Dimensions of Altruism: Do Evaluations of Prosocial Behavior Track Social Good or Personal Sacrifice?

Abstract

Do we praise prosocial acts because they produce social benefits or because they entail a personal sacrifice? Six studies demonstrate that consumers primarily rely on personal cost rather than social benefit when evaluating prosocial actors. This occurs because sacrifice, but not benefit, is taken as a signal of moral character and an input to reputational judgments (Studies 1 and 2), reflecting a "character = sacrifice" heuristic predicted by costly signaling theory. The studies test four possible boundary conditions, finding that the effects are similar for actions that benefit one's own country versus foreigners (Study 3), but differ for donations of time (Study 4), when information about personal sacrifice is unavailable (Study 5), and when high-cost but ineffective acts are pitted directly against low-cost but effective acts in joint evaluation (Study 6). These results help to account for the ineffectiveness of many charitable activities but also suggest directions for incentivizing effective charity.

Principles of moral accounting: How our intuitive moral sense balances rights and wrongs

“…A number of empirical findings support character-based approaches, including the assignment of blame for harmless acts that seem to imply "wicked" desires (Inbar et al, 2012), people's computational facility at moral character evaluations relative to other equivalent information integration tasks (Johnson, Murphy, Rodrigues, & Keil, 2019), outrage over inconsequential acts that are nonetheless diagnostic of character (Tannenbaum et al, 2011), and the outsized impact in praise judgments of the costs (Johnson, 2018) and emotional investment (Johnson & Park, 2019) signaled by charitable contributions rather than their effectiveness. Indeed, character inferences may be a key controlling factor that guides moral attention to both outcomes and actions; for example, character inferences moderate the relationship between consequences and blame (Siegel et al, 2017).…”

“…For example, when evaluating dictionaries one at a time, people pay little attention to the number of words (10,000 vs. 20,000) since this attribute is hard to understand out of context, but when evaluating these dictionaries side-by-side, people rely heavily on this attribute. In some cases, the amount of benefit may not be particularly evaluable (e.g., Johnson, 2018), but in this case it clearly is: Whether the actor offsets precisely the amount of harm is a natural reference-point, and the actor who offset twice their harm would be plainly producing twice as much benefit as an actor who offset their harm precisely.…”

“…Study 7 directly manipulates moral character (Johnson, 2018;Nadler, 2012;Nisan & Horenczyk, 1990). Study 8 manipulates framing (abstract versus concrete), which is known to influence the acceptability of psychological explanations for behavior, such as character-based explanations in terms of personality (Kim, Johnson, Ahn, & Knobe, 2017; see also Trope & Liberman, 2010).…”

“…Some research has compared moral judgments about blameworthy versus praiseworthy acts, documenting both symmetries (e.g., De Freitas & Johnson, 2018;Gray & Wegner, 2009;Siegel, Crockett, & Dolan, 2017;Wiltermuth, Monin, & Chow, 2010) and asymmetries (e.g., Bostyn & Roets, 2016;Guglielmo & Malle, 2019;Klein & Epley, 2014;Knobe, 2003;Pizarro, Uhlmann, & Salovey, 2003), and other work has studied the ethicality of morally ambiguous acts that are not clearly blameworthy or praiseworthy (e.g., Levine et al, 2018;Levine & Schweitzer, 2014;Rottman, Kelemen, & Young, 2014). But the majority of this literature has theorized (separately) about the mechanisms underlying judgments about morally negative acts (e.g., Alicke, 1992;Baez et al, 2017;Cushman, 2008;Cushman, Young, & Hauser, 2006;Graham, Haidt, & Nosek, 2009;Guglielmo & Malle, 2017;Haidt, Koller, & Dias, 1993;Inbar, Pizarro, & Cushman, 2012;Niemi & Young, 2016;Paxton, Ungar, & Greene, 2012;Schnall, Haidt, Clore, & Jordan, 2008;Tannenbaum, Uhlmann, & Diermeier, 2011;Tetlock et al, 2000;Young & Saxe, 2011) or positive acts (e.g., Critcher & Dunning, 2011;Johnson, 2018;Johnson & Park, 2019;Line-Healy & Small, 2013;Monin, Sawyer, & Marquez, 2008;Newman & Cain, 2014). Many of these articles propose detailed theories of how people assign praise or blame.…”

Principles of Moral Accounting: How our Intuitive Moral Sense Balances Rights and Wrongs

“…Some research has compared moral judgments about blameworthy versus praiseworthy acts, documenting both symmetries (e.g., De Freitas & Johnson, 2018;Gray & Wegner, 2009;Siegel, Crockett, & Dolan, 2017;Wiltermuth, Monin, & Chow, 2010) and asymmetries (e.g., Bostyn & Roets, 2016;Guglielmo & Malle, 2019;Klein & Epley, 2014;Knobe, 2003;Pizarro, Uhlmann, & Salovey, 2003), and other work has studied the ethicality of morally ambiguous acts that are not clearly blameworthy or praiseworthy (e.g., Levine et al, 2018;Levine & Schweitzer, 2014;Rottman, Kelemen, & Young, 2014). But the majority of this literature has theorized (separately) about the mechanisms underlying judgments about morally negative acts (e.g., Alicke, 1992;Baez et al, 2017;Cushman, 2008;Cushman, Young, & Hauser, 2006;Graham, Haidt, & Nosek, 2009;Guglielmo & Malle, 2017;Haidt, Koller, & Dias, 1993;Inbar, Pizarro, & Cushman, 2012;Niemi & Young, 2016;Paxton, Ungar, & Greene, 2012;Schnall, Haidt, Clore, & Jordan, 2008;Tannenbaum, Uhlmann, & Diermeier, 2011;Tetlock et al, 2000;Young & Saxe, 2011) or positive acts (e.g., Critcher & Dunning, 2011;Johnson, 2018;Johnson & Park, 2019;Line-Healy & Small, 2013;Monin, Sawyer, & Marquez, 2008;Newman & Cain, 2014). Many of these articles propose detailed theories of how people assign praise or blame.…”