Ineffectiveness of Rational Reasons in changing Moral Decisions

Subject Areas : روان‌شناسی تحولی

Ebrahim Ahmadi 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.      

References:

اباذری، ک.، ملک‎پور، م.، قمرانی، ا.، عابدی، ا.و فرامرزی، س. (1395). تحول هیجانی کودکان درخودمانده بر اساس مدل تحولی تفاوت‌های فردی. روان‌شناسی تحولی: روان‌شناسانایرانی، 13(50)،142 -133.

کمری، س.، فولادچنگ، م.، خرمایی، ف.، شیخ الاسلامی، ر.و جوکار، ب. (1397). تبیین علّی مشغولیت تحصیلی بر اساس شناخت اجتماعی: نقش واسطه‌‌ای هیجان‌‌های مثبت تحصیلی و اجتماعی. روان‌شناسی تحولی: روان‌شناسانایرانی،14(55)، 284 -269.

 

Barber, B. M., Heath, C., & Odean, T. (2003). Good reasons sell: Reasonbased choice among group and individual investors in the stock market.Management Science, 49(12), 1636-1652.

Bloom, P. (2010). How do morals change? Nature,464(7288), 490.

Broome, J. (2013). Rationality through reasoning. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Bucciarelli, M., & Daniele, M. (2015). Reasoning in moral conflicts. Thinking & Reasoning, 21(3), 265-294.

Bucciarelli, M., Khemlani, S., & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (2008). They psychology of moral reasoning. Judgment and Decision Making, 3(2),121-139.

 

1. motivated reasoning 2. post hoc rationalization

Crisp, R. (2005). Value, reasons and the structure of justification: How to avoid passing the buck. Analysis,65(1), 80-85.

 

Dietrich, F., & List, C. (2016). Reason-based choice and contextdependence: An explanatory framework. Economics and Philosophy, 32(2), 175-229.

Ditto, P. H., Munro, G. D., Apanovitch, A. M., Scepansky, J. A., & Lockhart, L. K. (2003). Spontaneous skepticism: The interplay of motivation and expectation in responses to favorable and unfavorable medical diagnoses. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin,29(9), 1120-1132.

Greene, J., & Haidt, J. (2002). How (and where) does moral judgment work? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 6(12), 517-523. 

Haidt, J. (2001). The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. Psychological Review, 108(4), 814-834.

Haidt, J. (2007). The new synthesis in moral psychology. Science, 316(5827), 998-1002. 

Haidt, J., & Hersh, M. A. (2001). Sexual morality: The cultures and emotions of conservatives and liberals. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 31(1), 191-221.

Haidt, J., Bjorklund, F., & Murphy, S. (2000). Moral dumbfounding: When intuition finds no reason. Lund Psychological Reports, 1(2), 191‎-221.

Haidt, J., Koller, S. H., & Dias, M. G. (1993). Affect, culture, and morality, or is it wrong to eat your dog? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65(4), 613-628.

Horne, Z., Powell, D., & Hummel, J. (2015). A single counterexample leads to moral belief revision. Cognitive Science, 39(8), 1950-1964.

Hume, D. (1965). An enquiry concerning the principles of morals. NotreDame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. (Original work published 1777)

Kunda, Z. (1990). The case for motivated reasoning. Psychological Bulletin, 108(3), 480-498. 

Luo, Q., Nakic, M., Wheatley, T., Richell, R., Martin, A., & Blair, R. J. R. (2006). The neural basis of implicit moral attitude-An IAT study using event-related fMRI. NeuroImage, 30(4), 1449-1457. 

Maki, A., & Raimi, K. T. (2017). Environmental peer persuasion: How moral exporting and belief superiority relate to efforts to influence others. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 49, 18-29.

Morgan, G. S., Skitka, L. J., & Wisneski, D. C. (2010). Moral and religious convictions and intentions to vote in the 2008 presidential election.Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 10(1), 307-320. 

Norton, M. I., Vandello, J. A., & Darley, J. M. (2004). Casuistry and social category bias. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87(6), 817-831.

Paxton, J. M., & Greene, J. D. (2010). Moral reasoning: Hints and allegations. Topics in Cognitive Science, 2(3), 511-527.

Paxton, J. M., Ungar, L., & Greene, J. D. (2012). Reflection and reasoning in moral judgment. Cognitive Science, 36(1), 163-177.

Pizarro, D. A., & Bloom, P. (2003). The intelligence of the moral intuitions: A comment on Haidt (2001). Psychological Review, 110(1), 193-196.

Ross, W. D. (1930). The right and the good. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.

Royzman, E. B., Kim, K., & Leeman, R. F. (2015). The curious tale of Julie and Mark: Unraveling the moral dumbfounding effect. Judgment and Decision Making, 10(4), 296-313.

Sanfey, A. G., Rilling, J. K., Aronson, J. A., Nystrom, L. E., & Cohen, J. D. (2003). The neural basis of economic decision-making in the ultimatum game. Science, 300(5626), 1755-1758.

Skitka, L. J. (2010). The psychology of moral conviction. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 4(4), 267-281.

Skitka, L. J., Bauman, C. W., & Sargis, E. G. (2005). Moral Conviction: Another Contributor to Attitude Strength or Something More? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88(6), 895-917.

Snedegar, J. (2018). Reasons for and reasons against. Philosophical Studies, 175(3), 725-743.

Stanley, M. L., Dougherty, A. M., Yang, B. W., Henne, P., & De Brigard, F. (2018). Reasons probably won’t change your mind: The role of reasons in revising moral decisions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 147(7), 962-987.

Stanley, M. L., Henne, P., Iyengar, V., Sinnott-Armstrong, W., & De Brigard, F. (2017). I’m not the person I used to be: The self and autobiographical memories of immoral actions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 146(6), 884-895.

Turiel, E. (2002). The culture of morality: Social development, context, and conflict. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Ugazio, G., Lamm, C., & Singer, T. (2012). The role of emotions for moral judgments depends on the type of emotion and moral scenario. Emotion, 12(3), 579-590.

Uhlmann, E., & Cohen, G. L. (2005). Constructed criteria: Redefining merit to justify discrimination. Psychological Science, 16(6),474-480.

Valdesolo, P., & DeSteno, D. (2006). Manipulations of emotional context shape moral judgment. Psychological Science, 17(6), 476-477.

Vlaev, I., Chater, N., Lewis, R., & Davies, G. (2009). Reason-based judgments: Using reasons to