Sense of Personal Control Intensifies Moral Judgments of Others’ Actions

Cornwell, James F. M.; Higgins, E. Tory

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02261

Cited by 6 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…Third, we advance the literature on ethical judgments by providing further evidence that a low sense of control drives ethical judgments (Cornwell & Higgins, 2019). By implicating sense of control as a driver of ethical judgments, we conceptually replicate related work from literatures on power and free will—individuals who are low in power (e.g., Wiltermuth & Flynn, 2013), or believe that they (or others) lack free will (e.g., Martin et al, 2017; Monroe et al, 2017) view unethical behavior as more acceptable.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 74%

“…Furthermore, when considering the link between sense of control and judgments of ethicality, some accounts might suggest those who severely lack control may harshly punish others unethical behaviors to restore control (Landau et al, 2015). Although some empirical evidence suggests the opposite (those lower in control find unethical behavior more acceptable and punish unethicality less harshly; Cornwell & Higgins, 2019; Wiltermuth & Flynn, 2013), we could potentially explore this by examining self-other differences. If lacking control causes people to punish others more harshly to restore control, these differences should exist for judgments directed toward others, but not necessarily for judgments directed toward the self.…”

Section: Studies 4a and 4b: Tests Of Moderationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As per this attributions framework, when one believes that their own and others’ behaviors are controlled by situational factors outside of their control, they should find unethical behaviors more acceptable (Cushman, 2008; Malle et al, 2014; Monroe et al, 2017; Reeder et al, 2002; Woolfolk et al, 2006). Indeed, correlational studies suggest that people who have less control develop less extreme reactions to unethical behaviors (Cornwell & Higgins, 2019). Work regarding free will makes a similar point—those who believe they (and others) have less agency punish unethicality less harshly, presumably because they believe behavior driven by situational forces are less blameworthy (Genschow et al, 2017; Martin et al, 2017; Shariff et al, 2014).…”

Section: Ethical Judgments and Sense Of Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Economic inequality reduces sense of control and increases the acceptability of self-interested unethical behavior.

To¹,

Wiwad²,

Kouchaki³

2023

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

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Societies worldwide are witnessing higher levels of economic inequality. While prior work has examined ethical judgments toward inequality itself (e.g., “is inequality unethical?”), less is known about how inequality shapes judgments of unethical behavior (e.g., “is unethical behavior more acceptable?”). In two correlational studies, we find that higher objective (Study 1; n = 127,953) and subjective (Study 2; n = 806) inequality is associated with greater acceptability of self-interested unethical behavior. In Studies 3a–6b (total N = 4,851; preregistered), we manipulated perceived inequality and test several mediating pathways. Results point toward the importance of sense of control as a mechanism: Under conditions of high inequality, individuals report a lower sense of control, which increases the acceptability of self-interested unethical behaviors. As a supplement, we also explore associations regarding why high inequality reduces sense of control (reduced perceptions of social mobility) and why sense of control is associated with greater acceptability of unethical behavior (greater situational attributions). Overall, our results suggest inequality changes ethical standards by reducing one’s sense of control, providing evidence for another pathway through which inequality harms societies.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 74%

Section: Studies 4a and 4b: Tests Of Moderationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Ethical Judgments and Sense Of Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Economic inequality reduces sense of control and increases the acceptability of self-interested unethical behavior.

To¹,

Wiwad²,

Kouchaki³

2023

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

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show abstract

“…de-intensify) their judgments of others if they are currently experiencing a strong ( vs . weak) sense of control (Cornwell and Higgins, 2019). This is consistent with other research suggesting that a component of the moral judgment process involves observers putting themselves in the position of the perpetrator and making judgments based on what they experience when doing so (Miller and Cushman, 2013).…”

Section: Control Motivation: Managing What Happensmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Value in Moral Phenomenology: The Role of Epistemic and Control Experiences

Cornwell

Higgins

2019

Front. Psychol.

Self Cite

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Many researchers in moral psychology approach the topic of moral judgment in terms of value-assessing outcomes of behaviors as either harmful or helpful, which makes the behaviors wrong or right, respectively. However, recent advances in motivation science suggest that other motives may be at work as well-namely truth (wanting to establish what is real) and control (wanting to manage what happens). In this review, we argue that the epistemic experiences of observers of (im)moral behaviors, and the perceived epistemic experiences of those observed, serve as a groundwork for understanding how truth and control motives are implicated in the moral judgment process. We also discuss relations between this framework and recent work from across the field of moral psychology, as well as implications for future research.

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“…Our past experiences with people whether good or bad affect our future interactions with them and guide our social decision making. In particular, moral judgement about people based on their actions is a key component in our evaluation of an individual (Cornwell & Higgins, 2019;Jiang et al, 2022). It is currently unknown how positive or negative moral judgments associated with a person's face are processed and stored in the brain in long-term memory.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Robust memory of face moral values is encoded in the human caudate tail: A simultaneous EEG-fMRI study

Ataei

Amini

Ghazizadeh

2023

Preprint

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Moral judgments about people based on their actions is a key component that guides social decision making. It is currently unknown how positive or negative moral judgments associated with a persons face are processed and stored in the brain. Here, we investigate the long-term memory of moral values associated with human faces using simultaneous EEG-fMRI data acquisition. Results show that only a few exposures to morally charged stories of people, are enough to form long-term memories a day later for a relatively large number of new faces. Event related potentials (ERPs) showed a significant differentiation of remembered good vs bad faces over centerofrontal electrode sites (value ERP). EEG-informed fMRI analysis revealed a subcortical cluster centered on the left caudate tail (CDt) as a correlate of the face value ERP. Importantly neither this analysis nor a conventional whole brain analysis revealed any significant activation in cortical areas in particular the fusiform face area (FFA). Conversely an fMRI-informed EEG source localization using accurate subject-specific EEG head models also revealed activation in the caudate tail. Nevertheless, the detected caudate tail region was found to be functionally connected to the FFA, suggesting FFA to be the source of face-specific information to CDt. These results identify CDt as the main site for encoding the long-term value memories of faces in humans suggesting that moral value of faces activates the same subcortical basal ganglia circuitry involved in processing reward value memory for objects in primates.

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Sense of Personal Control Intensifies Moral Judgments of Others’ Actions

Cited by 6 publications

References 58 publications

Economic inequality reduces sense of control and increases the acceptability of self-interested unethical behavior.

Economic inequality reduces sense of control and increases the acceptability of self-interested unethical behavior.

Beyond Value in Moral Phenomenology: The Role of Epistemic and Control Experiences

Robust memory of face moral values is encoded in the human caudate tail: A simultaneous EEG-fMRI study

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