Impacts Of Distance And Relationship On Moral Judgment

The Social Intuitionist Model (Haidt,2001,2007) considers moral judgments are the results of quick and automatic intuition (emotion). The dual-process theory emphasizes both controlled cognitive responses and automatic emotional responses playing important roles in moral judgments (Greene, Morelli, Lowenberg, Nystrom, & Cohen,2008). Trolley dilemma is the classic material of western moral judgment research, researchers found most participants would like to turn the trolley (Cushman, Young, & Hauser,2006; Greene, Sommerville, Nystrom, Darley, & Cohen,2001; Petrinovich, O'Neill, & Jorgensen,1993), it means that participants are more influenced by controlled cognitive process, so they are more willing to prefer utilitarian moral judgments. If adding a few factors which can boost involvement of emotion into trolley dilemma, we can manipulate the extent of involvement of emotion, thereby examine how emotion play a role in moral judgments.Jones (1991) suggests, proximity is the most important variable which affects moral judgment. The distance between the place moral dilemmas occur and us is shorter, or the victim is our relative, the moral intensity is more intense, it means more unethical. Physical distance examines the influence of proximity directly; the relationship (relatives vs. without relatives) actually examines implicit psychological proximity. Therefore, this research examines the impacts of distance and relationship on moral judgment, in order to study the role that emotion plays in moral judgment.This research uses between-subject design, investigates pure effects of distance and relationship. The project adapts the classic trolley dilemma:allow utilitarian actions occur, then participants conduct an unethical rating, by doing these, we can examine the differences among conditions.There are three experiments in this research. Adding informations of distance and relationship into classic trolley dilemma to manipulate the emotional involvements, thus we can examine the impacts of distance and relationship on moral judgment. The results showed that: 1,Compared with occurred in far place, when trolley dilemma occurred in near place, the driver's utilitarian behavior was rated as more unethical.2,Relationship (relative vs. without relative) revealed a significant effect on moral judgment, when the victim and a participant were not relatives, the driver's utilitarian behavior was rated as more unethical than when the victim was a participant's relative.3,The interaction between distance and relationship was marginal significant. Trolley dilemma occurred in national or foreign nearer places, when the victim was a participant's relative, the driver's utilitarian behavior was rated as less unethical than when without relative relationship.4,In trolley dilemma, most participants considered the driver's utilitarian behavior less unethical, only less than 1/3 participants considered more unethical.5,The interaction between gender and relationship was marginal significant or significant, but in different experiments, there was no consistent effect of relationship in male and female participants.