Transfer effects between moral dilemmas: A causal model theory

Wiegmann, Alex; Waldmann, Michael R.

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2013.12.004

Cited by 51 publications

(55 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…They then progressed through a series of self-report measures that assessed variables of interest and answered two moral dilemmas (one impersonal and one personal). Since we were not interested in studying transfer effects between dilemmas, the order in which participants completed the various questionnaires was randomised across participants but the order of moral dilemmas was fixed such that personal moral dilemma always succeeded the impersonal moral dilemma (e.g., Wiegmann & Waldmann, 2014). There was no time limit to answer any of the questionnaires or dilemmas.…”

Section: Measures and Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trait psychopathy and utilitarian moral judgement: The mediating role of action aversion

Patil

2015

Journal of Cognitive Psychology

103

102

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Section: Measures and Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trait psychopathy and utilitarian moral judgement: The mediating role of action aversion

Patil

2015

Journal of Cognitive Psychology

103

102

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“…A moral principle activated for the evaluation of one particular scenario can be applied to the evaluation of a subsequent scenario, which is called the ‘transfer effect’ (Wiegmann et al, 2012). The transfer effect has been mainly studied using the classic trolley dilemmas (Horne, Powell, & Spino, 2013; Lanteri, Chelini, & Rizzello, 2008; Lombrozo, 2009; Schwitzgebel & Cushman, 2012; Wiegmann & Okan, 2012; Wiegmann et al, 2012; Wiegmann & Waldmann, 2014). In the trolley dilemmas, participants have to imagine a trolley going quickly on a railway where five men are working.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moral Judgments Depend on Information Presentation: Evidence for Recency and Transfer Effects

2018

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Moral judgements are crucial for social life and rely on the analysis of the agent’s intention and the outcome of the agent’s action. The current study examines to the influence of how the information is presented on moral judgement. The first experiment investigated the effects of the order in which intention and outcome information was presented. The results showed that participants relied more on the last presented information, suggesting a recency effect. The second experiment required participants to make two types of judgments (wrongness vs. punishment) and manipulated the order of the requested two types of judgments. Results showed an asymmetrical transfer effect whereby punishment judgements, but not wrongness judgements were affected by the order of presentation. This asymmetrical transfer effect was likely linked to the ambiguity of the punishment judgement. Altogether, the study showed that the order in which information was presented and the order in which one was asked to think about the wrongness of an action or the punishment that the action deserves were two factors that should be irrelevant, but actually influenced moral judgements. The influence of these factors was mostly observed during the most difficult judgements, precisely in situations where human decision is called upon, such as in court trials.

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“…But what features of the Footbridge and Trolley Cases are relevant? Subsequent research has revealed that negatively-valenced moral vignettes that do not involve a trade-off of lives (e.g., just pushing a man to his death) or that describe completely different but emotionally salient moral transgressions (e.g., stories about consensual incest) do not affect people's judgments about the Trolley dilemma Wiegmann and Waldmann 2014). And in any event, effects like the Footbridge-Trolley Effect occur for cases in epistemology and philosophy of mind where emotion is unlikely to be salient (Wright 2010).…”

Section: An Explanation Of the Footbridge-trolley Effectmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…By contrast, suppose that the mean judgment of participants in Condition 2 for the Trolley Case is 4.3, and suppose that the difference between the ratings for the Trolley Case in the two conditions is statistically significant. Finally, suppose that the mean rating for the Footbridge Case in Condition 2 is 2.1, which we may suppose is statistically indistinguishable from the mean rating for the Footbridge Case in Condition 1 (for real examples, see Horne et al 2013;Cushman 2012, 2015;Wiegmann and Waldmann 2014). The experiment is pictured schematically in Table 3.…”

Section: Mistaking Updating Effects For Ordering Effectsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Ordering effects, updating effects, and the specter of global skepticism

Horne

Livengood

2015

Synthese

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One widely-endorsed argument in the experimental philosophy literature maintains that intuitive judgments are unreliable because they are influenced by the order in which thought experiments prompting those judgments are presented. Here, we explicitly state this argument from ordering effects and show that any plausible understanding of the argument leads to an untenable conclusion. First, we show that the normative principle is ambiguous. On one reading of the principle, the empirical observation is well-supported, but the normative principle is false. On the other reading, the empirical observation has only weak support, and the normative principle, if correct, would impugn the reliability of deliberative reasoning, testimony, memory, and perception, since judgments in all these areas are sensitive to ordering in the relevant sense. We then reflect on what goes wrong with the argument.

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Transfer effects between moral dilemmas: A causal model theory

Cited by 51 publications

References 21 publications

Trait psychopathy and utilitarian moral judgement: The mediating role of action aversion

Trait psychopathy and utilitarian moral judgement: The mediating role of action aversion

Moral Judgments Depend on Information Presentation: Evidence for Recency and Transfer Effects

Ordering effects, updating effects, and the specter of global skepticism

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