Choices between alternatives with moral consequences

Tadeusz Tyszka

decision with moral consequences

• Recently, controllers advised an owner of a factory to introduce safety changes because the present technical state can be dangerous for workers. However, the owner has some financial problems. He considers two options: (1) to introduce the changes immediately or (2) to postpone the introduction of changes.

• In decision problem like this one can distinguish two types of consequences.

Financial consequences

Moral consequences

(1) To introduce changes immediately

- Increase of costs- Avoiding penalty

- No harm for workers

(2) To postpone the introduction of changes

- Saving costs- Paying penalty

- Possible accident and harm for workers

• Person A faces severe financial problems because he has been fired, has large debts and must provide for a big family. He finds a wallet on the street, containing a substantial sum of money. The owner’s name and address are in the wallet. On the other hand, person A can easily keep the wallet instead of returning it to the owner.

Multi-attribute decision problems - Examples

• Consumer Decisions: Choices among alternative brands or services;

• Personal Decisions: Choices among alternative jobs;

• etc.

Decision strategies- Compensatory strategy

• DM (consumer) evaluates alternatives on each attribute and compares them to find out whether the alternative high on one attribute compensate for low ratings on another; e.g. trade-off between price vs. quality

Decision strategies - Lexicographic strategy

• = DM rank order attributes. Select option rated highest on most important attribute. If a tie, go to the next attribute, etc.

Strategy of decision making between alternatives with moral

consequences • If a decision-maker places a positive value on

moral aspects of behavior (i.e., on the well-being of others), his utility function may be expressed as follows:

• (1-a) us (x) + a um (x), • where us (x) is the decision-maker’s own benefit

accruing from outcome x, um (x) is the utility of moral aspects, and a expresses the decision-maker’s concern for moral considerations.

• According to this approach, choosing among alternatives with moral aspects might be considered as a choice from among multi-attribute alternatives, where the decision maker trades off between material and moral payoffs.

• Montgomery (1983): decision-makers generally avoid trade-offs;

• Fiske and Tetlock (1997): “taboo trade-offs”;

• Baron and Spranca (1997): “protected values”.

• Adam Smith: The poor man must neither defraud nor steal from the rich, though the acquisition might be much more beneficial to the one than the loss could be hurtful to the other.

• Brandstaetter, Gigerenzer & Hertwig (2006): priority heuristic - specifies (1) the order of priority of examining aspects of the situation, (2) a stopping rule, determining when to stop examining the alternatives, and (3) a decision rule, determining which alternative should be chosen.

weak temptation

trade-offs:Compensatory DR

strong temptation

Moral Sentiment

weak

strong

Lex DR: primacy of moral value

restructering: Dominance DR

Model of choice making

General hypothesis

• When a violation of the norm does not evoke strong emotions, the decision-maker will be sensitive to the severity and probability of decision outcomes, which is consistent with the trade-off principle.

• On the other hand, when a violation of the norm evokes strong affect, decision-making will be based on arguments different from quantitative risk parameters, and therefore, the decision-maker will not be sensitive to the severity and probability of decision outcomes.

Overview of the Studies

• The purpose of Study 1: to identify scenarios for which the violation of moral norms evokes weaker versus stronger negative emotions.

• In Study 2 we examined how people solve the conflict between moral values and economic self-interest, under stronger vs. weaker affect evoked by the violation of a moral norm.

Study 1

Strength of moral Emotions

• Four scenarios:

• Scenario A – Wallet:

• Scenario B – Safety:

• Scenario C – Product:

• Scenario D – Bribe:

Scenario C – Product• Person C manages a soft-drink company.

He has discovered that a large batch of drinks is slightly contaminated and can be harmful to consumer health. However, in the event of an inspection the contamination will be very hard to detect. If C decides not to sell the drinks, the company will lose substantial money, so he weighs whether to sell the drinks.

Scenario D – Bribe• Person D is a policeman on routine patrol.

He has stopped a driver who seems to have drunk some alcohol. The tipsy driver asks the policeman to treat him leniently and let him go. The driver also offers money in return. Policeman D considers whether to accept the money offered by the tipsy driver and let him go.

Method

• The participants’ task: to indicate their affective reactions to the immoral behaviors described in the scenarios.

•

first group• = imagine that you were engaged in the

scenarios - evaluate how much guilt, shame or embarrassment you would feel.

• separate scales, ranging from 0 (“none”) to 100 (“very strong”), at intervals of 5 points.

second group

• = imagine that you had observed the immoral behavior of other person - evaluate how much anger, disgust and contempt you would feel.

• separate scales, ranging from 0 (“none”) to 100 (“very strong”), at intervals of 5 points.

•

• Thus, i we identified two groups of scenarios where violating the norm evoked weaker versus stronger negative moral emotions (both self-oriented and others-oriented)

Study 2

Moral emotions and moral choices

Question

• how people resolve conflicts between moral sentiments and economic self-interest?

hypothesis

• the crucial factor determining decision strategy in choices between alternatives with moral consequences is the strength of negative emotions evoked by violating the moral norm involved in a situation.

method

• The 8 x 2 x 2 between-subjects factorial design was used, with two levels of probability and two levels of magnitude of adverse financial outcomes (penalties)

Conclusions

• First, people were more sensitive to changes in the values of outcomes and probabilities, and their response times were longer, in purely economic choices than in decisions associated with moral concerns.

Research questions

• when violating moral norms evokes strong emotions ?

• decision making under strong vs. weak moral emotions

when violating moral norm evokes strong emotions ?

• actions vs.omissions;

• personal vs. impersonal

• categories associated with an affective “tag” (“dangerous driving” vs. “careless driving”)

• Does the incidental emotions lead to the same effects as integral (immoral act) emotions?

• Eg. Evaluation of tax evasion under anger or disgust.

• Cross-cultural differences:– in affective reactions to violating moral norms– in consequentialistic vs. deontologic position

in moral judgment.

decision making under strong vs. weak moral emotions

• decision making under strong vs. weak moral emotions – testing the model of moral choice making.

Methods

• Apart of tdecision time, Active Information Search Technique can be used;

• E.g. when violating moral norm evokes strong emotions, limited information seeking should takes place.