Over the past decade, moral judgments and their underlying decision processes have more frequently been considered from a dynamic and multi-factorial perspective rather than a binary approach (e.g., dual-system processes). The agent's intent and his or her causal role in the outcome-as well as the outcome importance-are key psychological factors that influence moral decisions, especially judgments of punishment. The current research aimed to study the influence of intent, outcome, and causality variations on moral decisions, and to identify their interaction during the decision process by embedding the moral scenarios within an adapted mouse-tracking paradigm. Findings of the preregistered study (final n = 80) revealed main effects for intent, outcome, and causality on judgments of punishment, and an interaction between the effects of intent and causality. We furthermore explored the dynamics of these effects during the decision process via the analysis of mouse trajectories in the course of time. It allowed detecting when these factors intervened during the trial time course. The present findings thus both replicate and extend previous research on moral judgment, and evidence that, despite some ongoing challenges, mousetracking represents a promising tool to investigate moral decision-making.

Investigating decision making with two‐alternative forced choice (2AFC) tasks may artificially constrain decisions, especially in the moral domain where we may want to express nuance. We aimed at examining whether paradigm constraints—that is, binary (as in 2AFC tasks) versus continuous response mode—constrained early decision‐making dynamics, as traceable in mouse movements. In the moral domain, long sentences are often used, and we therefore developed a new mouse‐tracking design adapted to long‐to‐process stimuli while also introducing mouse‐tracking‐compatible continuous response scales. Two preregistered studies, with adapted (Study 1) and newly designed (Study 2) mouse‐tracking paradigms tested how trajectories differed between response modes from an early stage onwards. Overall, findings provide evidence consistent with hypothesis, ruling out alternative explanations in terms of motor planning, hence questioning the prevalence of 2AFC tasks in decision‐making research. Discussion further focuses on paradigmatic challenges addressed by the present research and basic contributions regarding the bidirectional influences between ongoing actions and decisions.