Moralization is a social-psychological process through which morally neutral issues take on moral significance. Often linked to health and disease, moralization may sometimes lead to good outcomes; yet moralization is often detrimental to individuals and to society as a whole. It is therefore important to be able to identify when moralization is inappropriate. In this paper, we offer a systematic normative approach to the evaluation of moralization. We introduce and develop the concept of ‘mismoralization’, which is when moralization is metaethically (...) unjustified. In order to identify mismoralization, we argue that one must engage in metaethical analysis of moralization processes while paying close attention to the relevant facts. We briefly discuss one historical example and two contemporary cases related to COVID-19 that we contend to have been mismoralized in public health. We propose a remedy of de-moralization that begins by identifying mismoralization and that proceeds by neutralizing inapt moral content. De-moralization calls for epistemic and moral humility. It should lead us to pull away from our tendency to moralize—as individuals and as social groups—whenever and wherever moralization is unjustified. (shrink)

Intellectual autonomy has long been identified as an epistemic virtue, one that has been championed influentially by Kant, Hume and Emerson. Manifesting intellectual autonomy, at least, in a virtuous way, does not require that we form our beliefs in cognitive isolation. Rather, as Roberts and Wood note, intellectually virtuous autonomy involves reliance and outsourcing to an appropriate extent, while at the same time maintaining intellectual self-direction. In this essay, I want to investigate the ramifications for intellectual autonomy of a particular (...) kind of epistemic dependence: cognitive enhancement. Cognitive enhancements involve the use of technology and medicine to improve cognitive capacities in healthy individuals, through mechanisms ranging from smart drugs to brain-computer interfaces. With reference to case studies in bioethics, as well as the philosophy of mind and cognitive science, it is shown that epistemic dependence, in this extreme form, poses a prima facie threat to the retention of intellectual autonomy, specifically, by threatening to undermine our intellectual self-direction. My aim will be to show why certain kinds of cognitive enhancements are subject to this objection from self-direction, while others are not. Once this is established, we’ll see that even some extreme kinds of cognitive enhancement might be not merely compatible with, but constitutive of, virtuous intellectual autonomy. (shrink)

Why are people interested in money? Specifically, what could be the biological basis for the extraordinary incentive and reinforcing power of money, which seems to be unique to the human species? We identify two ways in which a commodity which is of no biological significance in itself can become a strong motivator. The first is if it is used as a tool, and by a metaphorical extension this is often applied to money: it is used instrumentally, in order to obtain (...) biologically relevant incentives. Second, substances can be strong motivators because they imitate the action of natural incentives but do not produce the fitness gains for which those incentives are instinctively sought. The classic examples of this process are psychoactive drugs, but we argue that the drug concept can also be extended metaphorically to provide an account of money motivation. From a review of theoretical and empirical literature about money, we conclude that (i) there are a number of phenomena that cannot be accounted for by a pure Tool Theory of money motivation; (ii) supplementing Tool Theory with a Drug Theory enables the anomalous phenomena to be explained; and (iii) the human instincts that, according to a Drug Theory, money parasitizes include trading (derived from reciprocal altruism) and object play. (Published Online April 5 2006) Key Words: economic behaviour; evolutionary psychology; giving; incentive; money; motivation; play; reciprocal altruism. (shrink)

This study expands the application of deonance theory into organizations’ upper echelons by examining how CEOs imprinted with a sense of duty can influence managerial decision-making. We hypothesize an imprint of bounded autonomy, an ought-force that constrains their decision-making and understanding of behavioral freedom, influences duty-bound CEOs to self-report errors in past financial reporting. We test deonance theory propositions of instrumentality for behavioral expansion, namely loss avoidance and gain attainment, related to institutional ownership concentration and CEO equity ownership. We use (...) CEOs that are graduates of U.S. service academies as a proxy for duty-bound executives and find firms they lead are more likely to issue a financial restatement to correct a previous reporting error. This finding is robust to alternate explanations such as being error-prone, earnings management, auditor oversight, and risk behaviors. We also find evidence that deonance may be subject to behavioral expansion. The likelihood of issuing a restatement decreases as institutional ownership concentration and CEO equity ownership increases. This study shows imprinted deonance within the C-suite influences important organizational outcomes. (shrink)

It has been hypothesized that actors tend to attribute behavior to the situation whereas observers tend to attribute behavior to the person (Jones & Nisbett 1972). The authors argue that this simple hypothesis fails to capture the complexity of actual actor-observer differences in people’s behavioral explanations. A new framework is proposed in which reason explanations are distinguished from explanations that cite causes, especially stable traits. With this framework in place, it becomes possible to show that there are a number of (...) distinct actorobserver asymmetries in explanation, each stemming from a distinct psychological process by which explanations are generated. (shrink)

We examine the moderating role of the situational and organizational contexts in determining unethical managerial behavior, applying the case-survey methodology. On the basis of a holistic, multiple-antecedent perspective, we hypothesize that two key constructs, moral intensity and situational strength, help explain contextual moderating effects on relationships between managers’ individual characteristics and unethical behavior. Based on a quantitative analysis of 52 case studies describing occurrences of real-life unethical conduct, we find empirical support for the hypothesized contextual moderating effects of moral intensity (...) and situational strength. By examining these complex contextual moderators, we aim to contribute to organizational ethics research as we shed light on the critical role that context may play in influencing unethical managerial behavior. (shrink)

This article takes a novel approach to explaining the causes of unethical behavior in organizations. Instead of explaining the unethical behavior of employees in terms of their bad organization, this article examines how a good organization can lead to employees’ unethical behavior. The main idea is that the more ethical an organization becomes, the higher, in some respects, is the likelihood of unethical behavior. This is due to four threatening forces that become stronger when an organization becomes more ethical. These (...) forces are the upward, downward, backward, and forward forces. Each of these forces is illustrated with two effects and each effect is explained by a specific theory. The effects are the effects of the gold digger, high-jump bar, retreating-cat, forbidden-fruit, cheese slicer, moving-spotlight, repeat-prescription, and keeping-up appearances. This paradox of ethics, when goodness breeds badness, opens new research directions. (shrink)

This paper explores the influence of group context on the ethical predispositions of group members. Results indicate that groups exert a powerful influence on individuals' ethical frameworks, and that the patterns of these influences differ depending on the type of ethical framework involved. Individuals' ethical utilitarianism was affected by both leadership style and group cohesiveness. Ethical formalism was most affected by the leadership style in the group.

Since argument frames precede most other arguing processes, argument editing among them, one’s frames may well predict one’s preferred editorial standards. This experiment assesses people’s arguing frames, gives them arguments to edit, and tests whether the frames actually do predict editorial preferences. Modest relationships between argument frames and argument editing appear. Other connections among frames, editing, and additional individual differences variables are more substantial. Particularly notable are the informative influences of psychological reactance. A new theoretical contribution is offered, connecting argument (...) frame research to Erving Goffman’s frame analysis. (shrink)

Several authors have recently advocated a so-called new case for paternalism, according to which empirical findings from distinct decision sciences provide compelling reasons in favour of paternalistic interference. In their view, the available behavioural and neuro-psychological findings enable paternalists to address traditional anti-paternalistic objections and reliably enhance the well-being of their target agents. In this paper, I combine insights from decision-making research, moral philosophy and evidence-based policy evaluation to assess the merits of this case. In particular, I articulate and defend (...) three complementary arguments that, I claim, challenge even the best available calls for such case. In doing so, I identify the main justificatory challenges faced by the new paternalists and explicate the implications of these challenges for the ongoing philosophical debate about the justifiability of paternalistic interference. (shrink)

The inference from determinism to predictability, though intuitively plausible, needs to be qualified in an important respect. We need to distinguish between two different kinds of predictability. On the one hand, determinism implies external predictability , that is, the possibility for an external observer, not part of the universe, to predict, in principle, all future states of the universe. Yet, on the other hand, embedded predictability as the possibility for an embedded subsystem in the universe to make such predictions, does (...) not obtain in a deterministic universe. By revitalizing an older result—the paradox of predictability —we demonstrate that, even in a deterministic universe, there are fundamental, non-epistemic limitations on the ability of one subsystem embedded in the universe to predict the future behaviour of other subsystems embedded in the same universe. As an explanation, we put forward the hypothesis that these limitations arise because the predictions themselves are physical events which are part of the law-like causal chain of events in the deterministic universe. While the limitations on embedded predictability cannot in any direct way show evidence of free human agency, we conjecture that, even in a deterministic universe, human agents have a take-it-or-leave-it control over revealed predictions of their future behaviour. (shrink)

This theoretical analysis seeks to contribute to three objectives within the context of the proposed Frontiers Research Topic: delimit two levels of analysis in the present pandemic situation: medicine-epidemiology and behavioral psychology, still under-addressed. While medicine has its essential role on the biological side, psychology has a comparable role on the behavioral side. Analyze the importance of behavioral-educational factors in the pandemic situation, using a precise theoretical model from educational psychology for this analysis. Propose preventive, psychoeducational intervention strategies based on (...) the previous analyses. (shrink)

According to theoretical work on epistemic injustice, baseless discrediting of the knowledge of people with marginalized social identities is a central driver of prejudice and discrimination. Discrediting of knowledge may sometimes be subtle, but it is pernicious, inducing chronic stress and coping strategies such as emotional avoidance. In this research, we sought to deepen the understanding of epistemic injustice’s impact by examining emotional responses to being discredited and assessing if marginalized social group membership predicts these responses. We conducted a novel (...) series of three experiments (Total N = 1690) in which participants (1) shared their factual knowledge about how a game worked or their personal feelings about the game; (2) received discrediting feedback (invalidating remarks), validating feedback (affirming remarks), or insulting feedback (general negative social evaluation); and then (3) reported their affect. In all three studies, on average, affective responses to discrediting feedback were less negative than to insulting feedback, and more negative than to validating feedback. Participants who shared their knowledge reported more negative affect after discrediting feedback than participants who shared their feelings. There were consistent individual differences, including a twice-replicated finding of reduced negative affect after receiving discrediting and insulting feedback for Black men compared to White men and women and Black women. Black men’s race-based traumatic symptom scores predicted their affective responses to discrediting and insulting feedback, suggesting that experience with discrimination contributed to the emotional processing of a key aspect of epistemic injustice: remarks conveying baseless discrediting of knowledge. (shrink)

Due to increasing consumer skepticism towards promotional messages, companies are looking for new ways to communicate with their target audiences in a less obtrusive way than traditional advertising. Sponsored content disseminated on the online portals of newspapers (i. e., online advertorials) is regarded as a promising way to promote products and brands. Regulations require communicators to inform consumers about the commercial nature of this ‘masked’ persuasion attempt by including an explicit sponsorship disclosure (i. e., a ‘Sponsored’ label). This study demonstrates (...) that such an explicit advertising cue may not be enough to alert recipients. Furthermore, this study investigates the effects of promotional messages by means of a 2 (no disclosure vs. disclosure) x 2 (no forewarning vs. forewarning) experiment. Results show that both (i) foregoing instructions aimed at activating consumers’ persuasion knowledge (i. e., an additional forewarning message) and (ii) recipients’ prior media literacy can foster the effect of sponsorship disclosures in triggering situational distrust towards brand-related content, and in turn, increasing consumers’ reactance. (shrink)

Incentives are typically conceived as a form of trade, and so voluntariness appears to be the only ethical concern. As a consequence, incentives are often considered ethically superior to regulations because they are voluntary rather than coercive. But incentives can also be viewed as one way to get others to do what they otherwise would not; that is, as a form of power. When incentives are viewed in this light, many ethical questions arise in addition to voluntariness: What are the (...) responsibilities of the powerful in using incentives? Can incentives be manipulative or exploitative, even if people are free to refuse them? Like all other forms of power, incentives can be abused. This paper develops criteria for distinguishing their legitimate from their illegitimate uses, viz. legitimacy of purpose, voluntariness, and effect on character. The criteria are then applied to three cases: plea bargaining, recruiting medical research subjects, and motivating children to learn. Thinking of incentives in terms of.. (shrink)

Duties to address global poverty face a motivation gap. We have good reasons for acting yet we do not, at least consistently. A ‘sentimental education’, featuring literature and journalism detailing the lives of distant others has been suggested as a promising means by which to close this gap. Although sympathetic to this project, I argue that it is too heavily wed to a charitable model of our duties to address global poverty—understood as requiring we sacrifice a certain portion of our (...) income. However, political action, aimed at altering institutions at both a global and a local level is likely to be necessary in order to provide effective long-term solutions to poverty globally. To rectify this, the article develops an alternative dialogical account of sentimental education, suitable for motivating support for political action to address global poverty. (shrink)

One very common style of teaching philosophy involves remaining publicly neutral regarding the views being debated—a technique commonly styled ‘teaching the debate.’ This paper seeks to survey evidence from the literature in social psychology that suggests teaching the debate naturally lends itself to student skepticism toward the philosophical views presented. In contrast, research suggests that presenting one’s own views alongside teaching the debate in question—or ‘engaging the debate’—can effectively avoid eliciting skeptical attitudes among students without sacrificing desirable pedagogical outcomes. Thus, (...) there are good reasons to engage philosophical debates as an educator, not merely teach them. (shrink)

“Pick a card, any card. This has to be a completely free choice.” the magician tells you. But is it really? Although we like to think that we are using our free will to make our decisions, research in psychology has shown that many of our behaviours are automatic and unconsciously influenced by external stimuli (Ariely, 2008; Bargh & Chartrand, 1999; Newell & Shanks, 2014; Nisbett & Wilson, 1977), and that we are often oblivious to the cognitive mechanisms that underpin (...) our decision (Wegner, 2002, 2003). Magicians have exploited this illusory sense of agency for a long time, and have developed a wide range of techniques to influence and control spectators’ choices of such things as card, word, or number (Annemann, 1933; Banachek, 2002a; Jones, 1994; Turner, 2015). These techniques are instances of what is called forcing. -/- Many forces are extremely effective, illustrating various weaknesses in our sense of control over decisions and their outcomes. Researchers have started to investigate them in various ways (Kuhn, Pailh s, & Lan, 2020; Olson, Amlani, Raz, & Rensink, 2015; Pailhes & Kuhn, 2020b, 2020c; Shalom et al., 2013) and are beginning to obtain valuable insights into decision-making processes as well as a better understanding of the cognitive mechanisms that lead people to experience an illusory sense of free will and of agency. -/- Although magicians have acquired large amounts of knowledge in covertly controlling people’s choices, much of this knowledge is only discussed in the context of individual magic tricks, or in books that are not readily accessible to non-magicans. As we and others have argued elsewhere (Ekroll, Sayim, & Wagemans, 2017; Kuhn, 2019; Kuhn, Amlani, & Rensink, 2008; Kuhn, Caffaratti, Teszka, & Rensink, 2014; Macknik et al., 2008; Olson et al., 2015; Olson, Landry, Appourchaux, & Raz, 2016; Shalom et al., 2013; Thomas, Didierjean, Maquestiaux, & Gygax, 2015), a particularly effective way of making this knowledge more available is via the creation of taxonomies centered around psychological mechanisms (Rensink & Kuhn, 2015). For example, the psychologically based taxonomy of misdirection (Kuhn et al., 2014) helps draw links between misdirection and formal theories of perception and cognition. -/- Our aim here is to apply a similar process to the knowledge magicians have about forcing. The present paper develops a psychologically based taxonomy of forcing techniques with two goals in mind. Firstly, it should help uncover the various psychological mechanisms that underlie forcing techniques. Secondly, it should facilitate knowledge transfer between magicians and psychologists. Among other things, this knowledge will allow researchers to gain new insights into the mechanisms underlying decision-making, and the feeling of free will and of agency over choice. We start by defining the magician’s force and then look at some of the past classifications of forcing. (shrink)

Although many people choose to sign consent forms and participate in research, how many thoroughly read a consent form before signing it? Across 3 experiments using 348 undergraduate student participants, we examined whether personality characteristics as well as consent form content, format, and delivery method were related to thorough reading. Students repeatedly failed to read the consent forms, although small effects were found favoring electronic delivery methods and traditional format forms. Potential explanations are discussed and include participant apathy, participants trying (...) to save time by not reading the consent form, and participant assumptions about consent forms. (shrink)

Native advertising has recently become a prominent buzzword for advertisers and publishers alike. It describes advertising formats which closely adapt their form and style to the editorial environment they appear in, intending to hide the commercial character of these ads. In two experimental studies, we test how advertising disclosures in native ads on news websites affect recipients’ attitudes towards a promoted brand in a short and long-term perspective. In addition, we explore persuasion through certain content features (i. e., message sidedness (...) and use of exemplars) and how they affect disclosure effects. Results show that disclosures increase perceived persuasive intent but do not necessarily decrease brand attitudes. However, disclosure effects do not persist over time and remain unaffected by content features. (shrink)

Drawing on findings from the study of prejudice and prejudice reduction, we identify a number of mechanisms through which religious communities may influence the intergroup attitudes of their members. We hypothesize that religious participation could in principle either reduce or promote prejudice with respect to any given target group. A religious community’s influence on intergroup attitudes will depend upon the specific beliefs, attitudes, and practices found within the community, as well as on interactions between the religious community and the larger (...) social environment in which it is embedded. Basing our proposals on findings from the literature on prejudice formation and prejudice reduction allows us to outline useful directions for future studies of religion and prejudice. (shrink)

Drawing from cognitive learning theories we hypothesize that exposure to nationalistic appeals that suggest consumers should shun foreign brands for moral reasons increases the general belief in consumers that buying foreign brands is morally wrong. In parallel, drawing from the theory of psychological reactance we posit that such appeals may, against their communication goal, increase the reputation of foreign luxury brands. We term the juxtaposition of these apparently contradictory effects the “Ambivalence Hypothesis.” Further, drawing from prior research on source-similarity effects (...) we posit that foreign luxury brands that communicate cultural proximity to target consumers (i.e., a local brand positioning) reinforce psychological reactance (“Clean Conscience Hypothesis”). We test these hypotheses experimentally in the context of luxury car brand advertising in China, a market that is heavily dominated by foreign brands, and therefore provides a breeding ground for ambivalent consumer reactions. Results show that exposure to nationalistic appeals enhances consumers’ national identity dispositions (patriotism, local identity), which results in higher levels of consumer ethnocentrism. Further, nationalistic appeals enhance the social responsibility associations that consumers hold for foreign luxury brands and their countries of origin, which results in a higher brand reputation. Finally, effects of nationalistic appeals on foreign luxury brand reputation are positively stronger for brands using a local vs. a foreign or a global positioning. These findings suggest that nationalistic appeals are a double-edged sword with important implications for ethics in political communication and luxury brand marketing. (shrink)

The notion that there exists a fundamental need to exert control over or to influence one’s environment has enjoyed a long history in psychology (e.g., DeCharms, 1968; Heider, 1958) and has stimulated considerable theoretical work. Such a need has been characterized by theorists at multiple levels of analysis. Control motivation, for example, has been characterized broadly in terms of proactive (White, 1959) or reactive (e.g., Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978; Brehm, 1966; Brehm & Brehm, 1981) strivings for control over general (...) or specific (Brehm & Brehm, 1981) and central or peripheral outcomes (Thompson, 1993). Additionally, various types of control strategies used to gain or maintain a sense of personal control have been proposed (e.g., Averill, 1973; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995; Rothbaum, Weisz, & Snyder, 1982; Thompson, 1981). Modes of control, for instance, have been categorized as either primary or secondary. Primary strategies involve direct action undertaken to produce desirable and avoid undesirable outcomes in the external world, whereas secondary strategies employ primarily cognitive processes undertaken to produce a change within the person. Recently, Heckhausen and Schulz (1995) have further delineated these primary and secondary forms of control according to whether they are based on veridical or illusory causal understandings of the world and whether they are functional or dysfunctional. While most control theorists view primary control as preferable to secondary control, the latter is viewed as critical in the process of adaptation to control failures and in the promotion of future primary control attempts. (shrink)

Since the mid-1980s many schools in predominantly white areas have taken active steps to counter racism and ethnocentrism and raise awareness of Britain's ethnic diversity through curriculum development. This paper is primarily concerned with the ethical issues raised by research into such initiatives at primary school level. We begin by alluding very briefly to the shortcomings of extant research into children's prejudice, noting that some studies can be criticised for the unwitting reinforcement of stereotypes. We move on to examine the (...) ethical and methodological considerations which have underpinned our own work in this area, focusing on a recent investigation into children's understanding of Jewish culture and identity. The techniques employed to probe the children's beliefs and attitudes and challenge their taken-for-granted assumptions are described at length, together with the ethical dilemmas addressed during the course of the research. In the second part of the paper, we focus on issues raised by our own curriculum development work in anti-racist and multicultural education in 'all white' schools. We draw extensively on a recent case-study of 10 and 11 year-olds' responses to a teaching programme which aimed to counter stereotypical images both of developing countries and Islam. (shrink)

Although social scientists have identified diverse behavioral patterns among children from dissimilarly structured families, marketing scholars have progressed little in relating family structure to consumption-related decisions. In particular, the roles played by members of single-mother families—which may include live-in grandparents, mother’s unmarried partner, and step-father with or without step-sibling(s)—may affect children’s influence on consumption-related decisions. For example, to offset a parental authority dynamic introduced by a new stepfather, the work-related constraints imposed on a breadwinning mother, or the imposition of adult-level (...) household responsibilities on children, single-mother families may attend more to their children’s product preferences. -/- Without a profile that includes socio-economic, behavioral, and psychological aspects, efficient and socially responsible marketing to single-mother households is compromised. Relative to dual-parent families, single-mother families tend to have fewer resources and less buying power, children who consume more materialistic and compulsively, and children who more strongly influence decision making for both own-use and family-use products. Timely research would ensure that these and other tendencies now differentiate single-mother from dual-parent families in ways that marketers should address. Hence, our threefold goal is (1) to consolidate and highlight gaps in existing theory applied to studying children’s influence on consumption-related decision making in single-mother families, and (2) to propose a hybrid framework that merges two theories conducive to such research, and (3) to identify promising research propositions for future research. (shrink)

Much discussion of the ethics of participation focuses on electoral participation and whether citizens are obligated or can be coerced to vote. Yet these debates have ignored that citizens must first pay attention to politics and make up their minds about where they stand before they can engage in any form of participation. This article considers the importance for liberal democracy of citizens paying attention to politics, or attentive citizenship. It argues that the democratic state has an obligation to cultivate (...) interest in politics and that this obligation authorizes means up to and including some forms of coercion. The argument is that when citizens are inattentive to politics, it undermines political equality and social justice because it undermines what John Rawls called the fair value of the political liberties. The importance of these ends for liberal democratic states requires them to take steps to promote attentive citizenship. (shrink)

Adolescents have gradually become a vital group of interacting with social media recommendation algorithms. Although numerous studies have been conducted to investigate negative reactions that the dark side of recommendation algorithms brings to social media users, little is known about the resistance intention and behavior based on their agency in the daily process of encountering algorithms. Focusing on the concept of algorithm resistance, this study used a two-path model to investigate the algorithmic resistance of rural Chinese adolescents in their daily (...) use of short video apps. The findings revealed that the perceived threat to freedom, algorithmic literacy, and peer influence were positively associated with the resistance willingness and intention; while the independent psychology on algorithmic recommendations significantly weakened resistance willingness and intention. Furthermore, this study verified the mediating role of resistance willingness and intention between the above independent variables and resistance behavior. Additionally, the positive impact of resistance willingness on resistance intention was confirmed. In conclusion, this study offers a comprehensive approach to further understanding adolescents’ algorithmic resistance awareness and behavior by combining psychological factors, personal competency, and interpersonal influences, as well as two types of resistance reactions. (shrink)