You're heartless, I'm less: self-image and social norms in moral judgment

Are moral judgments to sacrificial dilemmas shaped by a latent social norm? The present research addresses this issue. We report a set of six studies (plus a supplementary one) which question the existence of a social norm in the longstanding deontism/utilitarian debate by relying on two original tools, namely substitution technique and self-presentation paradigm. Study 1 showed that American participants asked to answer like most Americans would do gave more utilitarian responses than control participants who answered in their own name (Study 1). Study 2 showed that participants instructed to answer in a disapproval fashion were more utilitarian than both participants instructed to answer in an approval fashion and control participants. Importantly, no difference was observed between the approval and control conditions, suggesting that participants naturally align their moral judgments with a latent norm they think is the most socially desirable. Studies 3-5 explored in addition the effect of the activation of a deontism-skewed norm using the substitution instruction on subsequent impression formation. For the latter task, participants were instructed to evaluate a random participant selected from a previous study who gave utilitarian-like responses (Studies 3a-3b), or to evaluate a fictitious politician who endorsed either a deontic or utilitarian orientation (Studies 4-5). Although we consistently replicated the effect of substitution instruction, we failed to show that attempts to activate a norm in a given individual shaped their evaluation of other people who do not align with this norm. Finally, we report a mini meta-analysis targeting the pooled effect and homogeneity among our studies.

Association of sleep with moral severity to accidental harm transgressions: A cross-sectional study

Based on the assumptions that moral judgement activities require cognitive control, a capacity impaired by low sleep quality or a lack of sleep, several studies have explored the association between sleep and moral judgements. However, even if some studies support the association between sleep and both moral awareness and unethical behaviours, others failed to find a robust association between sleep and moral utilitarianism. In the present well-powered preregistered cross-sectional study, we explored the role of sleep in another class of moral judgement, namely third-party punishment (in which people have to assess the morality of an agent who transgressed a moral rule). Specifically, we targeted the association of sleep with judgements of accidental harm transgressions, which are assumed to be especially cognitively costly. Our main analysis showed no association of overall sleep quality during the past month with moral severity in these transgressions. This result was confirmed for other sleep indexes (sleep quantity in the past month, and sleep quantity and quality in the past night). Lastly, we exhaustively explored the associations of all sleep indexes with all classes of moral judgement (accidental, intentional, attempted transgressions and control scenarios). These additional results revealed associations between sleep and moral severity, but none survived correction for multiple testing. Equivalence tests confirmed that the effect sizes of all these associations were relatively low (|r < 0.25|). We ensured that the lack of robust association between natural sleep and third-party punishment could not be explained by a low quality of the data collected.

Effects of a Cognitive Schema Account on the Stigma of Schizophrenia: A Study in a French University Student Sample

Among people with psychiatric disorders, those with schizophrenia are subject to high levels of stigmatization. Research is necessary to identify new strategies that may help reduce the stigma of schizophrenia. Educational strategies using cognitive accounts, particularly early maladaptive schemas (EMSs), have shown promising results in the context of depression, but they have not been evaluated in the context of schizophrenia. The present study compared the effect on the stigma of three different educational strategies, based on cognitive distortions, biogenetics, and EMSs. A total of 378 students were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 groups. Three experimental groups were presented with a vignette that introduced 1 of 3 different etiological accounts of schizophrenia (cognitive distortions, EMSs, or biogenetics). The fourth group was presented with a text unrelated to schizophrenia. The participants completed questionnaires that measured their attitudes, empathic concern, and social distance toward people with schizophrenia, before and after reading the text. The intervention using the EMS etiology account for schizophrenia was the only one that led to a significant decrease in stigma. The latter effect was driven mainly by an increase in the level of empathic concern toward people with schizophrenia. Given that similar results have been observed for depression and that the role of EMSs in many psychiatric disorders has been demonstrated, studying the effects of EMS explanations for other stigmatized disorders may be promising for reducing the stigma of psychiatric disorders.

EXPRESS: Judging accidental harm: reasoning style modulates the weight of intention and harm severity

When judging a perpetrator who harmed someone accidentally, humans rely on distinct information pertaining to the perpetrator and victim. The present study investigates how reasoning style modulates the contribution of the victim's harm and the perpetrator's intention to third-party judgment of accidental harm. In two pre-registered online experiments, we simultaneously manipulated harm severity and the perpetrator's intention. Participants completed reasoning measures as well as a moral judgment task consisting of short narratives which depicted the interaction between a perpetrator and a victim. In experiment 1, we manipulated the perpetrator's intent to harm (accidental vs. intentional harm) and the victim's harm (mild vs. severe harm). In experiment 2, we aimed to manipulate intent in accidental harm scenarios exclusively, using positive or neutral intents and manipulating harm severity (mild vs. severe harm). As expected, intent and harm severity moderated participants' moral judgment of acceptability, punishment and blame. Most importantly, in both experiments, the perpetrator's intent not only interacted with outcome severity but also polarized moral judgments in participants with a more deliberative reasoning style. While moral judgments of more intuitive reasoners were less sensitive to intent, more deliberative reasoners were more forgiving of accidental harm, especially following mild harm. These findings extend previous studies by showing that reasoning style interacts with intent and harm severity to shape moral judgment of accidents.

Effects of an online self-help intervention on university students' mental health during COVID-19: A non-randomized controlled pilot study

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on university students, particulary on their mental health. However, little is yet known about how to prevent and/or reduce this impact. Prior to COVID-19, some studies have shown that online stress management programs were successful enough to improve students' mental health and stress adjustment strategies, suggesting that these interventions should be further developed during the pandemic. Our study explored the effects on mental health of an online program that targeted stress management and learning. A total of 347 university students were initially recruited to take part in a non-randomized controlled study. After dropout, our final sample consisted of 114 participants, divided into two groups: an intervention group (participants who took part in the program) and the control group (participants who did not participate in the program). The variables measured were: anxiety and depressive symptoms, academic burnout, learned helplessness, and coping strategies. Means comparisons between baseline (T0) and an assessment at 8 weeks (T1) revealed reductions in anxiety symptoms and learned helplessness in the intervention group, but not in the control group. Our pilot study reports promising effects of an online program on students' psychological state.

A 21st century cognitive portrait of the Himba, a remote people of Namibia

This research sketches the cognitive portrait of the Himba, a remote population from Northern Namibia living in a non-industrial society almost completely devoid of modern artefacts. We compared the Himba sample to a French sample, exploring cognitive reflection, moral judgement, cooperative behaviour, paranormal beliefs, and happiness. We looked for both differences and similarities across cultures, and for the way cognitive functioning is associated with a range of demographic variables. Results showed some important group differences, with the Himba being more intuitive, more religious, happier, and less utilitarian than the French participants. Further, the predictors of these beliefs and behaviours differed between the two groups. The present results provide additional support to the recent line of research targeting cultural variations and similarities, and call for the need to expand psychology research beyond the Western world.

Reliability of moral decision-making: Evidence from the trolley dilemma

The application of framing effects in the field of moral judgement has offered a golden opportunity to assess the reliability of people's moral judgements and decisions. To date, however, these studies are still scarce and they suffer from multiple methodological issues. Therefore, this study aims to provide further insights into the reliability of moral judgements while fixing these methodological shortcomings. In this study, we employed the classic trolley dilemma moral decision-making paradigm to determine the extent to which moral decisions are susceptible to framing effects. A total of 1,040 participants were included in the study. The data revealed that choices of participants did not significantly differ between the two frames. Equivalence tests confirmed that the associated effect size was very small. Further exploratory analyses revealed an unplanned interaction between the framing effect and the target of the framing manipulation. This result became from marginally statistically significant to insignificant following different sensitivity analyses. The implications and limitations of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.

tDCS Stimulation of the dlPFC Selectively Moderates the Detrimental Impact of Emotion on Analytical Reasoning

There is evidence of a detrimental effect of emotion on reasoning. Recent studies suggest that this relationship is mediated by working memory, a function closely associated with the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). Relying on transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), the present research explores the possibility that anodal stimulation of the dlPFC has the potential to prevent the effect of emotion on analytical reasoning. Thirty-four participants took part in a lab experiment and were tested twice: one session using offline anodal stimulation (with a 2 mA current stimulation applied to the left dlPFC for 20 min), one session using a control (sham) stimulation. In each session, participants solved syllogistic reasoning problems featuring neutral and emotionally negative contents. Results showed that anodal stimulation diminished the deleterious effect of emotion on syllogistic reasoning, but only for a subclass of problems: problems where the conclusion was logically valid. We discuss our results in the light of the reasoning literature as well as the apparent variability of tDCS effects.

Cognitive Load Mediates the Effect of Emotion on Analytical Thinking

Abstract. Although the detrimental effect of emotion on reasoning has been evidenced many times, the cognitive mechanism underlying this effect remains unclear. In the present paper, we explore the cognitive load hypothesis as a potential explanation. In an experiment, participants solved syllogistic reasoning problems with either neutral or emotional contents. Participants were also presented with a secondary task, for which the difficult version requires the mobilization of cognitive resources to be correctly solved. Participants performed overall worse and took longer on emotional problems than on neutral problems. Performance on the secondary task, in the difficult version, was poorer when participants were reasoning about emotional, compared to neutral contents, consistent with the idea that processing emotion requires more cognitive resources. Taken together, the findings afford evidence that the deleterious effect of emotion on reasoning is mediated by cognitive load.

Efficient Kill-Save Ratios Ease Up the Cognitive Demands on Counterintuitive Moral Utilitarianism

The dual-process model of moral judgment postulates that utilitarian responses to moral dilemmas (e.g., accepting to kill one to save five) are demanding of cognitive resources. Here we show that utilitarian responses can become effortless, even when they involve to kill someone, as long as the kill-save ratio is efficient (e.g., 1 is killed to save 500). In Experiment 1, participants responded to moral dilemmas featuring different kill-save ratios under high or low cognitive load. In Experiments 2 and 3, participants responded at their own pace or under time pressure. Efficient kill-save ratios promoted utilitarian responding and neutered the effect of load or time pressure. We discuss whether this effect is more easily explained by a parallel-activation model or by a default-interventionist model.

Mortality salience and morality: thinking about death makes people less utilitarian

According to the dual-process model of moral judgment, utilitarian responses to moral conflict draw on limited cognitive resources. Terror Management Theory, in parallel, postulates that mortality salience mobilizes these resources to suppress thoughts of death out of focal attention. Consequently, we predicted that individuals under mortality salience would be less likely to give utilitarian responses to moral conflicts. Two experiments corroborated this hypothesis. Experiment 1 showed that utilitarian responses to non-lethal harm conflicts were less frequent when participants were reminded of their mortality. Experiment 2 showed that the detrimental effect of mortality salience on utilitarian conflict judgments was comparable to that of an extreme concurrent cognitive load. These findings raise the question of whether private judgment and public debate about controversial moral issues might be shaped by mortality salience effects, since these issues (e.g., assisted suicide) often involve matters of life and death.