The Effect Of Magnitude And Possibility On Moral Judgment Of Helping Behavior

Over the past decade, the application of cognitive neuroscience methods such as brain imaging technology has made a breakthrough progress in the domain of moral judgment.This ends the dominant of moral reasoning (cognitive) in moral psychology. Many results show that emotion is equally indispensable too. Dual-processing theory indicates that both rapid intuition and reflective cognition can drive moral judgment, and they are competing between each other.Although the dual-process theory of moral judgment has been supported by the results of many empirical studies, experimental material of previous studies contains kinds of moral contents, lacking of investigation of a specific moral activities.This study investigate a particular moral connotation helping behavior. In the framework of the dual-processing theory of moral judgment,discussing the moral conflict between "personal interests" and "non-personal principle" of decision-makers by using self maker.The study consists of two experiments,experiment1examined the influence of emotion and cognition to individual moral judgments of helping behavior,verifying whether the dual-processing theory is established under the Helping Situations, experiment2investigated the effect of the magnitude of the personal loss and the possibility of others to rescue on moral judgment of helping behavior.The results show that:(1)The dual-process theory of moral judgment also applies to Helping Situations, when intuition dominant, individuals tend to make deontological choices.(2)Individuals were more inclined to making utilitarian choice under the severe conditions of the personal loss. (3)Individuals were more inclined to making utilitarian choice under high possibility of others to rescue.(4)Personal loss severity is mediated by the possibility of others to rescue.