Conformity in Moral Judgment

Walter Sinnott-Armstrong,

Meagan Kelly, and

Lawrence Ngo

(Duke University,

MAD Lab)

A Case

A terrorist has hidden a large bomb where it will kill thousands of innocent people unless you disarm it. The only way to save them is to torture the terrorist in order to find out where the bomb is. Should you torture the terrorist?

Moral intuitions about cases like this are often used to decide among moral theories.

Our Question = How are moral intuitions about cases like this affected by social context?

Aramovich et al. (2011)

Participants: 170 undergrads in intro psych class

Question: “To what extent do you support or oppose the use of stress techniques when interrogating suspected terrorists, such as sleep deprivation, ‘water boarding’ (strapping detainees to a board and dunking them underwater), long periods of hanging detainees by ropes in painful positions, etc.”

Answers: Strongly (–3), Moderately (–2), or Slightly (–1) Oppose, Neither Oppose Nor Support (0), Slightly (+1), Moderately (+2), or Strongly (+3) Support

Method

Subject was asked the question thrice: Before group in private During group in public after others speak After group in private

Group includes confederates who express No Social Support for Opposition:

Strong, Moderate, Slight, Strong Support Social Support for Opposition:

replace Slight Support with Slight Opposition

Results

“80% of the participants reported less opposition to torture than they had reported at pretest.” (Aramovich 8)

“… even after the group interaction.” (8)

Results = Table 1

Moral Conviction as Cure?

Moral Conviction: “To what extent does [is] your attitude about whether stress interrogation techniques should be allowed “… reflect your core moral values and convictions?” “… deeply connected to fundamental questions of

‘right’ and ‘wrong’?”

High scores reduced effects of social consensus.

Why? Perhaps because conviction reduces deep processing of opposition (Cialdini & Goldstein, 607)

Is this cure rational?

Polls

These lab results might explain popular trends.

Gallup 2005: 38% of Americans believed that torture is justified when interrogating suspected terrorists.

Gallup 2009: 52% of Americans believed that torture is justified when interrogating suspected terrorists.

That is a big change in 4 years. Why?

Maybe because many go along to get along.

Are Philosophers Immune?

In Terrorism, Ticking Time-Bombs, and Torture, Fritz Allhoff defends the use of torture on terrorism suspects in special circumstances.

Devine’s review of Allhoff’s book in Ethics concludes by quoting Chesterton: “From all the easy speeches / that comfort cruel men . . . / from sleep and from damnation, / deliver us, good Lord!”

Most philosophers avoid abuse like this by conforming.

If philosophers who conform remain and rise in the profession, then agreement will be greater at the top.

Our Questions

How much are your own (or most people’s or philosophers’) moral judgments affected by (actual, known, believed, or expressed) moral judgments of people (or philosophers) around you?

Does testimony play the same role in morality as it does in science and everyday life?

Why it Matters: Traditional Ideals

Aristotle on self-sufficiency of virtue and practical wisdom (cf. Merritt 2000)

Kant on autonomy and self-governance as essential to morality as such

Kohlberg (1969) on moral reasoning

Depending on others in conventional Stage 3

But not in principled level Stage 6 (highest).

Reason as self-governance or autonomy contrasts with emotion as mere reaction to stimuli

Is Anyone Ideal?

Are the folk ideal? NO.

Are philosophers ideal? NO. (E.g. Kant on “self-abuse” & suicide)

Is this just old-style situationism? NO: Situationists study effects of presence of

other people, not expressed beliefs of other people.

Situationists study effects on how people act instead of how people judge acts.

Social Intuitionist Model

(Haidt, 2001 and later)

Dual Process Model

(Paxton & Greene, 2010)

Asch’s Classic Study

Asch required participants to choose which of three lines of different lengths matched the length of a target line.

Asch’s Stimuli

Asch’s Classic Study

Asch required participants to choose which of three lines of different lengths matched the length of a target line.

Participants made decisions in a group context which included 6-8 people, and all but 1 person was a confederate of the experimenter.

Asch found that, while participants made errors on <1% of trials when deciding alone, they made errors on 37% of trials in the group condition.

Meta-analysis of Asch-like Studies

Bond, R., and Smith, P. B. (1996). Culture and Conformity: A Meta-Analysis of Studies Using Asch’s (1952b, 1956) Line Judgment Task, Psychological Bulletin, 119, 1,111-137.

Conformity is higher when (a) the majority is larger, (b) the majority is not an outgroup, (c) the respondent is female, (d) the respondent’s culture is collectivist, and (e) the stimulus is ambiguous

Variations that Fail

_______________________________________________________________________

______

______

Variations

Which flavor tastes better?

What is 7+5?

Which is biggest (Sun, Moon, Earth)?

Is this act morally wrong?

One of Asch’s Subjects

An independent subject explaining why he did not conform (Asch 1956, 37)

Experimenter: “Did you think the group would disapprove of you, or think you were peculiar if you gave a different answer?”

Subject: “Not disapprove, but they have a habit of laughing at you if you are wrong in class, but in this case I didn’t care. It would be different if it were a question of ethics, but I wouldn’t agree.”

HOW IS MORALITY DIFFERENT?

Moral issues are more complex.

Moral issues are more controversial.

Moral issues are more important.

Moral issues are used to form coalitions.

Asch Meets Morality

Crutchfield (1955) found that only 19% (or 12%) of participants agreed with certain moral statements when alone, but 58% (or 48%) agreed when confronted with a unanimous group who endorsed the statements.

Hornsey and colleagues (2003, 2007) found that participants with strong moral convictions about a moral issue expressed stronger intentions to verbally oppose the issue when they believed they held a minority view than when they believed they held the majority view.

Chiara Lisciandra, Matteo Colombo and Marie Nielsenova, Conformorality: A Study on Group Conditioning of Normative Judgment (under review)

Crutchfield (1955)

“Free speech being a privilege rather than a right, it is proper for a society to suspend free speech whenever it feels itself threatened.”

Only 19% of control subjects agreed

58% of experimental subjects agreed

Crutchfield (1955)

Which one of the following do you feel is the most important problem facing our country today? Economic recession Educational Facilities Subversive Activities Mental Health Crime and Corruption

Only 12% of control subjects answered “Subversive Activities”

48% of experimental subjects answered “Subversive Activities”

Kundu et al. on Moral Conformity

Payel Kundu & Denise Dellarosa Cummins (2012): Morality and conformity: The Asch paradigm applied to moral decisions, Social Influence, DOI:10.1080/15534510.2012.727767

Participants: 33 undergrads at University of Illinois

Stimuli: 12 moral dilemmas from Greene et al. 2008

Question: Highly Impermissible(1), Impermissible (2), Somewhat Impermissible (3), Unsure (4), Somewhat Permissible (5), Permissible (6), and Highly Permissible (7).

Confederates: 3 male graduate students answered out loud before each participant

Clear Dilemmas

Acts typically judged permissible (e.g. side track trolley)

Control group deciding on their own: M = 4.45

Experimental group after confederates rate act as impermissible: M = 2.67

Acts typically judged impermissible (e.g. footbridge)

Control group deciding on their own: M = 3.23

Experimental group after confederates rate act as impermissible: M = 4.38

Unclear Dilemmas

Sophie’s Choice Control group deciding on their own: M = 3.53 Experimental group after confederates rate act

as impermissible: M = 2.00

Crying Baby Control group deciding on their own: M = 2.76 Experimental group after confederates rate act

as permissible: M = 4.75

Limitations

Only 33 subjects

All weird male college students

Might be affected by tone of voice and body language instead of mere agreement

Our Study 1: Participants

Amazon Mechanical Turk

302 subjects read and rated scenario A.

290 were presented with scenario B.

Subjects were restricted to English-speaking US citizens over 18 years old.

Study 1: Scenarios

Scenario A: “A family’s dog was killed by a car in front of their house. They had heard that dog meat was delicious, so they cut up the dog’s body and cooked it and ate it for dinner.”

Scenario B: “A cruise boat sank. A group of survivors are now overcrowding a lifeboat, and a storm is coming. The lifeboat will sink, and all of its passengers will drown unless some weight is removed from the boat. Nobody volunteers. Ten passengers are so small that two of them would have to be thrown overboard to save the rest. However, one passenger is very large and seriously injured. If the ten small passengers throw the very large passenger overboard, then he will drown but the others will survive. They throw the large passenger overboard.”

Study 1: Questions

‘How morally wrong do you think the agent’s actions were?’

Likert scale from 0 (completely morally acceptable) to 10 (completely morally condemnable).

Three conditions:

Baseline: No prime

Acceptable Prime: 75 people who previously took this survey rated it as morally acceptable.

Condemnable Prime: 75 people who previously took this survey rated it as morally condemnable.

Study 1: Results

_x0001_A _x0002_ B0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

AcceptableBaselineCondemnable

Scenario

Rati

ng

* *

Study 2: Arguments

Amazon Mechanical Turk with 496/506 subjects restricted similarly

New Primes: ’75 people who previously took this survey rated it as morally condemnable and said something similar to ‘Those barbaric passengers committed a horrible murder!’’

Study 2: Arguments

_x0001_A _x0002_ B012345678

Acceptable Ra-tionalAcceptable EmotionalBaselineCondemnable Emotional Condemnable Rational

Scenario

Rati

ng

‘75 people who previously took this survey rated it as morally condemnable [acceptable], and said something similar to…’

**

Study 3: Argument Without Majority

_x0001_B01234567

Acceptable Ra-tional

Acceptable Emotional

Baseline

Condemnable Emotional

Condemnable RationalScenario

Rati

ng

509 subjects saw only Scenario B

’People who previously took this survey rated it as morally condemnable [acceptable], and said something similar to…’

*

Study 3: Null Effects

Explanation 1: Maybe arguments have a bigger effect that emotional appeals just because people spent more time thinking about them.

BUT we found no significant differences in reaction times between subjects given rational arguments and those given emotional appeals.

Explanation 2: Maybe people whose emotions conflicted with the expressed emotion reacted counter to the prime.

BUT we found no evidence for this hypothesis.

What’s Next?

Vary kinds and strengths of arguments Inducing emotion (“How would you feel if …?”) instead

of expressing emotion (“They are horrible!”) Rational arguments based on consequences in

contrast with rights — which has the biggest effect?

Vary group that expresses prior judgment Size of group: 1 vs. 10 vs. 50 vs. 75 express judgment In group vs. out group (gender, race, SES, …) Reliable experts and admired paragons Public vs. private

What’s Next?

Meta-ethical views: Maybe realists or objectivists about morality are less

(or more?) susceptible to social pressure than subjectivists and conventionalists about morality

Maybe people who base morality on religion are less (or more?) susceptible to social pressure than naturalists about morality

Individual differences among experimental subjects: Religious belief Intelligence Conviction, certainty, importance Humility and confidence …

Moral Humility

Funded by Templeton

What is humility? What is confidence?

How can we test for humility as a character trait and for confidence in a particular judgment?

How do humble people react to disagreement?

Hypothesis: Humility leads to conformity (and so does lack of confidence).

Is Conformity Bad?

Conformity might seem to suggest unreliability.

BUT conformity could increase reliability if morality is socially constructed and functional.

AND conformity might increase reliability even if morality is objective or independent of society.

HOW? The wisdom of crowds on temperature and

weight (even if they talk?) Coherence with other people as justification A role for testimony in moral epistemology

Is Conformity Bad?

HYPOTHESES =

Without any hierarchy, crowds have wisdom and conformity makes sense.

With hierarchy (and perceived expertise?), conformity becomes unreliable and dangerous.

We need to test this.

PLEASE tell me how!

THANKS

For Coming

For Listening

For Questioning

For Helping