The psychology of the unthinkable: Taboo trade-offs, forbidden base rates, and heretical counterfactuals.

Tetlock, Philip E.; Kristel, Orie V.; Elson, Sara Beth; Green, Melanie C.; Lerner, Jennifer S.

doi:10.1037//0022-3514.78.5.853

Cited by 202 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 34 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…It is then plausible that, in the wake of these far-right incidents and the widely reported anger and distress they caused, citizens came together in an attempt to lessen the impact of the incidents and express support for the individuals and community groups that were targeted. This provides moderate support for value protection theories, which suggest that citizens respond to threats to their sense of moral order with moral outrage and value affirmation (Tetlock et al 2000;Skitka et al 2004), with positive knock-on effects for social cohesion.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 79%

The effects of terrorist incidents on public worry of future attacks, views of the police and social cohesion

Fenn

Brunton‐Smith

2020

The British Journal of Criminology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Despite a growing body of research examining the psychological effects of terrorist incidents, there remains comparatively little empirical assessment of their impacts on citizens’ worry about further attacks, perceptions of the police or social cohesion. Drawing on interviews with nearly 100,000 London residents, we find higher levels of worry following most domestic attacks. Improvements in overall ratings of the police are tempered by more negative assessments of their ability to handle future threats. We also find that far-right incidents are less closely linked to changes in public ratings of the police and concerns about future attacks compared to Islamic terror attacks. Effects on social cohesion are less predictable. We find reductions in cohesion following some attacks but increases following others.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 79%

The effects of terrorist incidents on public worry of future attacks, views of the police and social cohesion

Fenn

Brunton‐Smith

2020

The British Journal of Criminology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This study empirically investigates the psychological natures of extremism regarding the COVID-19 restrictions with an aim of gaining insights into ways to mitigate the extreme attitudes. A problematic attitude found in extremism can be illustrated by a refusal to make trade-offs of one’s values with other values; such values are known as protective values ( Baron and Spranca, 1997 ) or sacred values ( Tetlock et al, 2000 ). On the one hand, those with Pro-extremism may refuse to make trade-offs of human life against other values (often economic values), but on the other, those with Con-extremism may deny the need for trade-offs of the value of economy and freedom with other values even if they are human life.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On the one hand, those with Pro-extremism may refuse to make trade-offs of human life against other values (often economic values), but on the other, those with Con-extremism may deny the need for trade-offs of the value of economy and freedom with other values even if they are human life. Such people may get annoyed by a mere thought that the values they are upholding could be traded off against other values ( Tetlock et al, 2000 ). Argument divide by the extreme positions makes it difficult for the health authorities to make trade-off efforts over the implementation of restrictive policies ( Baron and Leshner, 2000 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…People’s attitude towards COVID-19 and its control measures is affected by their knowledge about this disease ( Zhong et al, 2020 ). Some of the past research work (e.g., Baron and Leshner, 2000 ; Tetlock et al, 2000 ), however, indicate that the attitude of rejecting value trade-offs results from unreflective overgeneralization of the meaning and consequences of such extreme positions. People may believe that no benefit would be sufficient to justify relieving restrictions without thinking much about possible benefits.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Extremism, knowledge, and overconfidence in the covid-19 restriction times

Hatori,

Bhandary

2024

Front. Psychol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Public response to restriction policy against the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) can polarize into two extremes: one absolutely in favor of restrictions for the sake of human life and health, and other absolutely against the restrictions for the sake of human rights and daily life. This study examines psychological nature of extremism regarding individuals’ self-restraint from social behavior, which was and has been encouraged by the Japanese government as restriction measures, as well as possible measures to mitigate this extremism. We hypothesize that people with more extreme views on self-restraint tend to have less knowledge of this virus, and, nevertheless, tend to be more overconfident in the sense that they falsely believe they understand COVID-19 and the effects of self-restraint. It is also postulated that overconfidence can be reduced by asking them to explain how self-restraint works. To test these hypotheses, we conducted an online experiment on the Japanese adults (n = 500) to measure the extent of their knowledge of COVID-19 and to examine the effect of explanation task on their understanding regarding COVID-19 and extremism. The results indicate that the extreme attitudes were associated with insufficient knowledge about the symptoms, risks, and characteristics of COVID-19. Moreover, their extreme attitudes tended to moderate through this experimental study to an extent that they realized they did not understand COVID-19 including the effects of self-restraint. This suggests that people with extremism may have been overconfident in their own understanding of the COVID-19 restrictions.

show abstract

“…Surprisingly, 25 years into a political era characterized by moral emotion ( 1–3 ) it remains unclear exactly how moral rhetoric shapes our electoral landscape. Of particular concern is whether ideologically opposing candidates emphasize different moral values in their rhetoric, thereby entrenching voters in their existing views and exacerbating political polarization ( 4 ). Similarly unclear is the extent to which the use of unique moral rhetoric separates candidates from their competition, potentially increasing their persuasive appeal and shaping electoral outcomes ( 5 , 6 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mapping moral language on US presidential primary campaigns reveals rhetorical networks of political division and unity

2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

During political campaigns, candidates use rhetoric to advance competing visions and assessments of their country. Research reveals that the moral language used in this rhetoric can significantly influence citizens’ political attitudes and behaviors; however, the moral language actually used in the rhetoric of elites during political campaigns remains understudied. Using a dataset of every tweet (N = 139,412) published by 39 U.S. presidential candidates during the 2016 and 2020 primary elections, we extracted moral language and constructed network models illustrating how candidates’ rhetoric is semantically connected. These network models yielded two key discoveries. First, we find that party affiliation clusters can be reconstructed solely based on the moral words used in candidates’ rhetoric. Within each party, popular moral values are expressed in highly similar ways, with Democrats emphasizing careful and just treatment of individuals and Republicans emphasizing in-group loyalty and respect for social hierarchies. Second, we illustrate the ways in which outsider candidates like Donald Trump can separate themselves during primaries by using moral rhetoric that differs from their parties’ common language. Our findings demonstrate the functional use of strategic moral rhetoric in a campaign context and show that unique methods of text network analysis are broadly applicable to the study of campaigns and social movements.

show abstract

The psychology of the unthinkable: Taboo trade-offs, forbidden base rates, and heretical counterfactuals.

Cited by 202 publications

References 34 publications

The effects of terrorist incidents on public worry of future attacks, views of the police and social cohesion

The effects of terrorist incidents on public worry of future attacks, views of the police and social cohesion

Extremism, knowledge, and overconfidence in the covid-19 restriction times

Mapping moral language on US presidential primary campaigns reveals rhetorical networks of political division and unity

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About