Is altruism always morally good, or is the morality of altruism fundamentally shaped by the social opportunity costs that often accompany helping decisions? Across four studies, we reveal that in cases of realistic tradeoffs in social distance for gains in welfare where helping socially distant others necessitates not helping socially closer others with the same resources, helping is deemed as less morally acceptable. Making helping decisions at a cost to socially closer others also negatively affects judgments of relationship quality (Study 2) and in turn, decreases cooperative behavior with the helper (Study 3). Ruling out an alternative explanation of physical distance accounting for the effects in Studies 1 to 3, social distance continued to impact moral acceptability when physical distance across social targets was matched (Study 4). These findings reveal that attempts to decrease biases in helping may have previously unconsidered consequences for moral judgments, relationships, and cooperation.
Empathy has long been considered central to living a moral life. However, mounting evidence has shown that people’s empathy is often biased toward (i.e., felt more strongly for) others that they are close or similar to, igniting a debate over whether empathy is inherently morally flawed and should be abandoned in efforts to strive toward greater equity. This debate has focused on whether empathy limits the scope of our morality, but little consideration has been given to whether our moral beliefs may be limiting our empathy. Across two studies conducted on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk ( N = 604), we investigated moral judgments of biased and equitable feelings of empathy. We observed a moral preference for empathy toward socially close over distant others. However, feeling equal empathy for all people is seen as the most morally and socially valuable approach. These findings provide new theoretical insight into the relationship between empathy and morality, and they have implications for navigating toward a more egalitarian future.
Is altruism always morally good, or is the morality of altruism fundamentally shaped by the social opportunity costs that often accompany helping decisions? Across five studies, we reveal that, although helping both socially closer and socially distant others is generally perceived favorably (Study 1), in cases of realistic tradeoffs in social distance for gains in welfare where helping socially distant others necessitates not helping socially closer others with the same resources, helping is deemed as less morally acceptable (Studies 2-5). Making helping decisions at a cost to socially closer others also negatively affects judgments of relationship quality (Study 3) and in turn, decreases cooperative behavior with the helper (Study 4). Ruling out an alternative explanation of physical distance accounting for the effects in Studies 1-4, social distance continued to impact moral acceptability when physical distance across social targets was matched (Study 5). These findings reveal that attempts to decrease biases in helping may have previously unconsidered consequences for moral judgments, relationships, and cooperation.
The long-term collective welfare of humanity may lie in the hands of those who are presently living. But do people normatively include future generations in their moral circles? Across four studies conducted on Prolific Academic (NTotal=823), we find evidence for a progressive decline in the subjective moral standing of future generations, demonstrating decreasing perceived moral obligation, moral concern, and prosocial intentions towards other people with increasing temporal distance. While participants generally tend to display present-oriented moral preferences, we also reveal individual differences that mitigate this tendency and predict pro-future outcomes, including individual variation in longtermism beliefs and the vividness of one’s imagination. Our studies reconcile conflicting evidence in the extant literature on moral judgment and future-thinking, shed light on the role of temporal distance in moral circle expansion, and offer practical implications for better valuing and safeguarding the shared future of humanity.
Empathy has long been considered a key component in being a caring, moral person. However ample research over the past decade has provided an alternate perspective of empathy as narrow in scope and biased towards close, similar, and identifiable others. This has prompted a debate within the fields of psychology and philosophy over whether empathy has a place in a moral life or if it is best left at the sidelines when striving to be the most moral we can. Despite the wealth of empirical and theoretical work from both perspectives, there has been an angle in this conversation that has largely been missing: how is empathy actually perceived? Do we assign greater moral value to feeling empathy for socially close others over distant others? Are there moral and social consequences to feeling equal, unbiased empathy for others regardless of social distance? Across two studies, we provide answers to these questions and more, illuminating lay perceptions of both biased and unbiased empathy. We find evidence that it is perceived as more morally right to empathize with only socially close others than to empathize with only socially distant others, and that this bias has social consequences as well. However it is perceived as the most morally and socially valuable to feel equal empathy for both socially close and distant others, a finding that extends from judgments of others’ empathic responses (Study 1) to judgements of participants’ own empathic responses towards targets that are personalized on subjective social distance (Study 2). Though findings from Study 2 support a bias in moral judgments towards exclusive empathy for a socially close target over a socially distant target, feeling equal empathy for both targets was again rated as the most moral. The evidence summarized here suggests that moral judgments of empathy that is not equally felt for all do reflect a biased preference for extending empathy towards those who are close. However our findings also indicate that feeling equal empathy for all is seen as the most moral, suggesting that moral judgments do not limit the expansion of empathy.
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