Social cognition of moral judgment

Conway, Paul (2024) Social cognition of moral judgment. In, Carlston, Donal E., Hugenberg, Kurt and Johnson, Kerri L. (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Social Cognition. 2 ed. Arnold; Oxford University Press, pp. 740-770. (doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197763414.013.27).

Record type: Book Section

Abstract

Moral judgment often examines sacrificial dilemmas where causing limited harm will prevent greater harm. Such dilemmas entail a trade-off between moral concerns about avoiding harming others and concerns about maximizing overall well-being. Such dilemmas originated in philosophy, but research examines the psychological mechanisms that drive judgments. Yet, theorists often conflate philosophical theory with dilemma decisions and decisions with underlying mechanisms. This chapter discusses the origins of dilemma research and distinguishes between philosophical, judgment, and process levels of analysis. It considers the original "hard" dual-process model and a "softer" version that better meshes with evidence, as well as single-process models and social perception models. The chapter tours evidence obtained by examining judgments and via the process dissociation and consequences norms inaction modeling approaches. Finally, it considers the dangers of mixing levels of analysis and the utility of clarity for the goals of dilemma research.

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