New Studies Show Moral Judgments Quicker, More Extreme than Practical Ones—But Also Flexible

Judgments we make with a moral underpinning are made more quickly and are more extreme than those same judgments based on practical considerations, a new set of studies finds. However, the findings, which appear in the journal PLOS ONE, also show that judgments based on morality can be readily shifted and made with other considerations in mind.

“Little work has been done on how attaching morality to a particular judgment or decision may affect that outcome,” explains Jay Van Bavel, an assistant professor in New York University’s Department of Psychology and one of the study’s co-authors. “Our findings show that we make and see decisions quite differently if they are made with a morality frame. But, despite these differences, there is now evidence that we can shift judgments so they are based on practical, rather than moral, considerations—and vice versa.”

“Our findings suggest that deciding to frame any issue as moral or not may have important consequences,” said co-author Ingrid Haas, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. “Once an issue is declared moral, people’s judgments about that issue become more extreme, and they are more likely to apply those judgments to others.”

“Ultimately, the way that people make decisions is likely to affect their behavior,” said co-author Dominic Packer, an assistant professor at Lehigh University. ”People may act in ways that violate their moral values when they make decisions in terms of pragmatic concerns - dollars and cents - rather than in a moral frame. In ongoing research, we are examining factors that can trigger moral forms of decision making, so that people are more likely to behave in line with their values.”