Question framing and sensitivity to consequences in sacrificial moral dilemmas

ABSTRACT

In sacrificial dilemmas, participants judge the morality of killing one person to save several others. For five sacrificial dilemmas, participants rated on separate unidimensional scales how “morally right” and how “morally wrong” they felt such actions would be under six combinations of beneficiaries (strangers, cousins, one’s children) and targets (firefighter, bank robber). Framing a survey question in terms of “morally right” potentially primes prescriptive moral norms, directing attention to the beneficiaries; framing it in terms of “morally wrong” potentially primes proscriptive moral norms, directing attention to the targets. Selective attention induced by a question should heighten sensitivity to changes in levels of the corresponding independent variable. Accordingly, ratings of right changed more than ratings of wrong across beneficiaries; ratings of wrong changed more than ratings of right across targets. Question framing can bias moral appraisal by heightening or attenuating attentiveness to individuals who would benefit or suffer from sacrificial action.

KEYWORDS:

• Morality
• attitudinal ambivalence
• selective attention
• bivariate measurement

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Data availability statement

The data described in this article are openly available in the Open Science Framework at

https://osf.io/qbkn.

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This article has earned the Center for Open Science badge for Open Data and Open Materials. The data and materials are openly accessible at https://osf.io/qbknf.

Notes

1.  In addition to an ad hoc likability scale, the survey included two personality inventories: the Centrality of Religiosity Scale (Huber & Huber, 2012) and Moral Identity Scale (Aquino & Reed, 2002). Neither of these scales is discussed further in this article.

In addition to an ad hoc likability scale, the survey included two personality inventories: the Centrality of Religiosity Scale (Huber & Huber, 2012) and Moral Identity Scale (Aquino & Reed, 2002). Neither of these scales is discussed further in this article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Douglas J. Navarick

Douglas J. Navarick is Professor of Psychology at California State University, Fullerton.  He received his Ph.D. in 1973 from the University of California, San Diego in General Experimental Psychology with a specialization in operant conditioning.  From studies of pigeons’ choices between schedules of reinforcement, and then people’s choices in analogous situations, his research interests have continually evolved in the direction of social psychology, emphasizing obedience in Milgram-type situations, and now focus on judgments of right and wrong from social, cognitive, and behavioral perspectives.