Stand up to action: The postural effect of moral dilemma decision‐making and the moderating role of dual processes

Abstract

Previous studies have demonstrated the possibility that when people are in standing rather than sitting postures, they have a stronger cognitive control propensity, making them inclined to agree more to sacrificing one innocent person and saving more people. Furthermore, this postural effect can be moderated by dual processes. In three studies, participants read dilemma scenarios followed by a proposed behavior to sacrifice one innocent person and save five or more people. The participants in sitting or standing postures were asked whether the described action was morally acceptable (moral judgment) and whether they would perform the described action (moral action). The results demonstrated that participants were more approving of the behavioral proposal in the moral action perspective than in the moral judgment perspective across the three studies. The hypothesized postural effect was found in a field study (Study 1) and replicated in a preregistered replication study (Study 2), and was further supported in an experimental study (Study 3). Compared with those in sitting postures, participants in standing postures expressed higher approval of the behavioral proposal compared to their sitting counterparts. Furthermore, the postural effect was dismissed when participants made moral decisions with a dual task to increase cognitive load, and it was reversed when they made moral decisions after deliberate consideration of the behavioral proposal (Study 3). The present research supports and extends the dual‐process morality theory by demonstrating that body posture can affect moral decision‐making; it also offers novel evidence revealing the moderating role of dual process on embodiment effects. It enriches our knowledge that morality is evolutionarily embodied in postures and that the dual process can moderate embodiment effects.

The dual-process approach to human sociality: Meta-analytic evidence for a theory of internalized heuristics for self-preservation.

“…This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. Costa, Foucart, Hayakawa, et al (2014) Conceptual primes PMD Second language increases utilitarian judgments Paxton et al (2014) Conceptual primes PMD Inducing reflection increases utilitarian judgments, compared to baseline Geipel et al (2015a) Conceptual primes PMD Second language increases utilitarian judgments Lee and Gino (2015) Conceptual primes PMD Suppressing Emotion increases utilitarian judgments compared to baseline Cipolletti et al (2016) Conceptual primes PMD Second language increases utilitarian judgments Corey et al (2017) Conceptual primes PMD Second language increases utilitarian judgments Hayakawa et al (2017) Conceptual primes Process dissociation Second language decreases deontological judgments Lyrintzis (2017) Conceptual primes PMD Inducing Reflection increases utilitarian judgments, compared to baseline Muda et al (2018) Conceptual primes Process dissociation Second language decreases deontological judgments Capraro, Everett, and Earp (2019) Conceptual primes OUS Intuition, compared to deliberation, increases nonutilitarian judgments on the instrumental harm dimension; intuition has no effect on the impartial beneficence dimension Driver (2022) Conceptual primes PMD Second language decreases deontological judgments Dylman and Champoux-Larsson (2020) Conceptual primes PMD Second language decreases deontological judgments only when it is dissimilar from first language Brouwer (2021) Conceptual primes PMD Second language decreases deontological judgments C. Liu and Liao (2021) Conceptual primes PMD Inducing deliberation increases utilitarian judgments, compared to baseline Starcke et al (2012) Ego depletion PMD Inducing stress increases deontological decisions…”

“…This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. Liu and Liao (2021) Cognitive load PMD Load decreases deontological judgments Schwitzgebel and Cushman (2015) Conceptual primes PMD Inducing reflection along with a 15 s time delay increases deontological judgments, compared to baseline Hayakawa et al (2017) Conceptual primes Process dissociation Second language decreases utilitarian judgments Shin and Kim (2017) Conceptual primes PMD Second language decreases utilitarian judgments Muda et al (2018) Conceptual primes Process dissociation Second language decreases utilitarian judgments…”

Does Standing Up Enhance Performance on the Stroop Task in Healthy Young Adults? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…For example, Smith et al [13] found reduced Stroop interference (i.e., the difference between incongruent and neutral trials), slower search rates, and reduced switch costs in the visual search task when standing compared to sitting. In addition, Liu and Liao [14] found that participants in a standing posture agreed more with the utilitarian proposal and became less deontological.…”