Herbert D. Saltzstein

Haidt's Moral Intuitionist Theory: A Psychological and Philosophical Critique.

Jon Haidts (2001) proposal for a moral intutionist theory of morality is criticized on psychological and philosophical grounds, including (a) the apparent reduction of social influence to one kind, overt compliance, and the virtual ignoring of the role of persuasion in moral and other decision making; (b) the failure to distinguish development of a psychological entity from its deployment or functioning; and (c) the failure to consider, in distinguishing cause and reason as explanatory concepts, the motivating power of reasons. Arguments for an evolutionary approach to morality are also faulted on the grounds that they assume that adaptation is served by nonmoral rather than moral (fairness- and benevolence-based) criteria. Finally, the authors suggest that an intuitionist approach such as that of Haidt may obscure important aspects of moral decision making.

The Relation between Moral Judgment and Behavior: A Social-Cognitive and Decision-Making Analysis

It is commonly assumed that there are discrepancies between moral judgments and moral behaviors because greater self-interest is at stake in behavior. Some of these discrepancies may be due instead to

Heuristics in Medical and Non-Medical Decision-Making:

Pairs of hypothetical medical and non-medical problems were given to 44 pediatric residents at three levels of hospital training. Each problem was designed to detect a specific heuristic-based bias in making diagnoses. Discounting, disregarding base rate, and over-confidence in contextually embedded redundant information were more evident on medical than on non-medical problems. In particular, a greater number of third-year residents disregarded base-rate information than did first- and second-year residents on medical but not on non-medical problems. On medical problems, a greater number of first-year residents expressed greater confidence in redundant information that was contextually embedded than in information that was presented in a listed format. Over one-third of the residents confused prospective and retrospective probabilities; three-fourths showed evidence of augmentation; virtually all residents expressed greater confidence in a diagnosis based on redundant rather than on non-redundant listed information. These latter effects were consistent across training level and occurred on both medical and non-medical problems. The results are discussed in terms of prototype theory and the nature of medical training.

Raciocínio moral em interação social: um estudo sobre sugestionabilidade

Moral reasoning in social interaction: A study about suggestibility Studies were conducted in which children chose whether to keep a promise or tell the t...

Indirect social influence: Change in judgmental process or anticipatory conformity?

Abstract In three experiments, subjects imposed sentence in a criminal case before and after reading the harsh sentence imposed by the trial judge. They then read and imposed sentence in another case. In one experimental condition the subjects anticipated learning the judges sentence in Case 2; in the other condition they were told not to anticipate learning the judges sentence. Control subjects made their judgments without ever seeing the judges sentence. Direct influence was the change in sentences within cases; indirect influence was the difference between initial sentences in Cases 1 and 2. Though direct influence was minimal and not significant, indirect influence was substantial, and was greater in the anticipation than no-anticipation than control conditions, indicating that both modification of the judgmental process and anticipatory conformity were operating. Indirect influence may then reflect a change of either type, depending on a number of methodological and other factors.

The moral choices children attribute to adults and to peers: Implications for moral acquisition

Thirty-six children (half 6–8 years old and half 10–12) in Northeast Brazil heard three hypothetical dilemmas featuring a choice between telling the truth and keeping a promise. Each dilemma was initiated by a different kind of lie: an exculpable pro-social lie (teasing), a lie in the personal domain (hiding) and a lie in the service of an anti-social act (cheating). They were asked to choose between truth and promise, and to attribute choices to adults and to peers. More younger than older children chose truth on all three dilemmas. Both regression and SSA analysis showed that “peer-judgments” predicted own judgments on all three dilemmas, but “adult-judgments” did so only on the dilemma, which featured an exculpable lie and involved no adults. The findings may be interpreted as supporting either (a) a constructivist account of development or (b) a learning account that features implicit processes.AbstractTrente-six enfants (la moitié entre six et huit ans, l’autre moitié entre dix et douze ans), dans le nord-est du Brésil, ont entendu trois dilemmes hypothétiques, dans lesquels a figuré un choix entre (1) dire la vérité et (2) tenir une promesse. Chaque dilemme se trouvait initié par un mensonge d’une autre sorte: un mensonge “pro-social” pardonnable (plaisanter), un mensonge dans le domaine personnel (cacher quelque chose), et un mensonge au service d’un acte antisocial (tricher). On leur a demandé de choisir entre la vérité et une promesse, et d’attribuer des choix aux grandes personnes et … leurs contemporains. Davantage d’enfants plus jeunes que plus âgés ont choisi la vérité dans tous les trois cas. Les analyses de la régression (regression analysis) et de la SSA (SSA analysis) ont montré que “les jugements des contemporains” ont prédit leurs propres jugements dans les trois cas, tandis que les “jugements des grandes personnes” les ont prédits uniquement sur le dilemme concernant un mensonge pardonnable et qui ne concernait pas de grandes personnes. Cette découverte peut s’interpréter comme appui ou de (a) un compte-rendu constructiviste du développement ou (b) un compte-rendu qui comporte des processus implicites.

Effect of Rejection and Acceptance from a Group on Conformity to Two Types of Social Influence

An experiment was designed to test the hypothesis that after rejection from a group subjects will conform more to group requests to act like the group than to act differently from the group. The conformity behavior of 76 female subjects to requests to act like the others (similarity) or differently from them (dissimilarity) was compared after rejection from or acceptance by the group. Both rejected and accepted subjects conformed mote when asked to act like others than to act differently. Intropunitive reactions by the rejected subjects were positively associated with conformity but only in the dissimilarity condition. These and other results are discussed in terms of the invidious meaning of behavioral dissimilarity in a threatening situation.

Social Influence on Perceptual Judgments and Responses

Summary Social modification of perceptual processes is assumed to have occurred when the original social influence effect transfers to a different task, with a different experimenter and in the absence of the influence agents. Such transfer was demonstrated with cross-modal-matching tasks. The subjects produced relative magnitudes in the response modality to match relative magnitude in the stimulus modality. It was the judged distances between stimuli which were influenced. The original and transfer tasks shared the same stimulus modality (heaviness of weights) but differed in the response modality (duration of a tone and visual length). The transfer across response modalities suggests that it was the judgmental process rather than the overt response habit which was modified.

The Influence of Males and Females on the Psychophysical Judgments of Females

A transfer paradigm was employed to test the hypothesis that females influenced by males on one task would show more carryover of the influence effect to other tasks than would females influenced by other females. Thirty female college students made judgments on three cross-modal matching tasks. Experimental subjects gave their judgments on one task along with two male or two female confederates, who appeared to give discrepant judgments. They then made another series of private judgments on the other two tasks. Comparison to a control group and to an original series of provate judgments revealed a significant direct influence effect, but minimal transfer to the other two tasks. There was a nonsignificant tendency for the subjects to be more directly influenced by other females than by males, but this influence by the other females was accompanied by a decline in task confidence. Influence by males on females did not result in lowered confidence. This finding may be restricted to quantitative tasks and to American college students.