How To Self-examination? The Effect Of Counterfactual Thinking On Moral Judgment

In our daily life,after made unethical behavior,people often have self-examine,that is,reflecting on their own fault soberly.In general,people to rethink faults are not only to reflect the current behavior,but also thinking about what should have been done correct behavior at that time,to prepare for the future.When people focus on 'what should have been' and contrast an actual outcome with an alternative one,they are engaging in a type of mental simulation known as counterfactual thinking(Byrne,2008;Roese&Olson,1997).The studies of counterfactual thinking not only pay attention to the no-moral events(Ma&Roese,2014),but also extend to moral domains.Counterfactual thinking,for example,can affect moral judgment of others'intentions(Knobe,2010;Newman&Cain,2014),and expand immoral degree of these intentions(Ndubuisi&Byrne,2013).Based on the content-neutral path,counterfactual mindset which sparked by the counterfactual thinking can promote broader thinking and unusual connection(Epstude&Roese,2011),in which the individual might consider alternative possibilities even in the context of unrelated behavioral contexts(Kray et al.,2006).This mindset may also be involved in moral domains,generating moral mindset,which affects future behavior in moral domains unrelated to the original misdeed(Gaspar et al.,2015).In this study,asked participants to recall something immoral they had done,found that participants who reflected counterfactually lied less on unrelated tasks than those who reflected factually.Thus,speculated that counterfactual thinking plays an important role in people's moral life,not only can work on people's behavior,but also can be extended to the impact on people's moral judgment to other events.What is the potential psychological mechanism of moral mindset?Reflecting counterfactually about a past misdeed makes the relationship between moral standards(should have been)and moral events(reality)more salient(Gaspar et al.,2015),and then affects other areas of ethical issues,means that people have broader understanding.That broader cognizance seems relate to moral sensitivity(Reynolds&Miller,2015).Moral sensitivity is the understanding and explanation of moral situations,namely being keenly aware of moral content and realizing how moral behaviors influence others.If reflecting counterfactually about the unethical behavior triggered moral mindset,whether it is keenly aware of the principles of ethics?And then affecting other areas of moral judgment?By 3 experiments,this study examined the effect of counterfactual thinking on moral judgment and its mediation variable.In experiment 1,started by imagining manipulation of subjects' own unethical behavior in two thinking ways(reflection:factual vs.counterfactual),tested the effect of counterfactual thinking on the judgment of moral dilemma situations.In experiment 2,started by priming participants to reflect other' immoral behavior via memory manipulation,tested the effect of counterfactual thinking on the judgment of negative social issues.The manipulations(reflection:factual vs.counterfactual)of experiment 3 of the unethical behavior(actor:self vs.other)were similar to expceriment 2,tested the effect counterfactual thinking on behavioral intention and moral sensitivity.The study got the following conclusions:(1)The counterfactual thinking can affect moral judgments,that is,in contrast to participants who reflected factually,those reflected counterfactually the past wrongdoing made moral dilemma situations and negative social problem more severe judgement,and produced more stronger moral behavior intention.(2)The counterfactual thinking can affect moral sensitivity,that is,compared with participants who reflected factually,those reflected counterfactually the past wrongdoing produced more stronger moral sensitivity.(3)Reflecting counterfactually the past wrongdoing generated moral mindset rather than moral cleansing,then affecting moral judgments.