Moral Judgment: Truth, Order and Consequence

Abstract

Often we make snap moral judgments based on limited information. For instance upon reading a newspaper headline we very quickly decide on whether the implied outcome is good or bad. However, in situations like this we are also likely to revise our judgments when we read the main story and the conclusion of the article. One question yet to be answered is whether we adjust our moral judgments in a systematic way as we gain more details about a moral scenario. Two experiments (lab-based, online) addressed this question along with the influence of other factors on moral judgments (the origin of the moral scenario, the severity of the consequence of the scenario). Across both experiments, moral judgments were: 1) generally adjusted downwards as more information was presented; 2) more severe for headlines than the main story or the conclusion; 3) more severe for scenarios that were fabricated than real life stories; 4) more severe when the conclusion involved a severe consequence than a non-severe consequence.

Dynamic Moral Judgments and Emotions

“…These manipulations served three purposes. First, there is evidence to suggest that moral judgments are adjusted in the light of changes to different versions of a scenario or changes in informational content (Osman, 2015;Wiegmann et al, 2012); this lends support to the idea that moral judgments are labile rather than fixed across the presentation of details of a moral scenario. The aim here is to further test this by examining the extent to which moral judgments are adjusted when presented with additional details of the same moral scenario.…”

“…This means that there are properties of emotional experiences that have not yet been investigated in connection to moral cognition. In contrast, there is evidence showing that moral judgments are adaptive, in the sense that when different versions of the same moral dilemma (e.g., the trolley problem, an often used, but artificial moral dilemma) are presented to people, they show sensitivity to the changes in the informational content of the dilemma, and critically, they adjust their moral judgments upwards or downwards accordingly (Osman, 2015;Sinnott-Armstrong, Mallon, McCoy, & Hull, 2008;Wiegmann et al, 2012). Therefore, without exploring the ways in which emotions and moral judgments change in light of different types of information concerning a moral dilemma, researchers limit the understanding of emotions and how they operate in moral contexts, and also research thus far limits our un-derstanding of whether emotions change in systematic ways, and compliment rather than drive the way in which moral judgments change over time.…”

“…The main aim of the present study is to provide insights into the way in which self-reported emotional experiences as well as moral judgments change in light of exposure to further information about the morally dubious action referred to in a moral scenario. In order to generate circumstances that approximate real-life situations in which people make moral judgments a similar design was used as that by Osman (2015). Osman (2015) presented participants with moral scenarios in the form of news stories.…”

“…In order to generate circumstances that approximate real-life situations in which people make moral judgments a similar design was used as that by Osman (2015). Osman (2015) presented participants with moral scenarios in the form of news stories. A similar design was adopted here, along with the same stimulus set.…”

“…The present study takes as its starting point the view that, as with many other cognitive faculties that we have which are adaptive and dynamic (e.g., decision-making, see Osman, 2010, 2014 for review), moral judgments and emotional experiences of moral dilemmas may also have similar properties (Pessoa, 2008;Wiegmann, Okan, & Nagel, 2012). Thus, the objective of the present study is to use a novel paradigm developed by Osman (2015) in which it is possible to track changes in judgment and emotions as the result of exposure to further information about the morally dubious action referred to in a moral scenario.…”