scholarly journals The psychology of partner choice

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Martin ◽  
Liane Young ◽  
Katherine McAuliffe
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Partner Choice ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Moral Decision ◽  
Prior Work ◽  
Moral Decision Making ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
Social Partners ◽  
Mechanistic Basis ◽  
Biological Market

Partner choice captures the idea that individuals exist in a biological market of potential partners, and we can therefore choose or reject our social partners. While prior work has principally explored the functional basis of partner choice, here we focus on its mechanistic basis, motivated by a surge of recent work exploring the psychology underlying partner choice decisions. This work demonstrates that partner choice is predictably sensitive to a number of factors, including 1) a potential partner’s generosity and fairness, 2) cooperative disposition, 3) moral decision-making, and 4) intentions. We then broaden our scope, first reviewing work suggesting that, in some cases, the psychology underlying partner choice may be distinct from other responses to a partner’s behavior. We then discuss work demonstrating the sensitivity of partner choice decisions to market characteristics as well as work that illuminates the neural, ontogenetic and phylogenetic basis of partner choice. We conclude by highlighting outstanding questions and suggest directions for future research.

scholarly journals Hadza hunter-gatherers prefer deontologists as social partners, but most Hadza are not deontologists

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristopher M Smith ◽  
Coren Lee Apicella
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Partner Choice ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Social Selection ◽  
Moral Decision ◽  
Moral Decision Making ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Social Partners

Researchers hypothesize that social selection resulting from partner choice may have shaped deontological moral reasoning in humans. Indeed, people in Western societies judge deontologists to be more cooperative and trustworthy than utilitarians, and prefer them as partners. We test if the preference for deontologists as social partners generalizes to a small-scale society, specifically the Hadza, who are extant hunter-gatherers residing in Tanzania. We presented 134 Hadza participants with three ecologically-relevant sacrificial dilemmas and asked them to judge whether the actor should sacrifice one person to save five. We then randomly assigned participants to hear that the actor made either a deontological or utilitarian decision and asked them to make moral and partner choice judgments about the actor in the dilemma. Participants were ambivalent about whether the actor should make the utilitarian decision. However, participants who said the actor should make the deontological decision judged the utilitarian option worse, but participants who said the actor should make the utilitarian decision judged both actions to be equally bad. Regardless of whether participants believed the actor should make the utilitarian decision, participants judged the utilitarian actor lower on traits considered important for social partners, compared to the deontological actor. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that utilitarians are perceived worse than deontologists. However, because participants do not show a preference for the deontological option, it raises questions as to whether partner choice shaped deontological moral decision-making in humans.

Does Abstract Mindset Decrease or Increase Deception?

2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 94-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sinan Alper
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Moral Decision ◽  
Moral Decision Making ◽  
Opposite Result ◽  
Deceptive Behavior

Abstract. Past research produced mixed results regarding the effect of abstract/concrete mindset on the moral judgment of hypothetical scenarios. I argued that an abstract mindset could decrease or increase deception as different lines of research suggested that the effect could be in both directions. In four experiments, three different paradigms were used to manipulate mindset and its effect on participants’ own deceptive behavior was examined. Abstract mindset manipulation increased the level of deception in Study 1 and 2, but not in Study 3. Study 4 provided an opposite result as abstractness decreased deception. The results suggested that mindset manipulation might trigger multiple mechanisms having contradictory effects. I argued that future research should account for these mechanisms and individual differences in understanding the effect of abstract mindset on moral decision-making.

scholarly journals EXPRESS: Reliability of Moral Decision Making: Evidence from the Trolley Dilemma

2021 ◽  
pp. 174702182110015
Author(s):  
Corentin J Gosling ◽  
Bastien Trémolière
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Framing Effects ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Sensitivity Analyses ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Moral Decision ◽  
Moral Decision Making ◽  
Moral Decisions ◽  
Equivalence Tests ◽  
Trolley Dilemma

The application of framing effects in the field of moral judgment has offered a golden opportunity to assess the reliability of people’s moral judgments and decisions. To date, however, these studies are still scarce and they suffer from multiple methodological issues. Therefore, the present study aims to provide further insights into the reliability of moral judgments while fixing these methodological shortcomings. In the current study, we employed the classic trolley dilemma moral decision-making paradigm to determine the extent to which moral decisions are susceptible to framing effects. A total of 1040 participants were included in the study. The data revealed that choices of participants did not significantly differ between the two frames. Equivalence tests confirmed that the associated effect size was very small. Further exploratory analyses revealed an unplanned interaction between the framing effect and the target of the framing manipulation. This result became from marginally statistically significant to insignificant following different sensitivity analyses. The implications and limitations of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.

scholarly journals Reliability of Moral Decision Making: Evidence from the Trolley Dilemma

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bastien Trémolière ◽  
Corentin J Gosling
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Framing Effects ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Sensitivity Analyses ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Moral Decision ◽  
Moral Decision Making ◽  
Moral Decisions ◽  
Equivalence Tests ◽  
Trolley Dilemma

The application of framing effects in the field of moral judgment has offered a golden opportunity to assess the reliability of people’s moral judgments and decisions. To date, however, these studies are still scarce and they suffer from multiple methodological issues. Therefore, the present study aims to provide further insights into the reliability of moral judgments while fixing these methodological shortcomings. In the current study, we employed the classic trolley dilemma moral decision-making paradigm to determine the extent to which moral decisions are susceptible to framing effects. A total of 1040 participants were included in the study. The data revealed that choices of participants did not significantly differ between the two frames. Equivalence tests confirmed that the associated effect size was very small. Further exploratory analyses revealed an unplanned interaction between the framing effect and the target of the framing manipulation. This result became from marginally statistically significant to insignificant following different sensitivity analyses. The implications and limitations of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.

Leadership, morality and ethics: Developing a practical model for moral decision-making

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfred W. Kaszniak ◽  
Cynda H. Rushton ◽  
Joan Halifax
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Applied Ethics ◽  
Moral Decision ◽  
Moral Decision Making ◽  
Contemplative Science ◽  
Practical Model

The present paper is the product of collaboration between a neuroscientist, an ethicist, and a contemplative exploring issues around leadership, morality, and ethics. It is an exploration on how people in roles of responsibility can better understand how to engage in discernment processes with more awareness and a deeper sense of responsibility for others and themselves. It draws upon recent research and scholarship in neuroscience, contemplative science, and applied ethics to develop a practical understanding of how moral decision-making works and is essential in this time when there can seem to be an increasing moral vacuum in leadership.

Framing Morality: How Antecedent-Focused Strategies Can Shape Moral Judgments

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Kappes ◽  
Jay Joseph Van Bavel
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Moral Dilemmas ◽  
Emotional Reactions ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Moral Decision ◽  
Process Dissociation ◽  
Moral Decision Making ◽  
First Response ◽  
High Conflict

From moral philosophy to programming driverless cars, scholars have long been interested in how to shape moral decision-making. We examine how framing can impact moral judgments either by shaping which emotional reactions are evoked in a situation (antecedent-focused) or by changing how people respond to their emotional reactions (response-focused). In three experiments, we manipulated the framing of a moral decision-making task before participants judged a series of moral dilemmas. Participants encouraged to go “with their first” response beforehand favored emotion-driven judgments on high-conflict moral dilemmas. In contrast, participants who were instructed to give a “thoughtful” response beforehand or who did not receive instructions on how to approach the dilemmas favored reason-driven judgments. There was no difference in response-focused control during moral judgements. Process-dissociation confirmed that people instructed to go with their first response had stronger emotion-driven intuitions than other conditions. Our results suggest that task framing can alter moral intuitions.

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