The relational logic of moral inference

Crockett, Molly J.; Everett, Jim A. C.; Gill, Maureen; Siegel, Jenifer Z.

doi:10.1016/bs.aesp.2021.04.001

Cited by 15 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 250 publications

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“…A potential process is that interdependent individuals boost a friendly first impression (Meng et al, 2022) and try to sustain it in the presence of inconsistent information, and are thus more willing to help others. Our research provides support for the proposition that responding to negative behaviors with leniency is adaptive for healthy social functioning (Crockett et al, 2021).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 83%

“…The findings of study 2 were consistent with those of study 1, as the IIDI was negatively correlated with the negative index of updating. That is, in both the interaction-based paradigm and the description-based paradigm, the motivation to maintain relationships affects impression updating, supporting the relational logic in moral inference from the perspective of individual differences (Crockett et al, 2021). However, it is worth noting that there were some differences between the two studies.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 71%

“…That is, some people forgive occasional bad behaviors for the sake of maintaining relationships and future cooperation. Following this perspective, Crockett et al (2021) prosed a relational logic for moral inference in a review: people form and update moral impressions in ways that are responsive to the demands of ongoing social relationships, and update impressions in a way that promotes cooperation. Under this theoretical construction, negativity bias in impression updating, which may harm relationships, should be reduced among people who emphasize social relationships.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Focusing on the positive or the negative: Self‐construal moderates negativity bias in impression updating

Xie,

Chen,

2023

PsyCh Journal

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Negativity bias refers to the phenomenon whereby people put more weight on negative information. Although evolutionarily favorable for survival, negative bias in impression processing is detrimental to relationships and cooperation. To explore whether the motivation to maintain relationships, indicated by self‐construal, mitigates negativity bias, two studies were conducted. In study 1, participants interacted with three agents (worsened, improved, baseline) in a modified social learning task and evaluated the moral level of these agents. Results showed that positivity bias appeared among interdependent individuals, with larger updating for the improved agent than for the worsened agent. Moreover, interdependent individuals exhibited less immediate decreases toward the worsened agent and steeper increases toward the improved agent than did independent individuals. To validate the results of study 1, we used a narrative description paradigm in study 2. Participants read the behavior descriptions of agents and rated them on morality. The negativity bias was significantly mitigated among individuals with high interdependence, though it did not reverse. These results indicate that interdependent individuals focus more on positive information when others change, yielding a more positive pattern in impression updating. This flexible interpersonal coping strategy can bring advantages to social interaction and cooperation.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 83%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 71%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Focusing on the positive or the negative: Self‐construal moderates negativity bias in impression updating

Xie,

Chen,

2023

PsyCh Journal

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“…This result held even for more nationalistic participants—consistent with previous evidence for a disconnect between participants’ own preferences in moral dilemmas and what kind of person they trust (Everett et al, 2016, 2018, 2021). That is, even when participants recognize that a redistributive policy is less beneficial for themselves, they can still trust a person in power who endorses that policy—potentially because this can signal an impartial commitment to the greater good (Crockett et al, 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vaccine Nationalism Counterintuitively Erodes Public Trust in Leaders

Colombatto,

Everett,

Senn

et al. 2023

Psychol Sci

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Global access to resources like vaccines is key for containing the spread of infectious diseases. However, wealthy countries often pursue nationalistic policies, stockpiling doses rather than redistributing them globally. One possible motivation behind vaccine nationalism is a belief among policymakers that citizens will mistrust leaders who prioritize global needs over domestic protection. In seven experiments (total N = 4,215 adults), we demonstrate that such concerns are misplaced: Nationally representative samples across multiple countries with large vaccine surpluses (Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, and United States) trusted redistributive leaders more than nationalistic leaders—even the more nationalistic participants. This preference generalized across different diseases and manifested in both self-reported and behavioral measures of trust. Professional civil servants, however, had the opposite intuition and predicted higher trust in nationalistic leaders, and a nonexpert sample also failed to predict higher trust in redistributive leaders. We discuss how policymakers’ inaccurate intuitions might originate from overestimating others’ self-interest.

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“…Finally, this study also contributes to the person perception literature on moral character. Prior studies have shown that people automatically and effortlessly evaluate others’ moral character, and that these evaluations play a crucial role in determining our overall positive or negative evaluations of others (Brambilla, Sacchi, Rusconi, & Goodwin, 2021; Critcher, Helzer, & Tannenbaum, 2020; Crockett, Everett, Gill, & Siegel, 2021; Goodwin et al, 2014; Uhlmann, Pizarro, & Diermeier, 2015). Our study extends prior work by focusing on a consequence of moral character evaluations.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Workplace Mistreatment and Employee Deviance: An Investigation of the Reciprocal Relationship Between Hostile Work Environments and Harmful Work Behaviors

Kim

Cohen

Panter

2023

Group & Organization Management

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This study examined responses from more than one thousand employed adults across the United States to shed light on the causal directions and temporal dynamics between, on the one hand, the hostile social situations employees face at work (i.e., workplace mistreatment) and, on the other hand, the harmful behaviors that employees enact at work. Using autoregressive cross-lagged panel analyses on a 12-wave longitudinal dataset, we show that employees’ bad behaviors at work (e.g., sabotage, theft, abuse of coworkers) are both a cause and a consequence of experiencing mistreatment from colleagues and supervisors (e.g., ostracism, everyday discrimination, abusive supervision). We investigate the temporal aspects of this reciprocal relationship and find that deviance-to-mistreatment and mistreatment-to-deviance effects both occur over a 1-week time horizon. Moreover, this reciprocal relationship continued across the 12 weeks of the study, and its magnitude neither intensified nor diminished over this time period. Finally, we investigated the role of moral character evaluations in the reciprocal mistreatment-deviance relationship. Our results revealed that individuals whose moral character is more positively regarded by coworkers (i.e., those evaluated as higher in honesty-humility) are less penalized by others in response to their deviance. We discuss theoretical and managerial implications of these results for mitigating deviance and mistreatment in organizations.

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The relational logic of moral inference

Cited by 15 publications

References 250 publications

Focusing on the positive or the negative: Self‐construal moderates negativity bias in impression updating

Focusing on the positive or the negative: Self‐construal moderates negativity bias in impression updating

Vaccine Nationalism Counterintuitively Erodes Public Trust in Leaders

Workplace Mistreatment and Employee Deviance: An Investigation of the Reciprocal Relationship Between Hostile Work Environments and Harmful Work Behaviors

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