A popular distinction in cognitive and social psychology has been between
intuitive
and
deliberate
judgments. This juxtaposition has aligned in dual-process theories of reasoning associative, ...unconscious, effortless, heuristic, and suboptimal processes (assumed to foster intuitive judgments) versus rule-based, conscious, effortful, analytic, and rational processes (assumed to characterize deliberate judgments). In contrast, we provide convergent arguments and evidence for a unified theoretical approach to both intuitive and deliberative judgments. Both are rule-based, and in fact, the very same rules can underlie both intuitive and deliberate judgments. The important open question is that of rule selection, and we propose a 2-step process in which the task itself and the individual's memory constrain the set of applicable rules, whereas the individual's processing potential and the (perceived) ecological rationality of the rule for the task guide the final selection from that set. Deliberate judgments are not generally more accurate than intuitive judgments; in both cases, accuracy depends on the match between rule and environment: the rules' ecological rationality. Heuristics that are less effortful and in which parts of the information are ignored can be more accurate than cognitive strategies that have more information and computation. The proposed framework adumbrates a unified approach that specifies the critical dimensions on which judgmental situations may vary and the environmental conditions under which rules can be expected to be successful.
Dual-process theories of moral judgment suggest that responses to moral dilemmas are guided by two moral principles: the principle of deontology states that the morality of an action depends on the ...intrinsic nature of the action (e.g., harming others is wrong regardless of its consequences); the principle of utilitarianism implies that the morality of an action is determined by its consequences (e.g., harming others is acceptable if it increases the well-being of a greater number of people). Despite the proposed independence of the moral inclinations reflecting these principles, previous work has relied on operationalizations in which stronger inclinations of one kind imply weaker inclinations of the other kind. The current research applied Jacoby's (1991) process dissociation procedure to independently quantify the strength of deontological and utilitarian inclinations within individuals. Study 1 confirmed the usefulness of process dissociation for capturing individual differences in deontological and utilitarian inclinations, revealing positive correlations of both inclinations to moral identity. Moreover, deontological inclinations were uniquely related to empathic concern, perspective-taking, and religiosity, whereas utilitarian inclinations were uniquely related to need for cognition. Study 2 demonstrated that cognitive load selectively reduced utilitarian inclinations, with deontological inclinations being unaffected. In Study 3, a manipulation designed to enhance empathy increased deontological inclinations, with utilitarian inclinations being unaffected. These findings provide evidence for the independent contributions of deontological and utilitarian inclinations to moral judgments, resolving many theoretical ambiguities implied by previous research.
Decades of
research has shown that people are poor at detecting lies. Two explanations for
this finding have been proposed. First, it has been suggested that lie detection
is inaccurate because ...people rely on invalid cues when judging deception.
Second, it has been suggested that lack of valid cues to deception limits
accuracy. A series of 4 meta-analyses tested these hypotheses with the framework
of
Brunswik's
(1952)
lens model. Meta-Analysis 1 investigated
perceived cues to deception by correlating 66 behavioral cues in 153 samples
with deception judgments. People strongly associate deception with impressions
of incompetence (
r
= .59) and ambivalence (
r
=
.49). Contrary to self-reports, eye contact is only weakly correlated with
deception judgments (
r
= −.15). Cues to perceived
deception were then compared with cues to actual deception. The results show a
substantial covariation between the 2 sets of cues (
r
= .59 in
Meta-Analysis 2,
r
= .72 in Meta-Analysis 3). Finally, in
Meta-Analysis 4, a lens model analysis revealed a very strong matching between
behaviorally based predictions of deception and behaviorally based predictions
of perceived deception. In conclusion, contrary to previous assumptions, people
rarely rely on the wrong cues. Instead, limitations in lie detection accuracy
are mainly attributable to weaknesses in behavioral cues to deception. The
results suggest that intuitive notions about deception are more accurate than
explicit knowledge and that lie detection is more readily improved by increasing
behavioral differences between liars and truth tellers than by informing
lie-catchers of valid cues to deception.
Recent evidence suggests that perceptions of social class rank influence a variety of social cognitive tendencies, from patterns of causal attribution to moral judgment. In the present studies we ...tested the hypotheses that upper-class rank individuals would be more likely to endorse essentialist lay theories of social class categories (i.e., that social class is founded in genetically based, biological differences) than would lower-class rank individuals and that these beliefs would decrease support for restorative justice-which seeks to rehabilitate offenders, rather than punish unlawful action. Across studies, higher social class rank was associated with increased essentialism of social class categories (Studies 1, 2, and 4) and decreased support for restorative justice (Study 4). Moreover, manipulated essentialist beliefs decreased preferences for restorative justice (Study 3), and the association between social class rank and class-based essentialist theories was explained by the tendency to endorse beliefs in a just world (Study 2). Implications for how class-based essentialist beliefs potentially constrain social opportunity and mobility are discussed.
Based on a three-year inductive study of one organization's implementation of radical organizational change, we examine the critical role played by middle managers' judgments of the legitimacy of ...their top managers as change agents. Our analysis revealed middle managers' shifting judgments of the change agents' legitimacy that arose with their emotional reactions and produced rising resistance to the change effort. Our inductive model illustrates the dynamic, relational, and iterative relationships among change recipients' legitimacy judgments of change agents and arising emotional reactions in various phases of planned change, which explain recipients' emergent resistance to the change effort. Our model allows us to contribute to theory on radical organizational change, resistance to change, and legitimacy judgments.
The nature of harm—and therefore moral judgment—may be misunderstood. Rather than an objective matter of reason, we argue that harm should be redefined as an intuitively perceived continuum. This ...redefinition provides a new understanding of moral content and mechanism—the constructionist Theory of Dyadic Morality (TDM). TDM suggests that acts are condemned proportional to three elements: norm violations, negative affect, and—importantly—perceived harm. This harm is dyadic, involving an intentional agent causing damage to a vulnerable patient (A→P). TDM predicts causal links both from harm to immorality (dyadic comparison) and from immorality to harm (dyadic completion). Together, these two processes make the “dyadic loop,” explaining moral acquisition and polarization. TDM argues against intuitive harmless wrongs and modular “foundations,” but embraces moral pluralism through varieties of values and the flexibility of perceived harm. Dyadic morality impacts understandings of moral character, moral emotion, and political/cultural differences, and provides research guidelines for moral psychology.
Theories of moral judgment have long emphasized reasoning and conscious thought while downplaying the role of intuitive and contextual influences. However, recent research has demonstrated that ...incidental feelings of disgust can influence moral judgments and make them more severe. This study involved two experiments demonstrating that the reverse effect can occur when the notion of physical purity is made salient, thus making moral judgments less severe. After having the cognitive concept of cleanliness activated (Experiment 1) or after physically cleansing themselves after experiencing disgust (Experiment 2), participants found certain moral actions to be less wrong than did participants who had not been exposed to a cleanliness manipulation. The findings support the idea that moral judgment can be driven by intuitive processes, rather than deliberate reasoning. One of those intuitions appears to be physical purity, because it has a strong connection to moral purity.
I study associative processing in high-level judgment using vector space semantic models. I find that semantic relatedness, as quantified by these models, is able to provide a good measure of the ...associations involved in judgment, and, in turn, predict responses in a large number of existing and novel judgment tasks. My results shed light on the representations underlying judgment, and highlight the close relationship between these representations and those at play in language and in the assessment of word meaning. In doing so, they show how one of the best-known and most studied theories in decision making research can be formalized to make quantitative a priori predictions, and how this theory can be rigorously tested on a wide range of natural language judgment problems.
Though scholars have speculated for centuries on links between individuals' social class standing and approach to moral reasoning, little systematic research exists on how class and morality are ...associated. Here, we investigate whether the tendency of upper-class individuals to exhibit reduced empathy makes them more likely to resist intuitionist options in moral dilemmas, instead favoring utilitarian choices that maximize the greatest good for the greatest number. In Study 1, upper-class participants were more likely than lower-class participants to choose the utilitarian option in the footbridge dilemma, which evokes relatively strong moral intuitions, but not in the standard trolley dilemma, which evokes relatively weak moral intuitions. In Study 2, upper-class participants were more likely to take resources from one person to benefit several others in an allocation task, and this association was explained by their lower empathy for the person whose resources were taken. Finally, in Study 3, the association between social class and utilitarian judgment was reduced in a condition in which empathy was induced, but not in a control condition, suggesting that reduced empathy helps account for the utilitarianism of upper-class individuals.
We conducted three experiments indicating that characteristically deontological judgments—here, disapproving of sacrificing one person for the greater good of others—are preferentially supported by ...visual imagery. Experiment I used two matched working memory tasks—one visual, one verbal—to identify individuals with relatively visual cognitive styles and individuals with relatively verbal cognitive styles. Individuals with more visual cognitive styles made more deontological judgments. Experiment 2 showed that visual interference, relative to verbal interference and no interference, decreases deontological judgment. Experiment 3 indicated that these effects are due to people's tendency to visualize the harmful means (sacrificing one person) more than the beneficial end (saving others). These results suggest a specific role for visual imagery in moral judgment: When people consider sacrificing someone as a means to an end, visual imagery preferentially supports the judgment that the ends do not justify the means. These results suggest an integration of the dual-process theory of moral judgment with construal-level theory.
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