Inference of trustworthiness from intuitive moral judgments.

Abstract

Moral judgments play a critical role in motivating and enforcing human cooperation, and research on the proximate mechanisms of moral judgments highlights the importance of intuitive, automatic processes in forming such judgments. Intuitive moral judgments often share characteristics with deontological theories in normative ethics, which argue that certain acts (such as killing) are absolutely wrong, regardless of their consequences. Why do moral intuitions typically follow deontological prescriptions, as opposed to those of other ethical theories? Here, we test a functional explanation for this phenomenon by investigating whether agents who express deontological moral judgments are more valued as social partners. Across 5 studies, we show that people who make characteristically deontological judgments are preferred as social partners, perceived as more moral and trustworthy, and are trusted more in economic games. These findings provide empirical support for a partner choice account of moral intuitions whereby typically deontological judgments confer an adaptive function by increasing a person's likelihood of being chosen as a cooperation partner. Therefore, deontological moral intuitions may represent an evolutionarily prescribed prior that was selected for through partner choice mechanisms. (PsycINFO Database Record

Modeling Morality in 3‐D: Decision‐Making, Judgment, and Inference

“…Moral evaluation does not stop at the level of judging single events (e.g., right vs. wrong), but very often proceeds from there to making inferences about the moral character of agents (e.g., good vs. evil), a process that has been referred to as moral inference (cf. Everett et al, , ; Helzer & Critcher, ; Knobe, ; Uhlmann et al., ). Accurately inferring the moral character of others helps predict their behaviors (Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick, ).…”

Consequences of agreement versus disagreement on physical disgust: How do people perceive the cleanliness and morality of someone who expresses inappropriate disgust

“…To illustrate, a person who reports not feeling sad upon seeing the suffering of hurricane victims, or not getting angry at the sight of a child being abused, or not feeling happy for a sibling's success is very likely to be perceived as immoral. This would reflect the well‐established notion that morality is closely tied to empathy and interpersonal warmth (e.g., Everett, Pizarro, & Crockett, ; Pizarro, ). For that reason, all our studies examine physical rather than moral disgust.…”

Rationalization and Reflection Differentially Modulate Prior Attitudes Toward the Purity Domain

“…Although we documented rationalization effects in the moral domain, our studies generated limited insight regarding the mechanism by which moral evaluation enhances the perception of harm. One possibility is that a focus on an act's morality directs attention away from its outcomes (Miller, Hannikainen & Cushman, 2014) and toward independent grounds for condemnation (Everett, Pizarro & Crockett, 2016;Tepe & Aydinli-Karakulak, 2019;Uhlmann, Pizarro, & Diermeier, 2015). If so, after a moral assessment, when asked to re-evaluate the action's consequences, participants may be embracing harmfulness as a reasonable explanation for their own moral opposition-concluding that the act is in fact not as innocuous as they had previously thought.…”