Living Slow and Being Moral

Abstract

Drawing from the dual process model of morality and life history theory, the present research examined the role of cognitive and emotional processes as bridges between basic environmental challenges (i.e., unpredictability and competition) and other-centered moral orientation (i.e., prioritizing the welfare of others). In two survey studies, cognitive and emotional processes represented by future-oriented planning and emotional attachment, respectively (Study 1, N = 405), or by perspective taking and empathic concern, respectively (Study 2, N = 424), positively predicted other-centeredness in prosocial moral reasoning (Study 1) and moral judgment dilemmas based on rationality or intuition (Study 2). Cognitive processes were more closely related to rational aspects of other-centeredness, whereas the emotional processes were more closely related to the intuitive aspects of other-centeredness (Study 2). Finally, the cognitive and emotional processes also mediated negative effects of unpredictability (i.e., negative life events and childhood financial insecurity), as well as positive effects of individual-level, contest competition (i.e., educational and occupational competition) on other-centeredness. Overall, these findings support the view that cognitive and emotional processes do not necessarily contradict each other. Rather, they might work in concert to promote other-centeredness in various circumstances and might be attributed to humans' developmental flexibility in the face of environmental challenges.

Aggression and risk‐taking as adaptive implementations of fast life history strategy

“…One may be predominant, aligned with slow LH, and fostered by more controllable environments with more predictable future prospects. This sociality is affiliative, inclusive, and mutualistic, intended to facilitate long-term conspecific coexistence, cooperation, and orderly competition (Zhu et al, 2018). The other, which may be secondary, is aligned with fast LH and shaped by extrinsic risks and environmental unpredictability diminishing future opportunities and accountability.…”

“…It may be particularly relevant in this study by contributing both to the left-behind children exhibiting fast LH characteristics and their parents showing similarly fast LH attributes of leaving or abandoning their children. However, enduring the present hardship of leaving home and performing hard labor to earn and save money also represents competitive and future-oriented slow LH behavioral attributes (Zhu et al, 2018). Either possibility may also be overridden by the fast-moving urbanization process in China, where labor outflows from poor rural regions into the cities so rapidly that it is only a matter of time before all adults depart to seek urban employment, leaving children and older people behind in the villages (Li, 2010;Wang, 2016).…”

“…With reduced extrinsic risks and increased environmental predictability and controllability, on the other hand, human social schemata orient toward coexistence, cooperation, and orderly competition to maximize resource acquisition through collaboration (Chen & Chang, 2012;Zhu, Hawk, & Chang, 2019;Zhu et al, 2018). Cross-cultural evidence bolsters the linkage between experiences of environmental unpredictability (e.g., family instability) and antisocial, externalizing behavior .…”

“…Within the LH framework, risk-taking and aggression are correlated behavioral implementations of a fast LH strategy in response to high extrinsic risks (Figueredo & Jacobs, 2010). In a highversus low-risk environment, human cognition and behavior tend to be more present-than future-oriented, more risk-prone than riskaverse, and more aggressive than affiliative (de Baca, Wahl, Barnett, Figueredo, & Ellis, 2016;Zhu, Hawk, & Chang, 2018). When extrinsic risks are low in engendering a more predictable living environment, human cognitive schemata are oriented toward future planning and long-term coexistence, promoting prosocial, affiliative, and riskaverse behavioral patterns (Figueredo et al, 2018).…”

Effects of Peer Influences and Life-History Strategy on Chinese Junior High School Students’ Prosocial and Antisocial Behaviors

“…Insecure attachment, which indicates fast strategies, was found to predict antisocial, coercive ways of resource-control in middle childhood (Chen and Chang, 2012). Moreover, both cognitive components (e.g., future-oriented planning, cognitive perspective-taking) and emotional components (e.g., stable relationships, empathic concerns) of slow LHS predicted prosocial moral reasoning and judgments (Zhu et al, 2018). Thus, slow (fast) LHS seems to be related to more (less) prosocial behaviors and less (more) antisocial behaviors.…”