Moral Contagion Attitudes towards Potential Organ Transplants in British and Japanese Adults

Abstract

In two studies we investigated whether people evidence an effect of moral contamination with respect to hypothetical organ transplants. This was achieved by asking participants to make judgements after presenting either positive or negative background information about the donor. In the first study, positive/negative background information had a corresponding effect on three judgements with attitudes to a heart transplant most pronounced by negative background information relative to good information and controls. This effect was replicated in the second study with both heart and liver transplantation. Negative effects were stronger than positive effects in all conditions consistent with a negativity bias, but again stronger with regards to organs than controls. These results confirm findings from surveys that reveal real patients are concerned about moral contamination following organ transplantation and show that this bias in evident even in hypothetical, non-life-threatening scenarios. In a third study we found a significantly stronger moral contagion effect in Japanese relative to English participants, suggesting that concerns about moral contagion may be moderated by culture.

Children, Object Value, and Persuasion

“…Perhaps surprisingly, given the absence of scientific basis for such beliefs, this indeed seems to be the case, both for many who actually receive transplants (e.g., Sanner, 2001) and those who have not. Thus, for example, adults are uncomfortable with the idea of receiving blood transfusions or organ transplants from someone with morally negative characteristics, such as a murderer (Hood, Gjersoe, Donnelly, Byers, & Itajkura, 2011;Meyer, Leslie, Gelman, & Stilwell, 2013), and both children and adults find it plausible that moral qualities of the donor (positive or negative) will be transmitted to the recipient (Meyer, Gelman, Roberts, & Leslie, 2017;Meyer et al, 2013). For example, in one study (Meyer et al, 2017), children 5-7 years of age were asked to consider a series of hypothetical vignettes in which they were asked what would happen if they were to swap hearts with another individual-either another animal (pig or monkey) or another person with a distinctive character trait (mean, nice, smart, or not-smart).…”

Genetic essentialist beliefs about criminality predict harshness of recommended punishment.

“…Moreover, survey data indicate that people often see genes as playing a major causal role in the emergence of violent behavior (Jayaratne et al, 2009). Further, studies also show that people often expect moral conscience to be core to one’s identity (Strohminger & Nichols, 2014), and immoral or criminal behavior to be rooted in a material and bodily basis (e.g., Donnelly et al, 2011; Meyer et al, 2013). Finally, a range of crimes (such as rape, murder, sexual assault, and arson) are often construed as having a natural or biological origin (Berryessa, 2020; de Vel-Palumbo et al, 2019; Martin et al, in press; Xu et al, 2022).…”

The performance and psychological mechanism of contamination effect in consumer behavior

“…污染效应首次引入心理学至今, 已有 20 多年 的历史。时至今日, 国外学者针对污染效应的研究 已被广泛用于解释许多领域的行为, 包括产品估 价 (Argo et al, 2006;Argo et al, 2008;Morales & Fitzsimons, 2007;Newman & Dhar, 2014)、名人效 应 (Newman et al, 2011;Newman & Bloom, 2014)、 器官移植供体的选择 (Donnelly et al, 2011;Meyer et al, 2013)、对圣地的偏好 (Rozin & Wolf, 2008)、 原创艺术品的估价 (Newman & Bloom, 2012)、收 藏行为的跨文化差异 (Gjersoe et al, 2014)、 赌博决 策 (Wohl & Enzle, 2002;Mishra et al, 2009)、个体 能力和表现 (Lee et al, 2011;Kramer & Block, 2014)、 甚至是浪漫关系 (Niemyjska, 2014) (Fallon et al, 1984;Siegal, 1988;Hejmadi et al, 2004)。…”