The Impact Of Personal Involvement On Ethical Decision-making

Morality refers to the conformity of values and traditions that are regulate people's behavior in social groups;during the decision-making process,there are moral conflicts,individuals have to make a decision based on their moral judgments,that was called moral decision-making.The researchers made a great deal of researches on the psychological mechanism and influencing factors of moral decision-making.In the early conclusions of studies,moral decision-making was mainly influenced by cognition.current research found that emotion and cognition also affect the moral decision-making.Apart from this,some scholars think that other factors also influence moral decision-making,for example,the types of moral predicament,and the status of victims in moral dilemmas and so on.Individuals related to the moral dilemmas in different degrees of association,namely personal involvement,influenced the moral decision-making.Then this study starts based on the angle of personal involvement,and aimed to explores how emotion and cognition influence the moral decision-making.In this study,selected hundreds of participants,The participants of experiment 1,210college students aged 18.7±1.88,The participants of experiment 2,162 college students aged 17.5±1.90.Combined with the results of the two studies,there were six results:First,in the moral dilemma of low personal involvement,individuals make more utilitarian moral decision-making than the individuals made in the moral dilemma of high personal involvement.Secondly,in the moral dilemma of high personal involvement,the individuals in emotions made less utilitarian moral decision-making than the individuals made without emotional.There is no significant difference between positive emotion and negative emotion.Thirdly,in the moral dilemma of low personal involvement,the individuals in negative emotions made more utilitarian moral decision-making than the individual without emotions made.The individuals in positive emotions made less utilitarian moral decision-making than the individuals without emotions made.Fourthly,the individuals in repressed cognition made less utilitarian moral decision-making than individuals who did not depress cognition made.There was no difference between the moral dilemma of high personal involvement and the moral dilemma of low personal involvement.Fifth,under the low personal involvement moral dilemma,individuals who were in negative emotions made more utilitarian moral decision-making than the individuals who were in depressed cognition made.But no significant difference between the moral decision-making made by the individuals who were in positive emotions and in depressed cognition.Sixth,in the moral dilemma of high personal involvement,the individuals who were in emotions made more utilitarian moral decision-making than the individuals who were in depressed cognition made.In summary,there were fourth conclusions:1,personal involvement significant influence moral decision-making,the more involved in moral dilemma,the more inclined to make non-utilitarian decision-making;2,positive emotion and negative emotion have difference influence in moral dilemma of low personal involvement,but have similar influence in moral dilemma of high involvement;3,cognition significant influence moral decision-making,participants who suppress cognition were more like to make non-utilitarian decision-making;4,compare with emotions,participants in depressed cognition more like to make non-utilitarian decision-making.