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

Abstract

Killing people is universally considered reprehensible and evokes in observers a need to punish perpetrators. Here, we explored how observers' personality is associated with their cognitive, emotional, and punishing reactions towards perpetrators using data from 1,004 participants who responded to a set of fifteen third-party perspective moral dilemmas. Among those, four scenarios (architect, life boat, footbridge, smother for dollars) describing deliberate killings were compared to investigate the role of the content features "motive for killing" (selfish vs. utilitarian) and "evitability of victims' death". Participants' moral appropriateness ratings, emotions towards perpetrators, and assigned punishments revealed complex scenario-personality interactions. Trait psychopathy was associated with harsher punishments in all scenarios but also with less concern about killing in general, an increased moral appreciation of utilitarian motives for killing, and a reduced concern about the killing of avoidable victims. Need for cognition was associated with considering a utilitarian motive for killing as a mitigating factor, while intuitive/authority-obedient thinking was linked to a strong focus on avoidability of harm as an aggravating factor when assigning punishments. Otheroriented empathy, trait anxiety, and justice sensitivity did not account for differences in thirdparty punishments. Our explorative findings highlight the importance of inter-individual differences for moral decision making and sense of justice.

The association between personality and third-party moral judgment: a preregistered study

“…Our finding that emotionality contributes to moral judgment is in line with the literature that used moral dilemmas in typical populations (Conway et al, 2018;Crockett et al, 2010;Greene et al, 2004;Suter & Hertwig, 2011) as well as with evidence of atypical moral judgment in subclinical or clinical populations with emotional deficits (Djeriouat & Trémolière, 2014;Karandikar et al, 2019;Patil & Silani, 2014b;. Alexithymia has for instance been associated with less concern for the victim (Patil & Silani, 2014a) and psychopathy has been associated with less concern over a victim's death (Behnke et al, 2020).…”

“…Previous studies on moral dilemmas have found that greater deliberation was associated with greater acceptability of inflicting harm for utilitarian motives (Bartels, 2008;Behnke et al, 2020), and accepting harm as a mean to preserve the greater good was cognitively demanding (Greene et al, 2008;Suter & Hertwig, 2011;Trémolière et al, 2012). The present study complements this literature by suggesting that deliberative thinking may additionally modulate moral outrage following unfair or evitable harm, that is, when an agent harmed intentionally without utilitarian motives.…”

“…For instance, higher utilitarianism has been reported in individuals with alexithymia (Patil & Silani, 2014a), a subclinical condition defined by low emotional interoception and low empathy (Lane et al, 2015) and often found in psychopaths and individuals with autism spectrum disorder (Bird & Cook, 2013). Consistent with this observation, subclinical psychopathy seems to be related to higher acceptability of harm in moral dilemmas (Behnke et al, 2020;Karandikar et al, 2019).…”

“…More specifically, distinct personality traits may affect the functioning of the two systems involved in moral judgment or influence the balance between the intent-based and outcome-based processes. Previous work has for instance suggested that people with dark personalities are less concerned with the victim's harm when they make third-party moral judgments (Djeriouat & Trémolière, 2014;Trémolière & Djeriouat, 2016), and people with a more deliberative thinking style are more likely to make judgments that benefit the many by sacrificing the few (Behnke et al, 2020).…”

Judging accidental harm: reasoning style modulates the weight of intention and harm severity

“…The authors found that increased recruitment of this network is associated with more blame towards the perpetrator. Besides this evidence in the general population, work in clinical populations has found that individuals with lower emotionality were more tolerant towards harmful outcomes (Behnke et al, 2020;Patil & Silani, 2014a). However, studies using moral transgressions in people low in emotionality found that these individuals were sometimes more severe, sometimes less severe towards the perpetrator depending on their intent (Djeriouat & Trémolière, 2014;Patil & Silani, 2014b;Trémolière & Djeriouat, 2016).…”