Intuitive Probabilities and the Limitation of Moral Imagination

There is a vast literature that seeks to uncover features underlying moral judgment by eliciting reactions to hypothetical scenarios such as trolley problems. These thought experiments assume that participants accept the outcomes stipulated in the scenarios. Across seven studies (N = 968), we demonstrate that intuition overrides stipulated outcomes even when participants are explicitly told that an action will result in a particular outcome. Participants instead substitute their own estimates of the probability of outcomes for stipulated outcomes, and these probability estimates in turn influence moral judgments. Our findings demonstrate that intuitive likelihoods are one critical factor in moral judgment, one that is not suspended even in moral dilemmas that explicitly stipulate outcomes. Features thought to underlie moral reasoning, such as intention, may operate, in part, by affecting the intuitive likelihood of outcomes, and, problematically, moral differences between scenarios may be confounded with non‐moral intuitive probabilities.     

A self-paced programmed undergraduate course in the experimental analysis of behavior

A method of programming a variety of assignments in a course was described. The instructions to students, the course assignments, and the grading system were presented in detail. The rate at which students performed the activities was examined. Different students began working at different times during the semester, but once a student began to complete assignments he continued to work at a rate comparable to all other students. No students stopped working after once beginning to work. The majority of the students liked the course despite being overworked. Several changes in the method were suggested based on the data from this course.     

Ambulatory characteristics of the visually disabled

Ground-reaction force patterns were examined in three groups: sighted, blindfolded, and blind. Fifteen subjects, aged 19 to 41, participated in the study. Ten walking trials were collected over a 5-meter distance. The data were analyzed by normalization for body weight, extraction of specific ground-reaction force parameters through force-time curve analysis routines, and averaging across the ten trials for each subject. Results of a one-way analysis of variance indicated that there were no significant differences when force patterns were analyzed in terms of mediolateral and vertical ground-reaction force components. Blind subjects were shown to have significantly greater (p < 0.05) maximum braking and propelling forces.