings had been primed.     

Moral emotions and the envisaging of mitigating circumstances for wrongdoing

Anger may be more responsive than disgust to mitigating circumstances in judgements of wrongdoing. We tested this hypothesis in two studies where we had participants envision circumstances that could serve to mitigate an otherwise wrongful act. In Study 1, participants provided moral judgements, and ratings of anger and disgust, to a number of transgressions involving either harm or bodily purity. They were then asked to imagine and report whether there might be any circumstances that would make it all right to perform the act. Across transgression type, and controlling for covariance between anger and disgust, levels of anger were found to negatively predict the envisioning of mitigating circumstances for wrongdoing, while disgust was unrelated. Study 2 replicated and extended these findings to less serious transgressions, using a continuous measure of mitigating circumstances, and demonstrated the impact of anger independent of deontological commitments. These findings highlight the differential relationship that anger and disgust have with the ability to envision mitigating factors.     

对康德的道德形而上学基础的追问及存在论意义上的超越

康德的道德哲学与其政治哲学是逻辑一致的,康德认为正义的优先性在于人先天的自由,而自由的主体坚持正义和遵从道德,则在于人的实践理性自身具有的善良意志,康德就这样通过自由、实践理性、善良意志等概念为道德奠定了基础。然而它仍然是先验的、空洞的,唯有从道德是人存在的方式这一存在论的根基处入手,才能理解道德并使其获得自身存在的坚实根基。     

Multiple moral foundations predict responses to sacrificial dilemmas

Moral dilemmas, by definition, demand trade-offs between competing moral goods (e.g., causing one harm to prevent another). Although moral dilemmas have served as a methodological pillar for moral psychology, surprisingly little research has explored how individual differences in moral values influence responses to dilemmatic trade-offs. In a cross-sectional study (N = 307), we tested competing claims regarding the relationship between the endorsement of foundational moral values and responses to sacrificial dilemmas, in which one judges the moral acceptability of causing fatal harm to one person to save multiple others. Inconsistent with Moral Dyad Theory, our results did not support the prediction that Harm concerns would be the unequivocally most important predictor of sacrifice endorsement. Consistent with Moral Foundations Theory, however, multiple moral values are predictive of sacrifice judgments: Harm and Purity negatively predict, and Ingroup positively predicts, endorsement of harmful action in service of saving lives, with Harm and Purity explaining similar amounts of unique variance. The present study demonstrates the utility of pluralistic accounts of morality, even in moral situations in which harm is central.