The Immorality Bias: Why “John Flurbed Mary” Seems Wrong
Public Deposited- Last Modified
- March 20, 2019
- Creator
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Hester, Neil
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience
- Abstract
- Seven experiments reveal the immorality bias: in morally ambiguous situations, people automatically jump to conclusions of wrongdoing. In Experiment 1, ambiguous acts (e.g., “A woman leaves work early to meet a man who is not her husband”) were rated as more immoral when people reported initial interpretations rather than most likely explanations. In Experiments 2-5, neutral nonsense actions (e.g., “John flurbed”) were judged as immoral to the extent that their context matched the dyadic moral template through the presence of a patient (“John flurbed Mary”; Experiments 2 and 3), intentionality (“John intentionally flurbed Mary”; Experiment 4), and suffering (“John intentionally flurbed Mary, who cried”; Experiment 5). The immorality bias is stronger under time pressure (Experiment 6), and process-dissociation reveals its automaticity (Experiment 7). The immorality bias suggests that intuitive moral judgment can be understood as a heuristic—one that hinges upon the dyadic moral template.
- Date of publication
- August 2017
- Keyword
- DOI
- Resource type
- Rights statement
- In Copyright
- Advisor
- Gordon, Peter
- Gray, Kurt
- Payne, B. Keith
- Degree
- Master of Arts
- Degree granting institution
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School
- Graduation year
- 2017
- Language
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This work has no parents.
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