Ineffectiveness of Rational Reasons in changing Moral Decisions

Subject Areas : روان‌شناسی تحولی

Ebrahim Ahmadi ¹

1 - ,PhD Islamic Azad University

Received: 2020-01-20 Accepted : 2020-01-20 Published : 2019-12-22

Keywords: reason, affect, moral choice, moral decision, moral dilemma,

Abstract :

  This aim of this study was to investigate the effect of rational reasons on moral decisions. For this purpose a call for participation in the study was sent to 75000 email addresses of residents of Tehran and its suburbs. Eventually 765 volunteers participated in the study. By using a moral dilemma (Stanley, Dougherty, Yang, Henne & De Brigard, 2018)in an experimental design, the participants were asked to say which option they would choose if they were in this moral dilemma (their initial decision). Then the participants were randomly assigned to three groups: one group was given the reasons affirming their initial decision, one group was given the reasons opposing their initial decision, and one group was given all reasons (affirming and opposing). Participants were asked to evaluate these reasons. Then they were asked to choose one of the two options again (their final decision). Fisher's exact test, logistic regression analysis, and variance analysis showed that very few participants changed their initial decision after examining the reasons, the initial decision explained a large proportion of the final decision's variance, and participants evaluated affirming reasons better than opposing ones. These findings suggest that rational reasons do not help to change individual’s moral decisions.      

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