Individual HW 3

Short Report

Manipulations of Emotional Context Shape Moral Judgment Piercarlo Valdesolo and David DeSteno

Northeastern University

Recent work in psychology and neuroscience has revealed that moral judgments are often mediated by two classes of brain

processes (Greene, Nystrom, Engell, Darley, & Cohen, 2004; Greene, Sommerville, Nystrom, Darley, & Cohen, 2001; Haidt,

2001). One class, probably reflecting earlier evolutionary de- velopment, consists of processes that automatically alter he- donic states in response to specific types of socially relevant

stimuli. A second class consists of more domain-general, ef- fortful processes that underlie abilities for abstract reasoning,

simulation, and cognitive control. Often, these intuitive and deliberative processes work in unison to foster decisions in accord with the goals of both; goals that are socially adaptive are

often congruent with more abstract moral principles. Certain classes of ethical dilemmas, however, require decisions in which

the competition between these two systems becomes evident (Greene et al., 2001, 2004).

The structure of such dilemmas often requires endorsing a personal moral violation in order to uphold a utilitarian prin- ciple. The well-known footbridge dilemma is illustrative. In it,

the lives of five people can be saved through sacrificing another. However, the sacrifice involves pushing a rather large man off a

footbridge to stop a runaway trolley before it kills the other five. The vast majority of individuals believe it wrong to push him, even though not pushing him will result in a greater number of

deaths (Greene et al., 2004; Thomson, 1986). The reason for this seemingly illogical response stems from competition between

the emotionally intuitive and deliberative systems. Neuroim- aging has revealed that such dilemmas produce increased ac-

tivation in emotion-related brain centers, as well as in centers normally used for deliberative reasoning; considering personal moral violations, such as inflicting direct harm, elicits prepotent

negative reactions that appear designed to inhibit amoral acts (Greene et al., 2001). The infrequent selection of the logically

appropriate option in such dilemmas is associated with height- ened activation of deliberative centers aimed at cognitive con-

trol, suggesting that the automatic negative reaction must be

disregarded if a utilitarian judgment is to bemade (Greene et al., 2004).

Given these findings, one might expect that the ultimate ar- biter of ethical choice for such dilemmas would reside in indi-

viduals’ abilities and motivations to engage in controlled analysis. However, the proposed dual-process model of moral judgment suggests another unexamined route by which choice

might be influenced: contextual sensitivity of affect. Affective states stand as momentary informational signals regarding the

environment and are multiply determined (Schwarz & Clore, 1996). Consequently, environmental factors separate from any potential moral violations might influence affect at the time of

judgment. A close temporal contiguity of such affectively sto- chastic events and the stable negative emotion stemming from

a dilemmamight unhinge the direct relation between a dilemma- specific prepotent emotional response and choice. Simply put,

environment-induced feelings of positivity at the time of judg- ment might reduce the perceived negativity, or aversion ‘‘sig- nal,’’ of any potential moral violation and, thereby, increase

utilitarian responding.

METHOD

We examined this hypothesis using a paradigm in which 79

participants received a positive or neutral affect induction and immediately afterward were presented with the footbridge and trolley dilemmas embedded in a small set of nonmoral distrac-

tors.1 The trolley dilemma is logically equivalent to the foot- bridge dilemma, but does not require consideration of an

emotion-evoking personal violation to reach a utilitarian out- come; consequently, the vast majority of individuals select the

utilitarian option for this dilemma.2 We included the trolley dilemma for two reasons. First, it provided an opportunity to replicate previous work comparing canonical responses to the

two dilemmas and, thereby, to validate the current paradigm. Second, it provided an appropriate control condition; given the

Address correspondence to Piercarlo Valdesolo or David DeSteno, Department of Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, e-mail: valdesolo.p@neu.edu or d.desteno@neu.edu.

1Given that repeated consideration of dilemmas describing moral violations would rapidly reduce positive mood, we utilized responses to the matched set of the footbridge and trolley dilemmas as the primary dependent variable.

2Precise wording of the dilemmas can be found in Thomson (1986) or obtained from the authors.

PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE

476 Volume 17—Number 6Copyright r 2006 Association for Psychological Science

lack of a negative prepotent emotional response in the trolley

dilemma, we expected that heightened positive affect would not influence responses to it.

To induce positive affect, we showed participants a 5-min comedy clip taken from ‘‘Saturday Night Live.’’ The neutral clip

consisted of a 5-min segment taken from a documentary on a small Spanish village. Positive affect was assessed as the mean response to a four-item feeling-descriptor measure consisting of

the following items rated on 7-point scales: happy, content, pleasant, good (Cronbach’s a5 .92). After the affect induction,

individual dilemmas were presented in random order on a computer monitor. Each dilemma was presented through a series of three screens, the first two explaining the dilemma and the last

asking the participant to indicate whether a described course of action would be ‘‘appropriate’’ or ‘‘inappropriate.’’ Each screen

was visible for a maximum of 15 s (cf. Greene et al., 2001).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

As expected, participants who viewed the positive clip reported a more positive affective state (M 5 4.57) than did those who

viewed the neutral clip (M5 2.77), t(77)5 7.47, prep5 .99.More important, heightened positivity increased the odds of selecting

the appropriate (i.e., utilitarian) response to the footbridge di- lemmaby a factor of 3.8,w2(1,N5 79)5 3.90, prep5 .89, thereby confirming our central prediction (see Table 1). As expected,

affect did not influence responses to the trolley dilemma.3

Replicating previous findings, logistic regressions revealed that

longer decision times increased the odds of selecting the appro- priate response for the footbridge dilemma (Wald w2 5 7.50,

prep 5 .95), but not the trolley dilemma (cf. Greene et al., 2001). As predicted, affective state did not moderate the relation

between response time and choice in the footbridge dilemma, and including affective state in the analysis did not produce a relation between response time and choice in the trolley dilemma.

These findings demonstrate that the causal efficacy of emotion in guiding moral judgment does not reside solely in responses

evoked by the considered dilemma, but also resides in the af- fective characteristics of the environment. Whether such an

influence optimizes or biases the resulting decision depends on the relevance of the extraneous affective cues to the dilemma at hand. What is clear, however, is that a skilled manipulation of

individuals’ affective states can shape their moral judgments.

REFERENCES

Greene, J.D., Nystrom, L.E., Engell, A.D., Darley, J.M., & Cohen, J.D. (2004). The neural bases of cognitive conflict and control in moral judgment. Neuron, 44, 389–400.

Greene, J.D., Sommerville, R.B., Nystrom, L.E., Darley, J.M., & Cohen, J.D. (2001). An fMRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgment. Science, 293, 2105–2108.

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

Thomson, J.J. (1986). Rights, restitution, and risk: Essays in moral theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Schwarz, N., & Clore, G.L. (1996). Feelings and phenomenal experi- ences. In E.T. Higgins & A. Kruglanski (Eds.), Social psychology: Handbook of basic principles (pp. 433–465). New York: Guilford.

(RECEIVED 11/1/05; REVISION ACCEPTED 12/5/05; FINAL MATERIALS RECEIVED 12/8/05)

TABLE 1

Frequencies of Appropriate and Inappropriate Responses to the Footbridge Dilemma as a Function of Affective State

Affective state

Response

Appropriate Inappropriate

Control 3 35 Positive 10 31

3As usual, large majorities selected the appropriate option (38 of 40 and 33 of 37 in the control and positive-affect conditions, respectively).

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Piercarlo Valdesolo and David DeSteno