The Effect Of Facial Attractiveness On Moral Decision

Previous studies have found that facial attractiveness not only affects individual's attention,memory and other basic cognitive activities,but also influences high-level social cognition activities.Moral decision making and moral judgnent are higher social cognition activities of the individual,returning money found,helping others and so on are common moral behavior.Previous researchers have examined the factors that influence moral decision-making,including cognition and emotional factors.On the basis of previous studies,the present study further investigates the influence of facial attractiveness on moral decision making from the perspective of both the player and the outsider,middle school students and college students are as the participants.Study 1 aims to examine the effects of facial attractiveness on moral decision and selects the college students and middle school students as subjects from the perspective of "players",using the trolley moral dilemma(experiment 1)and the footbridge moral dilemma(experiment 2)experimental paradigm,In experiment 1,the results show that comparing with the saved people with low facial attractiveness,when the saved are the people with high facial attractiveness the probability of"switching" was significantly higher.Similarly,comparing with the victims with high facial attractiveness,when the victims are the people with low facial attractiveness the probability of "switching" was significantly higher.This suggests that the facial attractiveness affects the moral decision and subjects are more likely to"switch" to save individuals with higher facial attractiveness.But there was no significant difference between middle school students and college students.The interaction between the saved and the victim was significant,and when the saved was less attractive,the victim was more attractive,and the participants were less likely to make the "switch" decision.When the saved were highly attractive and the victims were less attractive,the subjects were more likely to make the "switch" decision.The results of experiment 2 show that comparing with the saved people with low facial attractiveness,when the saved arc the people with high facial attractiveness the probability of "pushing" was significantly higher similarly,comparing with the victims with high facial attractiveness,when the victims are the people with low facial attractiveness the probability of "pushing" was significantly higher The main effect between groups was significant,and middle school students were more likely to make "pushing" choices than college students.The interaction between the saved and the victim was significant.When the saved was low-facial attractiveness,the victim was highly attractive,and the participant was less likely to make a "pushing" decision.When the saved were highly attractive while victims were less attractive,then participants were more likely to make "pushing" decisions.Study 2 aims to examine the effects of facial attractiveness on moral decision from the perspective of "outsiders",using the trolley moral dilemma(experiment 3)and the footbridge moral dilemma(experiment 4)experimental paradigm,The results of experiment 3 show that when saving a highly attractive individual,the switching action of the hero is significantly higher in moral acceptability than in saving the less attractive individuals;The main effect of the group and the interaction between the saved and the victia was not significant.In experiment 4,when saving a highly attractive individual,the protagonist's "pushing" behavior is more morally acceptable than tihat of saving the low attractive individuals;When sacrificing low-attractiveness individuals,the hero's "pushing" behavior is more morally acceptable than sacrificing highly attractive individuals.The main effect of the group was significant,and the moral acceptability of the "pushing,behavior of middle school students was significantly higher than that of college students.In general,the four experiments in this study consistently found that facial attractiveness can regulate individual moral decision-making,and people tends to make positive moral decisions for highly attractive individuals as compared to lowly attractive individuals.