Virtual morality in the helping professions: Simulated action and resilience

Abstract

Recent advances in virtual technologies have allowed the investigation of simulated moral actions in aversive moral dilemmas. Previous studies have employed diverse populations to explore these actions, with little research considering the significance of occupation on moral decision-making. For the first time, in this study we have investigated simulated moral actions in virtual reality made by professionally trained paramedics and fire service incident commanders who are frequently faced with and must respond to moral dilemmas. We found that specially trained individuals showed distinct empathic and related personality trait scores and that these declined with years of experience working in the profession. Supporting the theory that these professionals develop resilience in moral conflict, reduced emotional arousal was observed during virtual simulations of a distressing dilemma. Furthermore, trained professionals demonstrated less regret following the execution of a moral action in virtual reality when compared to untrained control populations. We showed that, contrary to previous research, trained individuals made the same moral judgements and moral actions as untrained individuals, though showing less arousal and regret. In the face of increasing concerns regarding empathy decline in health care professionals, we suggest that the nature of this decline is complex and likely reflects the development of a necessary emotional resilience to distressing events.

Behnke_Armbruster_Strobel - The needs of the many - Influence of personality on third-party judgments of utilitarian rule violations

“…In addition, recently published studies investigating moral actions in virtual reality (Francis, Gummerum, Ganis, Howard, & Terbeck, 2018;Francis et al, 2017) reported very different response patterns than those usually found in self-report assessments of moral judgments like the one used here. Generally, participants responded in virtual environments with greater utilitarian actions.…”

When the killing has been done: Exploring associations of personality with third-party judgment and punishment of homicides in moral dilemma scenarios

“…Also, while moral dilemmas have been widely used in research, their usefulness for predicting moral behavior in real-life situations is debatable. A recent study using a virtual reality implementation of the footbridge dilemma showed that a clear majority of all participants would push the large stranger off the bridge [121,122], contradicting the 'classical' deontic response pattern found in almost all previous studies using written moral dilemmas. This disparity could indicate an unconscious moral self-deception among participants, which only comes to light when they actually have to have to take action under (more) realistic conditions [123,124].…”

From Empathy to Apathy: The Bystander Effect Revisited

“…Taking into account the composition and size of the bystander group is crucial in providing efficient help that maximizes individual survival. This might already be reflected in the calculations within the motivational system ( Francis, Gummerum, Ganis, Howard & Terbeck, 2017 ). Apathy in novel situations or with unknown bystanders could be the consequence of these calculations.…”