Is costly punishment altruistic? Exploring rejection of unfair offers in the Ultimatum Game in real-world altruists

Brethel-Haurwitz, Kristin M.; Stoycos, Sarah A; Cardinale, Elise M.; Huebner, Bryce; Marsh, Abigail A.

doi:10.1038/srep18974

Cited by 53 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 51 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…At the same time, neither subscale was significantly associated with need for cognition, a trait measure of motivation to engage in effortful cognition. These results are consonant with recent studies that found that extreme altruists who donated their kidneys to strangers exhibit higher empathic concern ( Brethel-Haurwitz et al, 2016 ).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

“…The 2D model also allows us to better clarify the relationship between utilitarian moral thinking and empathic concern. Again, the negative relationship between utilitarian decision-making and empathic concern suggested by multiple prior studies ( Choe & Min, 2011 ; Conway & Gawronski, 2013 ; Gleichgerrcht & Young, 2013 ; Patil & Silani, 2014 ) is highly puzzling given the historical and, on some views, strong theoretical tie between classical utilitarianism and empathy ( Hare, 1981 ; Smart, 1961/ 1973 ) and evidence tying empathic concern to extreme altruism to distant strangers ( Brethel-Haurwitz et al, 2016 ). But our results show that this association is driven exclusively by the instrumental harm dimension of utilitarianism and that empathic concern is at the same time positively associated with impartial beneficence, utilitarianism’s positive core.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The link with empathic concern is also consonant with work suggesting that the psychological and neural profile of extreme altruists is the reverse of that of psychopaths ( Marsh et al, 2014 ). To the extent that extreme altruism is driven by unusual levels of empathic concern ( Brethel-Haurwitz et al, 2016 ), the 2D model predicts that such extreme altruists would be high in impartial beneficence but low on instrumental harm. And although we did not find a negative association between psychopathy and impartial beneficence in the lay population, we have previously found that psychopathy was linked to reduced endorsement of self-sacrifice for the greater good in the ‘greater good’ vignettes ( Kahane et al, 2015 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Beyond sacrificial harm: A two-dimensional model of utilitarian psychology.

Kahane

Everett

Earp

et al. 2018

Psychological Review

314

381

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Recent research has relied on trolley-type sacrificial moral dilemmas to study utilitarian versus nonutilitarian modes of moral decision-making. This research has generated important insights into people’s attitudes toward instrumental harm—that is, the sacrifice of an individual to save a greater number. But this approach also has serious limitations. Most notably, it ignores the positive, altruistic core of utilitarianism, which is characterized by impartial concern for the well-being of everyone, whether near or far. Here, we develop, refine, and validate a new scale—the Oxford Utilitarianism Scale—to dissociate individual differences in the ‘negative’ (permissive attitude toward instrumental harm) and ‘positive’ (impartial concern for the greater good) dimensions of utilitarian thinking as manifested in the general population. We show that these are two independent dimensions of proto-utilitarian tendencies in the lay population, each exhibiting a distinct psychological profile. Empathic concern, identification with the whole of humanity, and concern for future generations were positively associated with impartial beneficence but negatively associated with instrumental harm; and although instrumental harm was associated with subclinical psychopathy, impartial beneficence was associated with higher religiosity. Importantly, although these two dimensions were independent in the lay population, they were closely associated in a sample of moral philosophers. Acknowledging this dissociation between the instrumental harm and impartial beneficence components of utilitarian thinking in ordinary people can clarify existing debates about the nature of moral psychology and its relation to moral philosophy as well as generate fruitful avenues for further research.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Beyond sacrificial harm: A two-dimensional model of utilitarian psychology.

Kahane

Everett

Earp

et al. 2018

Psychological Review

314

381

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The evidence we have covered here broadly supports the view that, compared to the economic dimension of ideology, the social dimension is more consistently related to punitiveness, at least in the ultimatum game. The reason social conservatism and related variables are often associated with punitive behaviour in the ultimatum game may be that punitiveness in this game seems to reflect normative rather than pro-social or anti-social behaviour (Brañas-Garza et al, 2014;Brethel-Haurwitz et al, 2016;Yamagishi et al, 2012). 3…”

Section: Norm Enforcementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experiments in political psychology

Fischer¹,

Atkinson²,

Chaudhuri³

2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This chapter provides an overview of the role of incentivised decision-making experiments in studying political ideology. We first discuss experiments that conceptualise political ideology along a unidimensional liberal-conservative spectrum and explore whether there are systematic behavioural differences between liberals and conservatives. While recent studies find that liberals display more pro-social tendencies, many other studies find that liberals and conservatives display similar levels of pro-social, ingroup-biased, normative, and punitive behaviour. We then present an overview of experiments that study two-dimensional political ideology as embodied in the concepts of economic conservatism (as opposed to economic progressivism; usually measured with the Social Dominance Orientation scale) and social conservatism (as opposed to social progressivism; usually measured with the Right-Wing Authoritarianism scale). We demonstrate that economic conservatives display lower levels of cooperation and universalism, greater tolerance for inequality, and a tendency to harm outgroups. Social conservatives tend to generally engage in group-minded behaviour, including distrusting anonymous strangers, cooperating with ingroup members, following rules, punishing (mainly in the ultimatum game), and sometimes harming outgroups.

show abstract

“…For example, individuals who have anonymously donated their kidneys evince greater amygdala responsiveness than do matched controls (Marsh, Stoycos, Brethel-Haurwitz, Robinson, VanMeter, & Cardinale, 2014). Anonymous kidney donors are also high in dispositional sympathy (Brethel-Haurwitz, Stoycos, Cardinale, Huebner, & Marsh, 2016). Recall that sympathy is elicited by the perception of others' distress, and generates altruistic motivation (Batson, 2011).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Do emotions play an essential role in moral judgments?

McAuliffe

2018

Thinking & Reasoning

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The past few decades of moral psychology research have yielded empirical anomalies for rationalist theories of moral judgments. An increasing number of psychologists and philosophers argue that these anomalies are explained well by sentimentalism, the thesis that the presence of an emotion is necessary for the formation of a sincere moral judgment. The present review reveals that while emotions and moral judgments indeed often co-occur, there is scant evidence that emotions directly cause or constitute moral judgments. Research on disgust, anger, sympathy, and guilt indicates that people only reliably experience emotions when judging conduct that is relevant to the welfare of the self and valued others. Moreover, many recent studies have either failed to replicate or exposed crucial confounds in the most cited evidence in support of sentimentalism. Moral psychologists should jettison sentimentalism, and focus instead on how considerations of harm and welfare-the core concepts of rationalist theories-interact with empirical beliefs to shape moral judgments.

show abstract

Is costly punishment altruistic? Exploring rejection of unfair offers in the Ultimatum Game in real-world altruists

Cited by 53 publications

References 51 publications

Beyond sacrificial harm: A two-dimensional model of utilitarian psychology.

Beyond sacrificial harm: A two-dimensional model of utilitarian psychology.

Experiments in political psychology

Do emotions play an essential role in moral judgments?

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About