Alle Publikationen
2018
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(2018) : Implicit moral cognition. In: Gray, Kurt James; Graham, Jesse (Hg.): Atlas of moral psychology: What do we evaluate when we evaluate moral character? - Helzer, Erik G.; Critcher, Clayton R.: New York, NY: The Guilford Press, S. 516-524
Abstract: What is the best method for understanding moral judgment? We use implicit measurement and mathematical modeling to capture implicit moral evaluations, because this method can address debates over the role of intuition and reason in moral judgment and over domain-general versus domain-specific views of moral psychology. A man kicks a puppy as hard as he can. A son slaps his mother across the face. A soldier betrays his unit. A terrorist defiles a temple. These actions all seem like moral transgressions. And before you deliberate about why they are wrong—that is, what principles do they violate—you probably have an immediate gut reaction: 'That is wrong!' If you don’t have that reaction, that is important for us and everyone else to know, because it might mean you have fewer inhibitions about engaging in such behaviors. And you might know what the 'appropriate' reaction is supposed to look like, so it’s important to find a way to reliably assess your gut reactions b efore yo u can edit your responses. In this chapter, we discuss a new approach to measuring moral intuitions that draws upon advances in implicit social cognition and mathematical modeling. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved)
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(2018): Social decisions and fairness change when people’s interests are represented by autonomous agents. In: Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems 32 (1), S. 163-187. DOI: 10.1007/s10458-017-9376-6
Abstract: There has been growing interest on agents that represent people's interests or act on their behalf such as automated negotiators, self-driving cars, or drones. Even though people will interact often with others via these agent representatives, little is known about whether people's behavior changes when acting through these agents, when compared to direct interaction with others. Here we show that people's decisions will change in important ways because of these agents; specifically, we showed that interacting via agents is likely to lead people to behave more fairly, when compared to direct interaction with others. We argue this occurs because programming an agent leads people to adopt a broader perspective, consider the other side's position, and rely on social norms-such as fairness-to guide their decision making. To support this argument, we present four experiments: in Experiment 1 we show that people made fairer offers in the ultimatum and impunity games when interacting via agent representatives, when compared to direct interaction; in Experiment 2, participants were less likely to accept unfair offers in these games when agent representatives were involved; in Experiment 3, we show that the act of thinking about the decisions ahead of time-i.e., under the so-called "strategy method"-can also lead to increased fairness, even when no agents are involved; and, finally, in Experiment 4 we show that participants were less likely to reach an agreement with unfair counterparts in a negotiation setting. We discuss theoretical implications for our understanding of the nature of people's social behavior with agent representatives, as well as practical implications for the design of agents that have the potential to increase fairness in society.
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(2018): Virtual Character Facial Expressions Influence Human Brain and Facial EMG Activity in a Decision-Making Game. In: IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing 9 (2), S. 285-298. DOI: 10.1109/TAFFC.2016.2601101
Abstract: We examined the effects of the emotional facial expressions of a virtual character (VC) on human frontal electroencephalographic (EEG) asymmetry (putatively indexing approach/withdrawal motivation), facial electromyographic (EMG) activity (emotional expressions), and social decision making (cooperation/defection). In a within-subjects design, the participants played the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma game with VCs with different dynamic facial expressions (predefined or dependent on the participant's electrodermal and facial EMG activity). In general, VC facial expressions elicited congruent facial muscle activity. However, both frontal EEG asymmetry and facial EMG activity elicited by an angry VC facial expression varied as a function of preceding interactional events (human collaboration/defection). Pre-decision inner emotional-motivational processes and emotional facial expressions were dissociated, suggesting that human goals influence pre-decision frontal asymmetry, whereas display rules may affect (pre-decision) emotional expressions in human-VC interaction. An angry VC facial expression, high pre-decision corrugator EMG activity, and relatively greater left frontal activation predicted the participant's decision to defect. Both post-decision frontal asymmetry and facial EMG activity were related to reciprocal cooperation. The results suggest that the justifiability of VC emotional expressions and the perceived fairness of VC actions influence human emotional responses.
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(2018): Communication of anger versus disappointment in bargaining and the moderating role of power. In: Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 32. DOI: 10.1002/bdm.2079
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.2079 Abstract: Emotional expressions can have a pervasive impact on bargaining behavior and outcomes. This widely documented phenomenon implies that in their communications, bargainers may adjust their apparent emotions. In the current paper, we developed a paradigm to study the communication of anger and disappointment, two of the most commonly experienced emotions in bargaining. The results of three experiments show that bargainers often adjust the intensity of their emotions in their communicated emotions. The findings show a differentiated pattern, revealing that bargainers rather exaggerate their disappointment than their anger, especially when the target of their communication is in a high power position. The results are discussed and related to the social functional approach of emotions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved)
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(2018): Brain responses to social norms. Meta-analyses of fMRI studies. In: Human brain mapping 39 (2), S. 955-970. DOI: 10.1002/hbm.23895
DOI: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29160930 Abstract: Social norms have a critical role in everyday decision-making, as frequent interaction with others regulates our behavior. Neuroimaging studies show that social-based and fairness-related decision-making activates an inconsistent set of areas, which sometimes includes the anterior insula, anterior cingulate cortex, and others lateral prefrontal cortices. Social-based decision-making is complex and variability in findings may be driven by socio-cognitive activities related to social norms. To distinguish among social-cognitive activities related to social norms, we identified 36 eligible articles in the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) literature, which we separate into two categories (a) social norm representation and (b) norm violations. The majority of original articles (>60%) used tasks associated with fairness norms and decision-making, such as ultimatum game, dictator game, or prisoner's dilemma; the rest used tasks associated to violation of moral norms, such as scenarios and sentences of moral depravity ratings. Using quantitative meta-analyses, we report common and distinct brain areas that show concordance as a function of category. Specifically, concordance in ventromedial prefrontal regions is distinct to social norm representation processing, whereas concordance in right insula, dorsolateral prefrontal, and dorsal cingulate cortices is distinct to norm violation processing. We propose a neurocognitive model of social norms for healthy adults, which could help guide future research in social norm compliance and mechanisms of its enforcement.
2017
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(2017): Contemporary morality. Moral judgments in digital contexts. In: Computers in Human Behavior 75, S. 184-193. DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2017.05.020
Abstract: Nowadays, several of the situations in which we have to make decisions are in digital form. In a first experiment (N = 1010) we showed that people's moral judgments depend on the Digital Context (Smartphone vs. PC) in which a dilemma is presented, becoming more utilitarian (vs. deontological) when using Smartphones in high conflict moral dilemmas. To provide additional evidence, we ran a second (N = 250) and a third experiment (N = 300), where we introduced time constraints and we manipulated time instructions. Our results provide an extended perspective on Dual-Process Models of Moral Judgment, as we showed that the use of smartphones, often assumed to be hurried which would be consistent with gut-feeling decision-making, increased the likelihood of utilitarian responses and decreased deontological ones. We suggest that the increase in utilitarian judgments is a result of inducing high construal, increasing psychological distance and giving rise to an abstract representation of actions. A fourth experiment (N = 1211), where we measured psychological distance, provided some first evidence for our hypotheses. This is one of the first studies to look at the impact of the digital age on moral judgments and the results presented have consequences for understanding moral choice in our increasingly virtualized world.
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(2017): Justice and Fairness in Negotiation. In: Group Decision and Negotiation 26 (1), S. 9-17. DOI: 10.1007/s10726-016-9496-4
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10726-016-9496-4 Abstract: In this special issue we display a variety of approaches to the study of justice. Articles from scholars working on questions involving justice and fairness in decision making exchanges calls attention to a variety of research approaches, issue domains, cases and hypotheses used to explore these questions. All of the contributions emphasize analysis, using quantitative and qualitative methods including simulation-experiments, comparative case studies, statistical analyses and game theory. The articles in this collection reveal that justice and fairness concerns extend from the negotiation process to the outcome and into the implementation stage. They share the underlying expectation that individuals and groups gravitate toward fairness and justice in their exchanges with others. Therefore, a full understanding of group decision processes will be incomplete if justice and fairness issues are not considered alongside issues such as power distributions and alternatives to an agreeme nt. The authors also suggest that outcomes built on justice and fairness principles will enhance the efficiency, stability and implementation of the negotiated agreements. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)
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(2017): When is it appropriate to reprimand a norm violation? The roles of anger, behavioral consequences, violation severity, and social distance.. In: Judgment and Decision Making 12 (4), S. 396-407
Abstract: Experiments on economic games typically fail to find positive reputational effects of using peer punishment of selfish behavior in social dilemmas. Theorists had expected positive reputational effects because of the potentially beneficial consequences that punishment may have on norm violators’ behavior. Going beyond the game-theoretic paradigm, we used vignettes to study how various social factors influence approval ratings of a peer who reprimands a violator of a group-beneficial norm. We found that ratings declined when punishers showed anger, and this effect was mediated by perceived aggressiveness. Thus the same emotions that motivate peer punishers may make them come across as aggressive, to the detriment of their reputation. However, the negative effect of showing anger disappeared when the norm violation was sufficiently severe. Ratings of punishers were also influenced by social distance, such that it is less appropriate for a stranger than a friend to reprimand a violator. In sum, peer punisher ratings were very high for a friend reprimanding a severe norm violation, but particularly poor for a stranger showing anger at a mild norm violation. We found no effect on ratings of whether the reprimand had the beneficial consequence of changing the violator’s behavior. Our findings provide insight into how peer punishers can avoid negative reputational effects. They also point to the importance of going beyond economic games when studying peer punishment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved) zitiert von 1
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(2017): A social-cognitive approach to understanding gender differences in negotiator ethics. The role of moral identity. In: Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 138, S. 28-44. DOI: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2016.11.003
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2016.11.003 Abstract: To date, gender differences in ethics have received little theoretical attention. We utilize a social-cognitive framework to explain why these differences emerge and when women engage in less unethical negotiating behavior than do men. We propose that, relative to men’s, women’s stronger moral identities suppress unethical negotiating behavior. Study 1 establishes a gender difference in moral identity strength through a meta-analysis of over 19,000 people. Study 2 observes gender differences in two aspects of negotiator ethics—moral disengagement and opportunism. Study 3 establishes moral identity strength as an antecedent to negotiator ethics. Finally, Studies 4 and 5 explore financial incentives as a situational moderator. Because financial incentives temporarily decrease the salience of moral identity, they could mitigate gender differences in negotiator ethics, leading women to act more like men. Across both studies, financial incentives impacted women’s (but not men⍊ s) unethical negotiating behavior. Our findings help to explain why and when gender differences in ethics emerge. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved) zitiert von: 7
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(2017): Choice predicts the feedback negativity. In: Psychophysiology 54 (12), S. 1800-1811. DOI: 10.1111/psyp.12961
DOI: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28752549 Abstract: Choosing the appropriate response given the circumstance is integral to all aspects of human behavior. One way of elucidating the mechanisms of choice is to relate behavior to neural correlates. Electrophysiological evidence implicates the ERP feedback-negativity (FN) and the P300 as promising neural correlates of reward processing, an integral component of learning. However, prior research has not adequately addressed how the development of a preference to select one option over another (choice preference) relates to the FN and the P300. We assessed whether variation in choice preference predicted the FN and P300 amplitude within subjects. We used a discrete-trials two-alternative choice procedure, where the reinforcer rate for each option was dependently scheduled by a concurrent variable interval. The reinforcer ratio for selecting each option was varied between sessions. Choice was quantified using both the generalized matching law sensitivity and the log odds of staying on the same versus switching to the other alternative (stay preference). The relationship between stay preference, FN, and P300 amplitudes was assessed using the innovative application of hierarchical Bayesian linear regression. The results demonstrate that stay preference was controlled by the reinforcer ratios and credibly predicted the FN amplitude but not P300 amplitude. The findings are consistent with the view that reinforcers may guide behavior by what they signal about future reinforcement, with the FN related to such a process.
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(2017): Culture-specific models of negotiation for virtual characters. Multi-attribute decision-making based on culture-specific values. In: AI & Society 32 (1), S. 51-63. DOI: 10.1007/s00146-014-0570-7
Abstract: We posit that observed differences in negotiation performance across cultures can be explained by participants trying to optimize across multiple values, where the relative importance of values differs across cultures. We look at two ways for specifying weights on values for different cultures: one in which the weights of the model are hand-crafted, based on intuition interpreting Hofstede dimensions for the cultures, and one in which the weights of the model are learned from data using inverse reinforcement learning (IRL). We apply this model to the Ultimatum Game and integrate it into a virtual human dialog system. We show that weights learned from IRL surpass both a weak baseline with random weights and a strong baseline considering only one factor for maximizing gain in own wealth in accounting for the behavior of human players from four different cultures. We also show that the weights learned with our model for one culture outperform weights learned for other cultures when playing against opponents of the first culture.
Keywords: Cultural decision-making, culture specific, Disziplin, entscheiden, Inverse reinforcement learning: Hofstede, Kulturtheorie, Mensch-Technik-Relationen (MTR), NEGOTIATION, Realtechnik, Science and Technology Studies (STS), social importance dynamics, Sozial Intelligente Agenten, Soziale Robotik, Spieltheorie, Technik, Ultimatum Game, virtual agents -
(2017): Judging those who judge. Perceivers infer the roles of affect and cognition underpinning others' moral dilemma responses. In: Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 69, S. 44-58
Abstract: Investigated the tendency to infer personality-related affective and cognitive processes, assumed to underlie moral dilemma judgments. A total of 421 American and 227 German adults participated in five studies. In Studies 1 and 2, subjects viewed persons who had rejected causing harm as emotionally warmer but less competent than humans who had accepted causing harm. Study 3 replicated this observation and showed that inferred affective processes mediated the effect on warmth, whereas inferred cognitive processes mediated the effect on competence. In Study 4, subjects correctly predicted that affective decision-makers would reject harm, while cognitive decision-makers would accept it. Study 5 showed that subjects preferred persons who rejected causing harm for a professional role that prioritizes warmth (i.e., pediatrician), but they preferred persons who accepted potentially causing harm for a professional role that prioritizes competence (i.e., hospital management). In sum, the findings suggest that people do infer affective and cognitive processes in person's moral decisions about harm rejection and acceptance, and these in turn inform more general personality inferences making. Zitiert von: 9
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(2017): Do Individuals Value Distributional Fairness?. How Inequality Affects Majority Decisions. In: Political Behavior 85 (4). DOI: 10.1007/s11109-017-9424-6
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-017-9424-6 Abstract: The so-called chaos theorems imply that, under most preference configurations, majority voting in n-dimensional policy spaces is theoretically unrestricted. Empirical research, however, shows an apparent stability of democratic decisions. Recent theoretical developments have emphasized social preferences as a possible explanation for overcoming majority rule’s instability problem. Hence, it is assumed that individuals not only maximize their own well-being, but also value distributional fairness. However, there is little experimental research into the influence of social preferences on majority decisions. This article presents findings from laboratory experiments on majority decisions in two-dimensional policy spaces with a systematic variation of the fairness properties of the incentive structures. The results show that distributional fairness is an important motivational factor in democratic decisions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)
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(2017): Encouraging Prosocial Decisions. The Role of Fairness Salience and Uncertainty. In: Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 30 (2), S. 502-515. DOI: 10.1002/bdm.1970
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.1970 Abstract: Although the decision to engage in prosocial behavior has received research attention, the literature offers a limited understanding of fairness and uncertainty as antecedents. We propose that one can encourage prosocial decision making simply by invoking the notion of fairness because of its effects on the perceived trustworthiness of the invoking party. We also elucidate the complex role of uncertainty in prosocial decisions in that it has a negative effect while also serving to strengthen the positive effect of fairness salience. Our ideas are tested in two prosocial decision contexts, including participative pricing (i.e., 'pay what you want') and charitable giving. Data from an archival study of a naturally occurring event and two controlled experiments offer support for our arguments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)
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(2017): Harm to self outweighs benefit to others in moral decision making. In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 114 (30), S. 7963-7968. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1706693114
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1706693114 Abstract: How we make decisions that have direct consequences for ourselves and others forms the moral foundation of our society. Whereas economic theory contends that humans aim at maximizing their own gains, recent seminal psychological work suggests that our behavior is instead hyperaltruistic: We are more willing to sacrifice gains to spare others from harm than to spare ourselves from harm. To investigate how such egoistic and hyperaltruistic tendencies influence moral decision making, we investigated trade-off decisions combining monetary rewards and painful electric shocks, administered to the participants themselves or an anonymous other. Whereas we replicated the notion of hyperaltruism (i.e., the willingness to forego reward to spare others from harm), we observed strongly egoistic tendencies in participants' unwillingness to harm themselves for others' benefit. The moral principle guiding intersubject trade-off decision making observed in our study is best described as egoistically biased altruism, with important implications for our understanding of economic and social interactions in our society.
Keywords: Altruism, Death and Dying, Decision Making, entscheiden, Gesellschaft, Moral, Social Cognition 2016
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(2016): Moral objectivism across the lifespan. In: Philosophical Psychology 29 (6), S. 912-929. DOI: 10.1080/09515089.2016.1174843
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2016.1174843 Abstract: We report the results of two studies that examine folk metaethical judgments about the objectivity of morality. We found that participants attributed almost as much objectivity to ethical statements as they did to statements of physical fact and significantly more objectivity to ethical statements than to statements about preferences or tastes. In both studies, younger participants attributed less objectivity to ethical statements than older participants. Females were observed to attribute slightly less objectivity to ethical statements than males, and we found important interactions between attributions of objectivity and other factors, such as how strong participants’ moral opinions were and how much disagreement about the issue they perceived to exist within society. We believe our results have significant implications for debates about the nature of folk morality and about the nature of morality in general. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved ) zitiert von 21
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(2016): The Spectrum of Safety-Related Rule Violations. In: Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making 10 (2), S. 178-196. DOI: 10.1177/1555343416652745
Abstract: In a production context, safety-related rule violations are often associated with rule breaking and unsafe behavior even if violations are not necessarily malevolent. Nevertheless, our past experiments indicated a range of strategies between violation and rule compliance. Based on this finding, different types of rule-related behavior for managing organizations’ goal conflict between safety and productivity are assumed. To deepen the understanding of rule violations, the behavior of 152 participants in a business simulation was analyzed. Participants operated a plant as a production worker for 36 simulated weeks. In each week, they could choose to comply with safety rules or to violate them in order to maximize their salary. A cluster analysis of the 5,472 decisions made on how to operate the plant included the severity of the violations, the number of times participants changed their rule-related strategy, and the extent of failure/success of these strategies. Five clusters of rule-related behavior were extracted: the compliant but ineffective 'executor' (15%), the production-optimizing and behavioral variable 'optimizer' (13%), the successful and compliant 'well behaved' (36%), the notoriously violating 'inconvincible' (29%), and the 'experimenter' (7%), who does not succeed with various violating strategies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved) zitiert von 2
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(2016): Communication Networks in Task-Performing Groups. In: Small Group Research 31 (2), S. 131-157. DOI: 10.1177/104649640003100201
Abstract: In an experiment on the emergence of communication networks, 48 groups, each consisting of 4 or 5 members, were randomly assigned to the cells of a 2 (high vs. low time pressure) x 2 (high vs. low task complexity) factorial design and completed a decision-making task. The interpersonal dominance of each member was measured via the Dominance scale of the Personality Research Form (PRF). Results showed that members higher in dominance emerged as more central in the group communication network both sending and receiving more messages than members lower in dominance. Group members correctly perceived that those higher in dominance participated more in discussion. Communication was more centralized in groups that worked on the low complexity task than in groups that worked on the high complexity task Members correctly perceived that participation was more unequally distributed in more centralized groups. An anticipated interaction effect, with time pressure moderating the effect of task complexity was not supported.
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(2016): The neural correlates of moral decision-making. A systematic review and meta-analysis of moral evaluations and response decision judgements. In: Brain and Cognition 108, S. 88-97. DOI: 10.1016/j.bandc.2016.07.007
DOI: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27566002 Abstract: The aims of this systematic review were to determine: (a) which brain areas are consistently more active when making (i) moral response decisions, defined as choosing a response to a moral dilemma, or deciding whether to accept a proposed solution, or (ii) moral evaluations, defined as judging the appropriateness of another's actions in a moral dilemma, rating moral statements as right or wrong, or identifying important moral issues; and (b) shared and significantly different activation patterns for these two types of moral judgements. A systematic search of the literature returned 28 experiments. Activation likelihood estimate analysis identified the brain areas commonly more active for moral response decisions and for moral evaluations. Conjunction analysis revealed shared activation for both types of moral judgement in the left middle temporal gyrus, cingulate gyrus, and medial frontal gyrus. Contrast analyses found no significant clusters of increased activation for the moral evaluations-moral response decisions contrast, but found that moral response decisions additionally activated the left and right middle temporal gyrus and the right precuneus. Making one's own moral decisions involves different brain areas compared to judging the moral actions of others, implying that these judgements may involve different processes.
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(2016): Moral Decision Making in Adolescence. In: Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 233, S. 476-480. DOI: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2016.10.197
Abstract: The aim of the study was to investigate the characteristics of moral dilemma solving and to define basic moral dilemma solving strategies. More than 480 subjects aged 13 to 21 years old took part in the study. As a result, it was possible to define six basic moral dilemma solving strategies: the care strategy, the context dependence strategy, the justice strategy, the unstable doubt strategy, the context/paradox strategy and the egoistic strategy. Age and gender were shown to play a role in the preference for specific moral dilemma solving strategies. The influence of the context of communication and interaction on the decision of moral dilemmas was cleared.
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(01.01.2016): Understanding sanctions in social dilemmas: A biopsychological perspective on costly punishment in public goods situations.
Abstract: Analyzed sanctions such as costly punishment for uncooperative behavior in social-dilemma situations from a biopsychological perspective. A theoretical summary and discussion of five published or submitted research papers is presented. - Contents: (1) Pfattheicher, S. & Keller, J. (in press). Towards a biopsychological understanding of costly punishment: The role of basal cortisol. PLoS ONE, 9:e85691. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0085691 (2) Pfattheicher, S. & Keller, J. (2014). The eye cue manipulation as subtle induction of a sense of being watched: Empirical validation and theoretical integration. (3) Pfattheicher, S., Landhäußer, A. & Keller, J. (2014). Punishing for the sake of reputation? Effects of reputational concerns on costly punishment. (4) Pfattheicher, S. & Keller, J. (2013). Vigilant self-regulation and costly punishment in public goods situations. European Journal of Personality, 27, 346-354. doi:10.1002/per.1909 (5) Pfattheicher, S., Landhäußer, A. & Keller, J. (in press). Individual differences in antisocial punishment in public goods situations: The interplay of cortisol with testosterone and dominance. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 27, 340-348. doi:10.1002/bdm.1811
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(2016): A Cognitive Tool for Ethical Decision Making. A Case for ACED IT. In: Ethics & Behavior 27 (3), S. 221-239. DOI: 10.1080/10508422.2016.1176566
Abstract: The present study examined two forms of a cognitive tool (ACED IT map), which is designed to facilitate ethical decision making, along with expressive writing. Results demonstrated that participants completing the original ACED IT were more likely to identify (a) more steps to implementing a solution, (b) more barriers to solution implementation, and (c) more solutions to those barriers than participants who completed the modified ACED IT, those who engaged in expressive writing, and those in the control group. These findings suggest that cognitive tools such as ACED IT may be of considerable value for individuals who are presented with ethical dilemmas.
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(2016): Should We Be Talking About Ethics or About Morals ?. In: Ethics & Behavior 27 (5), S. 436-444. DOI: 10.1080/10508422.2016.1275968
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10508422.2016.1275968 Abstract: This article seeks to revisit the distinction between the words ethics and morals. First, we understand the word ethics to be focused on the way we seek to live our own life, and hence to connote a relativistic and essentially subjective perspective, whereas we understand the word morals to be focused on the way we should live our lives together, especially through sensitivity to viewpoints other than our own. Second, we perceive a usefulness in such a differentiation when the ethical values of those in a dilemmatic situation are conflicted in order to prioritize moral decision making in contemporary society. We argue that in our current era, characterized by a multiplicity of faiths and by pronounced value pluralism, a philosophical basis for moral decision making needs to be clearly attuned with intersubjectivity and interconnectivity among people. It should be able to determine principles of conduct toward others, no matter how one’s own ethical values, conceptions o f the go od, or life choices might differ from those of others. To do this, we relocate ethical decision making away from an essentially monological reflection on our own values and purposes into a social space wherein we have an inclusive, noncoercive, and reflective dialogue. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved)
Keywords: entscheiden, Ethics, Gesellschaft, Intersubjectivity, Moral, Morality, Social Values, society, Verhaltensforschung 2015
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(2015): Higher incentives can impair performance. Neural evidence on reinforcement and rationality. In: Social cognitive and affective neuroscience 10 (11), S. 1477-1483
Abstract: Examined the assumption that monetary incentives always result in increased performance. Human decision makers frequently focus on past performance, a form of reinforcement learning occasionally at odds with rational decision making. An incentivized belief-updating task from economics was employed to investigate this conflict through measurements of neural correlates of reward processing. 85 healthy college students (aged 19-29 years) participated in 2 experiments while electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded. Results showed that higher incentives fail to improve performance when immediate feedback on decision outcomes is provided. Subsequent analysis of the feedback-related negativity, an early event-related potential following feedback, revealed the mechanism behind this paradoxical effect. As incentives increase, the win/lose feedback becomes more prominent, leading to an increased reliance on reinforcement and more errors. This mechanism is relevant for economic decision making and the debate on performance-based payment. zitiert von 15
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(2015): Has the World Changed?. My Neighbor Might Know: Effects of Social Context on Routine Deviation. In: Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 28 (1), S. 50-66. DOI: 10.1002/bdm.1828
Abstract: Investigated the effects of social context on deviations from routines. 94 students (mean age 21 years) were asked to repeatedly choose among four gambles that were represented by four decks of cards. After the routine acquisition phase, unbeknownst to the participants, the underlying payoff structure of the game was altered so that the routine choice no longer yielded a profit. In addition, a confederate served as a behavioral model who made the normative choice most of the time in the acquisition phase, the test phase, in both phases, or in no phase at all (baseline). Results showed that participants were influenced by prior success of a routine; however, they were not immune to new counterevidence. The new evidence had to compensate prior knowledge before individuals decided to abandon their routine. Participants were most likely to adapt if the confederate served as a behavioral model in both the acquisition and test phases. It is concluded that participants could detect a lasting change in the environment and trustworthy behavioral models helped participants overcome a previously adaptive routine. zitiert von 5