Utilitarianism in minimal-group decision making is less common than equality-based morality, mostly harm-oriented, and rarely impartial

Abstract

In the study of utilitarian morality, the sacrificial dilemma paradigm has been the dominant approach for years. However, to address some of the most pressing issues in the current research literature, the present studies adopt an alternative approach by using a minimal group paradigm in which participants have to make decisions about the allocation of resources. This approach allows not only to pit utilitarianism against equality-based morality, but also to study these modes of morality for both harm and benefit, and to directly address the role of group identity affecting the (im)partial nature of ‘utilitarian’ (i.e., outcome maximizing) decisions. In our experiments, across four different samples (total N = 946), we demonstrate that although participants generally prefer equality-based allocations over maximizing distributions, outcome maximizing choices become more prevalent when they served to minimize harm compared to maximizing benefit. Furthermore, reducing the objective value of the equal distribution outcomes further prompts participants to adopt a more utilitarian approach in situations involving harm, but has little effect in situations where benefits have to be distributed. Finally, the introduction of (minimal) group identity consistently demonstrates that decisions that maximize the overall outcome are more likely if they also serve the ingroup compared to when they rather serve the outgroup. We discuss how these findings have meaningful implications that may be especially relevant for recent movements that advocate a utilitarian approach to charity, and for our understanding of (im)partiality in lay people’s ‘utilitarian’ decision making.

Sequential decision-making impacts moral judgment: How iterative dilemmas can expand our perspective on sacrificial harm

“…However, one possible explanation for the increased proportion of switch decisions uncovered in the current study might be that participants were asked to make sacrificial moral judgments that were framed in terms of benefits rather than harms. Prior research by Roets et al (2020) has established that participants tend to be more fairnessminded when they are asked to distribute benefits, and more utilitarian when asked to make decisions on distribution tasks involving harms.…”

“…When a dilemma is repeated, we are not just limited to either refraining from harm or minimizing overall harm, we also have the option to spread harm across all targets. Prior research has already demonstrated that fairness considerations can sometimes trump utilitarian concerns (Roets et al, 2020). By constraining the study of sacrificial harm to research paradigms involving oneshot judgments of mortal harm dilemmas, moral psychologists have ignored the contextualized nature of moral decision making, and have removed this additional moral concern from the equation.…”

Sequential decision-making impacts moral judgment: how iterative dilemmas can expand our perspective on sacrificial harm.

“…Indeed, prior research has already demonstrated that fairness considerations can trump utilitarian concerns (Roets et al, 2020). By constraining the study of sacrificial harm to research paradigms involving one-shot judgments of mortal harm dilemmas, moral psychologists have ignored the contextualized nature of moral decision making and removed this third moral concern from the equation.…”

Bounded reflectivism and epistemic identity

“…E.g.,Brandt and Sleegers 2021;De Cruz 2020;Funkhouser 2020;Oyserman and Dawson 2019;Roets et al 2020;Strohminger 2018;Van Bavel and Pereira 2018. …”