Market mindset impacts moral decisions: The exposure to market relationships makes moral choices more utilitarian by means of proportional thinking

Abstract

We show that exposure to market relationships increases people's tendency to make utilitarian moral choices by means of proportional thinking-the definitional feature of the market mindset. In Experiment 1, participants primed with market relationships made more utilitarian choices in both the trolley and the footbridge dilemmas. In Experiment 2, priming market mindset led to more utilitarian moral choices and to greater focus on the proportion of survivors to victims. Experiment 3 showed that the effect of market mindset on utilitarian choices held only when the numbers of potential deaths and saved lives were clearly specified. A preregistered Experiment 4 demonstrated that the motivation to use proportional thinking mediates the relationship between market mindset and making utilitarian choices. Experiment 5, also preregistered, showed that the main effect we demonstrated is not due to suppressed emotions and that proportional thinking increases utilitarian choices as part of a broader orientation on rationality. K E Y W O R D S market mindset, moral choices, proportional thinking, utilitarian choices | 1501 MARKET MINDSET IMPACTS MORAL DECISIONS directed towards calculating and acting in accord with ratios or rates (Fiske, 2004; Rai & Fiske, 2011). 1.1 | Moral judgment and choice: Utilitarianism versus deontology When investigating moral judgment and decision-making, both philosophy and psychology often refer to the dual-process approach (Greene, 2007, 2014). This framework differentiates between deontology, which states that morality of an action depends on the intrinsic nature of human actions regardless of their consequences (Kant, 1785/1959) and utilitarianism or consequentialism, which implies that morality of different actions is determined by their outcomes (Mill, 1861/1998). Proponents of the utilitarian position argue that moral decision-making should always lead to the best overall consequences for all concerned (Conway, Goldstein-Greenwood, Polacek, & Greene, 2018). Even though the tension between these two approaches has, for many years, been at the heart of the philosophical debate, it is also of great importance from the standpoint of social psychology (Bartels, 2008; Greene, 2007). It concerns not only rather abstract and rare dilemmas such as whether to kill one person in order to save several others (Thomson, 1976), but also more practical, daily-life problems such as whether to fire a small group of workers during a recession to lower costs and save jobs for a larger group of employees. Several years ago, Greene, Sommerville, Nystrom, Darley, and Cohen (2001) proposed a theoretical model that aimed to explain why, in some situations, people employ deontological reasoning, while in others they turn towards the utilitarian orientation (see

Market mindset reduces endorsement of individualizing moral foundations, but not in liberals

“…A meta-analysis of earlier studies on the psychological consequences of being in a market mindset (Gasiorowska & Zaleskiewicz, 2021;Zaleskiewicz et al, 2020) revealed a small effect of such a manipulation (Hedge's g = 0.405). A priori power analysis using G*Power (Faul et al, 2007) revealed that, given an alpha of .05 and a power of .80, a sample of 97 participants per condition would be required to detect such an effect.…”

“…In Experiment 1, we investigated whether a simple visual manipulation of market vs. communal mindset can effectively trigger associations with free-market ideology. We used the manipulation method developed by Zaleskiewicz et al (2020) in their research on the effects of market mindset on moral judgment and choice (see also Gasiorowska & Zaleskiewicz, 2021). In this method, participants are exposed to pictures illustrating different social interactions and asked to consider them for a while.…”

“…In our previous experiment, we provided indirect evidence that market mindset salience increased endorsement of FMI rather than that communal mindset salience decreased it, but this study did not include a control condition. Although the latter interpretation seems unlikely in light of previous research showing that a communal mindset does not differ from a control condition (Gasiorowska & Zaleskiewicz, 2021;Zaleskiewicz et al, 2020), we decided to add a third control condition to investigate the predicted direction of the effects. We also expected to find a significant interaction between our experimental manipulation and political orientations, but, as delineated in the Introduction, we had two competing predictions-a first one assuming that the effect of a market mindset is stronger in conservatives and a second one assuming that it is more pronounced in liberals.…”

Can We Get Social Assistance Without Losing Agency? Engaging in Market Relationships as an Alternative to Searching for Help from Others

“…First, helping is in most cases non-contingent-people often support close others without expecting anything in return, which makes such a situation asymmetrical (Clark & Aragón, 2013). Market exchange, however, is symmetrical and proportional in nature: people expect that the input they provide will be repaid not only at a comparable value but also as quickly as possible (Fiske, 1992;Zaleskiewicz et al, 2020). Second, asking for help is related to greater uncertainty, since when people ask for help, they cannot be sure that others will react positively to their request.…”

“…In other words, when people pay for something, they can in most cases expect that their order will be processed effectively, because this is how an efficient market works. Third, being involved in a communal relationship is linked to having the communal mindset, while engaging in a market exchange relationship is connected to having the market mindset (Fiske, 1992;Gasiorowska & Zaleskiewicz, 2021;Zaleskiewicz et al, 2020) or using market cognition (Zaki et al, 2021). The market mindset is also associated with a sense of control and self-efficacy (Gasiorowska et al, 2018).…”