Decision conflict drives reaction times and utilitarian responses in sacrificial dilemmas
In the sacrificial moral dilemma task, participants have to morally judge an action that saves several lives at the cost of killing one person. According to the dual process corrective model of moral judgment suggested by Greene and collaborators (2001; 2004; 2008), cognitive control is necessary to...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Cambridge University Press
2019-09-01
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| Series: | Judgment and Decision Making |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S193029750000485X/type/journal_article |
| _version_ | 1797697883808464896 |
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| author | Alejandro Rosas Juan Pablo Bermúdez David Aguilar-Pardo |
| author_facet | Alejandro Rosas Juan Pablo Bermúdez David Aguilar-Pardo |
| author_sort | Alejandro Rosas |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | In the sacrificial moral dilemma task, participants have to morally judge an action that saves several lives at the cost of killing one person. According to the dual process corrective model of moral judgment suggested by Greene and collaborators (2001; 2004; 2008), cognitive control is necessary to override the intuitive, deontological force of the norm against killing and endorse the utilitarian perspective. However, a conflict model has been proposed more recently to account for part of the evidence in favor of dual process models in moral and social decision making. In this model, conflict, moral responses and reaction times arise from the interplay between individually variable motivational factors and objective parameters intrinsic to the choices offered. To further explore this model in the moral dilemma task, we confronted three different samples with a set of dilemmas representing an objective gradient of utilitarian pull, and collected data on moral judgment and on conflict in a 4-point scale. Collapsing all cases along the gradient, participants in each sample felt less conflicted on average when they gave extreme responses (1 or 4 in the UR scale). They felt less conflicted on average when responding to either the low- or the high-pull cases. The correlation between utilitarian responses and conflict was positive in the low-pull and negative in the high-pull cases. This pattern of data suggests that moral responses to sacrificial dilemmas are driven by decision conflict, which in turn depends on the interplay between an objective gradient of utilitarian pull and the moral motivations which regulate individual responsiveness to this gradient. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-12T03:46:23Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-4dd89c1117554d76b8ba7b97f9488155 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1930-2975 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-12T03:46:23Z |
| publishDate | 2019-09-01 |
| publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Judgment and Decision Making |
| spelling | doaj.art-4dd89c1117554d76b8ba7b97f94881552023-09-03T12:43:29ZengCambridge University PressJudgment and Decision Making1930-29752019-09-011455556410.1017/S193029750000485XDecision conflict drives reaction times and utilitarian responses in sacrificial dilemmasAlejandro Rosas0Juan Pablo Bermúdez1David Aguilar-Pardo2Department of Philosophy, Universidad Nacional de ColombiaPhilosophy Program, Faculty of Social and Human Sciences Universidad Externado de Colombia, Bogotá, ColombiaPsychology Program, Faculty of Psychology, Universidad Católica de ColombiaIn the sacrificial moral dilemma task, participants have to morally judge an action that saves several lives at the cost of killing one person. According to the dual process corrective model of moral judgment suggested by Greene and collaborators (2001; 2004; 2008), cognitive control is necessary to override the intuitive, deontological force of the norm against killing and endorse the utilitarian perspective. However, a conflict model has been proposed more recently to account for part of the evidence in favor of dual process models in moral and social decision making. In this model, conflict, moral responses and reaction times arise from the interplay between individually variable motivational factors and objective parameters intrinsic to the choices offered. To further explore this model in the moral dilemma task, we confronted three different samples with a set of dilemmas representing an objective gradient of utilitarian pull, and collected data on moral judgment and on conflict in a 4-point scale. Collapsing all cases along the gradient, participants in each sample felt less conflicted on average when they gave extreme responses (1 or 4 in the UR scale). They felt less conflicted on average when responding to either the low- or the high-pull cases. The correlation between utilitarian responses and conflict was positive in the low-pull and negative in the high-pull cases. This pattern of data suggests that moral responses to sacrificial dilemmas are driven by decision conflict, which in turn depends on the interplay between an objective gradient of utilitarian pull and the moral motivations which regulate individual responsiveness to this gradient.https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S193029750000485X/type/journal_articleconflictdecision conflictdeontologydual-processmoral dilemmasutilitarianism |
| spellingShingle | Alejandro Rosas Juan Pablo Bermúdez David Aguilar-Pardo Decision conflict drives reaction times and utilitarian responses in sacrificial dilemmas Judgment and Decision Making conflict decision conflict deontology dual-process moral dilemmas utilitarianism |
| title | Decision conflict drives reaction times and utilitarian responses in sacrificial dilemmas |
| title_full | Decision conflict drives reaction times and utilitarian responses in sacrificial dilemmas |
| title_fullStr | Decision conflict drives reaction times and utilitarian responses in sacrificial dilemmas |
| title_full_unstemmed | Decision conflict drives reaction times and utilitarian responses in sacrificial dilemmas |
| title_short | Decision conflict drives reaction times and utilitarian responses in sacrificial dilemmas |
| title_sort | decision conflict drives reaction times and utilitarian responses in sacrificial dilemmas |
| topic | conflict decision conflict deontology dual-process moral dilemmas utilitarianism |
| url | https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S193029750000485X/type/journal_article |
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