Title |
The Importance of Moral Construal: Moral versus Non-Moral Construal Elicits Faster, More Extreme, Universal Evaluations of the Same Actions
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Published in |
PLOS ONE, November 2012
|
DOI | 10.1371/journal.pone.0048693 |
Pubmed ID | |
Authors |
Jay J. Van Bavel, Dominic J. Packer, Ingrid Johnsen Haas, William A. Cunningham |
Abstract |
Over the past decade, intuitionist models of morality have challenged the view that moral reasoning is the sole or even primary means by which moral judgments are made. Rather, intuitionist models posit that certain situations automatically elicit moral intuitions, which guide moral judgments. We present three experiments showing that evaluations are also susceptible to the influence of moral versus non-moral construal. We had participants make moral evaluations (rating whether actions were morally good or bad) or non-moral evaluations (rating whether actions were pragmatically or hedonically good or bad) of a wide variety of actions. As predicted, moral evaluations were faster, more extreme, and more strongly associated with universal prescriptions-the belief that absolutely nobody or everybody should engage in an action-than non-moral (pragmatic or hedonic) evaluations of the same actions. Further, we show that people are capable of flexibly shifting from moral to non-moral evaluations on a trial-by-trial basis. Taken together, these experiments provide evidence that moral versus non-moral construal has an important influence on evaluation and suggests that effects of construal are highly flexible. We discuss the implications of these experiments for models of moral judgment and decision-making. |
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Geographical breakdown
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United Kingdom | 2 | 5% |
Hong Kong | 1 | 3% |
Germany | 1 | 3% |
South Africa | 1 | 3% |
Netherlands | 1 | 3% |
Ireland | 1 | 3% |
Denmark | 1 | 3% |
Unknown | 11 | 30% |
Demographic breakdown
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Scientists | 10 | 27% |
Science communicators (journalists, bloggers, editors) | 2 | 5% |
Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals) | 2 | 5% |
Mendeley readers
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
United States | 3 | 2% |
United Kingdom | 2 | 1% |
South Africa | 2 | 1% |
France | 1 | <1% |
Ireland | 1 | <1% |
Netherlands | 1 | <1% |
Brazil | 1 | <1% |
Italy | 1 | <1% |
Spain | 1 | <1% |
Other | 3 | 2% |
Unknown | 139 | 90% |
Demographic breakdown
Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Student > Ph. D. Student | 45 | 29% |
Researcher | 22 | 14% |
Student > Master | 20 | 13% |
Student > Bachelor | 15 | 10% |
Student > Doctoral Student | 9 | 6% |
Other | 33 | 21% |
Unknown | 11 | 7% |
Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Psychology | 81 | 52% |
Social Sciences | 18 | 12% |
Business, Management and Accounting | 9 | 6% |
Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 5 | 3% |
Computer Science | 5 | 3% |
Other | 20 | 13% |
Unknown | 17 | 11% |