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Previous studies suggest that choices are perceived as difficult as well as negatively emotion-laden when they tap into moral considerations. However, we propose that the involvement of moral issues and values can also facilitate decisions because people often insistently preclude them from trade-offs with other values. Because such values are treated as inviolable and absolute, they are called sacred values (e.g., Tetlock et al., 2000). Two experiments examined the influence of sacred values (measured by a recent self-report scale) and variation of trade-off type (taboo, tragic, routine trade-offs) on perceived decision difficulty and negative emotions. As hypothesized, decision difficulty and negative emotions show diverging patterns as a function of sacred values and trade-off types. When the decision situation involved two conflicting sacred values (i.e., tragic trade-off), people perceived the decision task as emotionally stressful and difficult. However, when the decision situation was associated with only one sacred value (i.e., taboo trade-off), people perceived the task as more negatively emotion-laden, but as easier to solve, compared to a situation not involving sacred values (i.e., routine trade-off). These findings suggest that reliance on sacred values may work as a heuristic.

Zusammenfassung. Geschützte Werte (GW) sind Werte, die von Individuen oder einer Gemeinschaft als absolut, unantastbar und nicht substituierbar angesehen werden. Da es bislang noch kein Messinstrument zur Erfassung von GW gibt, besteht das Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit in der Entwicklung und ersten Validierung einer Geschützten Werte Skala (GWS). Die in Studie 1 durchgeführten Analysen zur Überprüfung der Skalen und der Modellgüte fallen zufrieden stellend aus. Im Sinne der diskriminativen Validität kann gezeigt werden, dass sich GW von wichtigen Einstellungen abgrenzen. Für die Validität spricht auch die Bestätigung mehrerer postulierter Gruppenunterschiede. Der in Studie 2 vorgenommene Vergleich zwischen zwei Extremgruppen (Befürworter und Gegner der Gentechnologie) ergibt zusätzliche Anhaltspunkte zur Validität und konzeptuellen Differenzierung zwischen GW und Einstellungswichtigkeit.

Previous psychological investigations revealed that sacred values (SVs; the belief that certain values are nonsubstitutable and may not be traded off, in particular, against secular economic values) modulates moral decision making depending on the type of SV infringement involved. Extending this research, we compared neurofunctional correlates determined from fMRI measurements during decision making in 3 different trade-off types (taboo, tragic, and routine) with psychological measures obtained from the same 2 participant groups characterized by either high SV (SVH) or low (SVL) scoring values. Congruent with previous studies showing that outright SV violation tends to provoke profound moral indignation, in accordance with the surmise that SVs serve as a heuristic under these (taboo trade-off) conditions, and in conformity with previous reports on neurofunctional changes observed in volunteers confronted with moral norm transgressions, we found increased blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) signals in the left anterior temporal lobe and bilateral amygdalae, as well as significant correlation between right amygdala BOLD signals and moral disgust ratings, in the taboo trade-off condition for the SVH (compared with the SVL) group. The results are discussed in relation to previous research suggesting a close association of SVs with a deontological focus of moral universalism, as well as regarding mechanisms supposed to play a key role in overcoming barriers to the resolution of deep-seated conflicts.

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