Shocking
Beyond hypothetical trolleys: Moral choices and motivations in a real-life sacrificial dilemma
Dries Bostyn et al.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, November 2025, Pages 834-849
Abstract:
Sacrificial moral dilemmas require individuals to choose between allowing harm to several people or preventing this by actively causing harm to a smaller number of people. These dilemmas have been foundational in studying how people resolve conflicts between competing moral principles, with responses traditionally interpreted as reflecting either "utilitarian" concern for the greater good or "deontological" refusal to enact harm. Existing research relies almost exclusively on hypothetical scenarios. We confronted 794 participants across two studies with real-life consequential dilemmas involving minor but genuine physical harm. Participants decided whether to allow two confederates to receive painful electroshocks or shock a third confederate and provided motivations for their decisions. Study 1 manipulated physical proximity to potential targets, while Study 2 examined how the gender composition of potential targets influenced decisions. Moreover, each participant faced this choice twice, allowing us to examine how prior outcomes influence subsequent moral decisions. Results show that responses to traditional hypothetical dilemmas moderately predict real-life behavior. Physical proximity and target gender had no significant effects on actual choices. When confronting the dilemma a second time, approximately one third of participants switched their decision, primarily to distribute harm equitably across potential targets. Analysis of participants' motivations reveals a diverse spectrum of moral considerations beyond utilitarian-deontological frameworks, including fairness concerns, responsibility avoidance, and beliefs about shared versus individual suffering. Our findings invite scholars to expand current theoretical models to better capture the nuanced ways people approach sacrificial trade-offs in consequential, real-world situations.
Dehumanization without antipathy: Subtle and blatant measures reveal a shared regulatory function
Katrina Fincher, Asteya Percaya & Starlett Hartley
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, forthcoming
Abstract:
Dehumanization, the perception of others as less than fully human, is widely invoked in discourse on ethnopolitical conflict. Yet its validity as a psychological construct has come under growing scrutiny. Critics have questioned its divergent validity, arguing it may merely reflect interpersonal and intergroup bias, and its convergent validity, given the proliferation of diverse and potentially unrelated measures. The present research speaks to both concerns by leveraging the context of contagious disease, which introduces motivational conflict between recognizing others' humanity and managing personal risk. Because contagious disease threatens friends and family as much as strangers, this context provides a stringent test of whether dehumanization operates independently of prejudice. It also enables a test of functional convergence: whether diverse dehumanization measures respond in parallel to a shared motivational input. Findings from six studies (N = 5,253) assessing four common operationalizations -- blatant dehumanization, animalization, mechanization, and mind denial -- support the construct's distinctiveness and its coherence. Contagion cues reliably elicited dehumanization, and this effect was not moderated by relational closeness: Perceived disease risk increased dehumanization equally for friends and family. Findings also support the construct's coherence: All four measures responded similarly to disease threat. Multilevel models treating the measure as a random effect revealed substantial shared variance across operationalizations. Together, these findings support the distinctiveness and coherence of psychological conceptions of dehumanization as a flexible regulatory mechanism.
Can I get a little less life satisfaction, please?
Michael Plant
Economics & Philosophy, forthcoming
Abstract:
In the social sciences and policymaking, life satisfaction surveys are increasingly taken as the best measure of wellbeing. However, the life satisfaction theory of wellbeing (LST) barely features in philosophers' discussions of wellbeing. This prompts two questions. First, is LST distinct from the three standard accounts of wellbeing (hedonism, desire theories, the objective list)? I argue LST is a type of desire theory. Second, is LST a plausible theory of wellbeing? I raise two serious, underappreciated objections and argue it is not. Life satisfaction surveys are useful, but we should not conclude they are the ideal measure of wellbeing.
Should We Fight Poverty or Reduce Its Harm? How the Language of Moral Foundations Theory Affects Donations to Poverty-Relief Charities
Andrew Luccasen & Kathleen Thomas
Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Depending on group identity, people tend to use different language when discussing poverty and relate to different moral values. We design an experiment to study how the language and moral values identified by moral foundations theory affect donations to poverty relief charities. One treatment uses language and moral values that progressives tend to use; one treatment is congruent for conservatives. We observe higher donations when the solicitation uses progressive themes such as caring and fairness. Conservatives drive our main result. Conservatives donate significantly more when presented with language and values that, in other contexts, tend to be used by progressives.
Victims of Misfortune are Blamed for Imposing Costs on Others: Testing a Cooperation-Dilemma Factor in Victim-Blame
Pascal Boyer & Eric Chantland
Human Nature, June 2025, Pages 238-256
Abstract:
In four pre-registered studies, we tested implications from a cooperation model that explains victim-blaming and victim-devaluation as the result of cooperation dilemmas, as a way for people to avoid the costs of helping victims (who seem to be unpromising cooperation partners) without paying the reputational cost of being seen as ungenerous, reluctant cooperators. An implication of this perspective is that, if a victim of misfortune is seen as imposing costs on others by requesting help (as opposed to bearing the costs), they will be seen as persons of low character, avoided as future cooperators, and deemed responsible for their misfortune (seen as negligent). The four studies presented here support these predictions. The effect is not confounded by familiar or social obligations, as it occurs in the same way when the targets, from whom help is requested, are the victim's parents, siblings, best friends or communities. Contrary to expectations, negligence attributions were not modulated by the victim's being described as poor (in need of help) or rich (not in need).
Second-Order Zero-Sum Misbeliefs: People Overestimate Others' Zero-Sum Beliefs
Shasha Yang, Yongfang Liu & Sijing Chen
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Across 12 empirical studies (Ntotal = 2,615), this research systematically examined the stable tendency for individuals to overestimate others' zero-sum beliefs, along with its underlying psychological mechanisms and behavioral consequences. Studies 1-3 and Supplementary Studies 1-4, using diverse experimental designs and measures, consistently showed that people tend to overestimate others' zero-sum beliefs at both explicit and implicit levels. Studies 4-5, through surveys and experiments, provided converging evidence that construing others at a high construal level -- as purely self-interested agents -- serves as a key psychological mechanism driving this overestimation. Study 6 and Supplementary Studies 5-6 demonstrated that overestimating others' zero-sum beliefs significantly reduced cooperative behavior, both in abstract game contexts and in more everyday settings. These findings enrich researchers' understanding of the illusory nature of zero-sum beliefs and suggest that interventions based on the social norms approach may help correct this overestimation and foster cooperation.
Avoiding Animal Suffering and Preserving Human Lives: Mind Perception and Speciesism in Moral Judgments of Torture and Killing
Simon Myers, Jesse Preston & Adam Sanborn
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
What is worse — torturing an animal or killing it? What about humans? In three studies (n = 472), torturing animals was perceived as worse than killing, but this was significantly reduced or reversed for humans. This was partially explained by mind-perception (agency or experience), and also by an aversion to the loss of human lives over and above this (speciesism). Study 1 provided evidence that the moral wrongness of torturing a hypothetical animal was worse than killing, but killing was worse for human targets. Study 2 partially replicated and extended these results across different species. Ratings were predicted by mind perception, and speciesist preference to avoid human death. Study 3 used pairs of species, separating torture and killing judgments, showing that while speciesism is important for explaining the greater weight people place on human lives, it played a smaller role in judgments about suffering after accounting for mind-perception.
A Spillover Effect of Altruistic Cheating: When Benefitting Others Goes Wrong
Anat Halevy et al.
Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, October 2025
Abstract:
We identify a novel moral licensing mechanism: a spillover effect whereby seemingly altruistic acts increase subsequent self-serving dishonesty. Study 1 established this spillover effect, showing that initial altruistic cheating sustains later egoistic cheating at a higher level compared to when both acts are self-serving. Study 2 demonstrated that this effect is unidirectional. While the effect of altruistic cheating was replicated, initial egoistic cheating did not reduce later altruistic cheating. Study 3 found initial support for a moral credentials account over desensitization as the underlying mechanism. Study 4 confirmed this by showing that retroactively removing the altruistic justification eliminated the effect. The asymmetry of the spillover effect uncovers a more troubling aspect of moral licensing that undermines ethical boundaries and sustains dishonesty rather than simply enabling moral balance. Our findings expand current models of moral licensing by introducing a justification-based process that perpetuates unethical behavior. This helps explain how well-intentioned misconduct can escalate in individual and organizational contexts.
Sense of Agency During Group Control
Carl Michael Galang et al.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, forthcoming
Abstract:
Previous work has shown that the sense of agency increases when commanding other people. However, such work has primarily been limited to dyads and little is known about how the sense of agency changes when the number of followers increases. Furthermore, it is unclear if commanding social agents versus mere physical events changes one's sense of agency. Four experiments, involving making virtual agents clap their hands and/or streetlamps turning on, explore this topic. All four experiments reveal a robust linear increase in explicit agency judgments with follower count; however, Experiment 4 shows that this effect is primarily related to the perceived proportion of responders, rather than absolute group size. Interestingly, Experiments 2 and 3 show that this effect is amplified with human-like avatars (relative to streetlamps), suggesting that there may be something special about commanding a group of human-like social agents. This research provides further insight to our understanding of the sense of agency in group dynamics.