Deontologists are not always trusted over utilitarians: revisiting inferences of trustworthiness from moral judgments
Abstract Recent research has looked at how people infer the moral character of others based on how they resolve sacrificial moral dilemmas. Previous studies provide consistent evidence for the prediction that those who endorse outcome-maximizing, utilitarian judgments are disfavored in social dilemm...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Nature Portfolio
2023-01-01
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| Series: | Scientific Reports |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-27943-3 |
| _version_ | 1811171718307250176 |
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| author | Dries H. Bostyn Subramanya Prasad Chandrashekar Arne Roets |
| author_facet | Dries H. Bostyn Subramanya Prasad Chandrashekar Arne Roets |
| author_sort | Dries H. Bostyn |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract Recent research has looked at how people infer the moral character of others based on how they resolve sacrificial moral dilemmas. Previous studies provide consistent evidence for the prediction that those who endorse outcome-maximizing, utilitarian judgments are disfavored in social dilemmas and are seen as less trustworthy in comparison to those who support harm-rejecting deontological judgments. However, research investigating this topic has studied a limited set of sacrificial dilemmas and did not test to what extent these effects might be moderated by specific features of the situation described in the sacrificial dilemma (for instance, whether the dilemma involves mortal or non-mortal harm). In the current manuscript, we assessed the robustness of previous findings by exploring how trust inference of utilitarian and deontological decision makers is moderated by five different contextual factors (such as whether the sacrificial harm is accomplished by an action or inaction), as well as by participants’ own moral preferences. While we find some evidence that trust perceptions of others are moderated by dilemma features, we find a much stronger effect of participants’ own moral preference: deontologists favored other deontologists and utilitarians favored utilitarians. Protocol registration The stage 1 protocol for this Registered Report was accepted in principle on 21 September 2022. The protocol, as accepted by the journal, can be found at: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.21325953 . |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-10T17:18:40Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-ba55351a222347a7866e61457cc77423 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2045-2322 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-10T17:18:40Z |
| publishDate | 2023-01-01 |
| publisher | Nature Portfolio |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Scientific Reports |
| spelling | doaj.art-ba55351a222347a7866e61457cc774232023-02-05T12:13:59ZengNature PortfolioScientific Reports2045-23222023-01-0113111310.1038/s41598-023-27943-3Deontologists are not always trusted over utilitarians: revisiting inferences of trustworthiness from moral judgmentsDries H. Bostyn0Subramanya Prasad Chandrashekar1Arne Roets2Department of Developmental, Personality, and Social Psychology, Ghent UniversityDepartment of Psychology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)Department of Developmental, Personality, and Social Psychology, Ghent UniversityAbstract Recent research has looked at how people infer the moral character of others based on how they resolve sacrificial moral dilemmas. Previous studies provide consistent evidence for the prediction that those who endorse outcome-maximizing, utilitarian judgments are disfavored in social dilemmas and are seen as less trustworthy in comparison to those who support harm-rejecting deontological judgments. However, research investigating this topic has studied a limited set of sacrificial dilemmas and did not test to what extent these effects might be moderated by specific features of the situation described in the sacrificial dilemma (for instance, whether the dilemma involves mortal or non-mortal harm). In the current manuscript, we assessed the robustness of previous findings by exploring how trust inference of utilitarian and deontological decision makers is moderated by five different contextual factors (such as whether the sacrificial harm is accomplished by an action or inaction), as well as by participants’ own moral preferences. While we find some evidence that trust perceptions of others are moderated by dilemma features, we find a much stronger effect of participants’ own moral preference: deontologists favored other deontologists and utilitarians favored utilitarians. Protocol registration The stage 1 protocol for this Registered Report was accepted in principle on 21 September 2022. The protocol, as accepted by the journal, can be found at: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.21325953 .https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-27943-3 |
| spellingShingle | Dries H. Bostyn Subramanya Prasad Chandrashekar Arne Roets Deontologists are not always trusted over utilitarians: revisiting inferences of trustworthiness from moral judgments Scientific Reports |
| title | Deontologists are not always trusted over utilitarians: revisiting inferences of trustworthiness from moral judgments |
| title_full | Deontologists are not always trusted over utilitarians: revisiting inferences of trustworthiness from moral judgments |
| title_fullStr | Deontologists are not always trusted over utilitarians: revisiting inferences of trustworthiness from moral judgments |
| title_full_unstemmed | Deontologists are not always trusted over utilitarians: revisiting inferences of trustworthiness from moral judgments |
| title_short | Deontologists are not always trusted over utilitarians: revisiting inferences of trustworthiness from moral judgments |
| title_sort | deontologists are not always trusted over utilitarians revisiting inferences of trustworthiness from moral judgments |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-27943-3 |
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