W9: Morality and evolutionary psyc

Question 1

Evolution

Darwinian evolution’s 3 premises

Answer 1

Evolution: change in inherited characteristics within a population over successive generations

Three premises:

1) Individuals of a species show variation in traits (behavioral, morphological, psychological, physiological characteristics)
2) Some of these variations are heritable
3) Some traits provide benefits in terms of survival and reproductive success (adaptation)

Question 2

Darwinian evolution:

Consequences

Answer 2

Consequence:

1) Those individuals with greater chances of survival and reproductive success due to the possession of adaptations, will leave more offspring, and those offspring will tend to resemble their parents (i.e. inherit their traits)
2) Thus certain adaptive traits are selected for over the course of generations
3) Adaptive traits increase in frequency in future generations, thus coming to be widespread within a species

Question 3

What is Evolutionary Psychology (EP) and EP’s assumptions

Answer 3

application of evolutionary theorising to understanding human psychology and behaviour

Assumptions of EP:
Mind is composed of collection of evolved psychological mechanisms
Adaptations
Domain specific
Designed to solve various recurrent problems faced by our evolutionary ancestors, such as
Disease avoidance, mate selection and retention, kin care…

Question 4

The problem of altruism

S8

Answer 4

if evolution tailors organisms to behave in ways that facilitate their own reproductive success, doesn’t this mean that organisms will be selfish?

a ‘gene’s-eye view’:
Q: “If you were a gene, what would facilitate your reproduction?”
A: “Get my host to behave in ways that increase chances of me proliferating”

BUT:
If a prosocial behavior happens to increase the likelihood that one’s genetic material is passed on to future generations, then such a behavior will be selected for

Question 5

Prosocial Behaviour:
Inclusive fitness direct and indirect
Hamilton (1964)

Answer 5

Inclusive fitness: capacity for genetic information to spread in the population

Direct (classical) fitness: number of offspring
Indirect fitness increasing the classical fitness of others who also share one’s genes

Question 6

Indirect Fitness

Hamilton (1964)

Answer 6

help kin survive and reproduce, then cos of share genes, indirectly increasing chances that shared genes spread in the population

But not all kin are equal:
This account predicts that evolution will have shaped patterns of helping such that we are more likely to help those more closely related to us

Question 7

Indirect Fitness
Sherman, 1977, 1981
sample studies in non humans
S10

Answer 7

Belding’s ground squirrels

Alarm calls in response to predators (cost prosocial as predector knows were they r now)

More likely to call in the presence of sisters, aunts and nieces

Question 8

Indirect Fitness
Essock-Vitale, & McGuire, 
1985
sample study in human
S10

Answer 8

LA women
Helping:
more correlation (related) more ppl helped
need more from lecture cap

Question 9

EP:
relationship of Parent and children
Daly and Wilson (1988)

Answer 9

Study:
Single largest predictor of child abuse and homicide: presence of a step-parent in the home

40-100 times higher if there’s a step-parent at home (vs. both genetic parents)

Question 10

EP:
relationship of Parent and children
Difference between mums vs. dads

Answer 10

Although offspring are theoretically r=0.5, there is a further complication

Paternity uncertainty
Father not so certian=> social norms: virginity, no cheating, esp for the woman. => increase certainty that it’s theirs
Mothers are more certain=>mothers are nicer

Question 11

Grandparental Certainty
(Grandmother VS grandparents; father’s VS mothers)
(Laham et al., 2005)

Answer 11

Mom's mom VS dad's mom
explored Grandparental investment
Closer to which == more investment 
M's mom> M's dad > D's mom > D's dad
D's dad => double uncertainty

Why does M’s dad > D’s mom?
Hypothesis:
D’s mom might have other more certain grandkids (tho. daugthers) to invest in.

found: When don’t have alternatives, they do invest similarly to M’s dad.

Question 12

Challenges and Criticisms of EP

Answer 12

1) Pan-adaptationism: All aspects of human behaviour are adaptations (too extreme)
2) Genetic determinism
No nurture
Implication that we can’t help it
3) Implications for morality
Naturalistic fallacy

rebuttal?:
Do believe in (gene X Environ)

Question 13

The value of EP
(4)
S14

Answer 13

1) Metatheory: organizing framework
2) Function
3) Distal (ultimate) causes
E.g., operant conditioning
(but what classifies as reward or punishment)
4) Fruitful re: novel hypotheses

In each instance, for each trait,
it’s a question of how well EP
(vs. other theories) accounts for data

Question 14

Moral Psychology:

Defination

Answer 14

Morality:
Code of conduct or set of rules pertaining to “right” /“good”/ “wrong”/ “bad”/ “praiseworthy”/“punishable”, held by an individual or group

Defination varies

Question 15

The moral/conventional distinction
Turiel et al (1987)
details

Answer 15

the moral/conventional task:
Show children ‘violation’ of rule:
Asked to judge these situations:
1) wrong/serious,
2)punishable,
3)authority dependent (e.g., if teacher said X was ok. Would it still be wrong?),
4)general in scope (temporally and geographically),
5)how is the wrongness explained (rights, harm, justice)

Question 16

The moral/conventional distinction
Turiel et al (1987)
results:
signature moral response

Answer 16

Found
The signature moral response (SMR): 
1) Serious, wrong, bad
2) Punishable 
3) Authority independent
4) General in scope (universal)

The key distinguishing feature of stimulus: harm or welfare (also rights and justice)
If harm (or justice or rights), then SMR

Question 17

signature moral response
challange:
Haidt, Koller, & Dias (1993)

Answer 17

Provided:
Non-harm violations evoke the signature moral response:

Some people judge these transgressions as:

1) Authority independent
2) General in scope

Question 18

Systematizing variability in moral responses:

Shweder et al. (1997)

Answer 18

3 main components:

1) autonomy (harm/right)
2) Community (hiearchy; duty, role, authority)
3) Divinity (purity)

Question 19

Moral Foundations Theory
(Haidt & Graham, 2004, 2007)
Expand Shweder’s 3 to 5:

Answer 19

5 domains:
1) Harm/ care - to self or others

2) Fairness /reciprocity - representing the norms of reciprocal relations, equality, rights and justice.
3) Authority /respect - representing moral obligations related to hierarchical relations
4) Ingroup/ loyalty - covering moral obligations related to group membership, such as loyalty, betrayal, and expectations of preferential treatment
5) Purity / sanctity - representing the moral ideal of living in an elevated, noble, and less carnal way.

Cultural, demographic factors influence SMR to these domains

Question 20

What accounts for judgments of right and wrong? (Moral Judgement)

Answer 20

For most of the history of thought about morality, there has been a debate about whether it is reasoning or emotion/intuition:

Caveat: Coarse distinction, but useful to structure the extant research and thinking on moral judgment

Question 21

Moral reasoning VS intuition

Haidt, 2001

Answer 21

moral reasoning:
conscious mental activity (process is intentional, effortful, and controllable, aware) that consists of transforming given information about people in order to reach a moral judgment.

moral intuition:
sudden appearance in consciousness of a moral judgment, including an affective valence (good-bad, like-dislike), without any conscious awareness (largely dependent on emotions) of having gone through steps of searching, weighing evidence, or inferring a conclusion.

Question 22

Moral dumbfounding (Haidt, Koller, & Dias, 1993)

Answer 22

Reasoning processes not accessible

If anything, people fumbled around for reasons in order to justify/ rationalize their intuitions.

Question 23

Social Intuitionist Model (SIM; Haidt, 2001)

S32

Answer 23

Moral judgment is a function of affect-laden intuitions. Reasoning is post-hoc rationalisation.

eliciting situation -> activates intuition -> informs judgment ->post Hoc reasoning
(look at slide)

Question 24

Reasoning and emotion
but
Reasoning vs. emotion (in competition)

Answer 24

Both kinds of processes are likely involved in moral judgments, but they compete in order to give rise to a judgment

Trolly problem:
push switch (more) VS push man (less)

Question 25

Trolly problem:
push switch (more) VS push man (less)
difference?

Answer 25

Each problem pits a deontological option (based on the rule: do not kill innocents) against a utilitarian option (greatest good for greatest number)

But most say yes (utilitarian) to switch but no (i.e., deontological) to footbridge

Question 26

Trolly problem:
push switch (more) VS push man (less)
why?

Answer 26

Deontological response driven by gut-reactions, emotions, intuitions

Utilitarian response driven by controlled, effortful reasoning processes

footbridge: direct contact with another (‘personal dilemma’), sacrificing this one person is more emotionally aversive, and thus the deontological response is more potent.

Switch: no direct contact - less emotion – utilitarian response overrides deontological
Footbridge: direct contact – more emotion – deontological response overrides utilitarian

Question 27

Mainipulation of our emotions to increase Utilitarian responses

Valdesolo and DeSteno (2006)

Answer 27

If one reduces negative affect during dilemma processing, one should see more utilitarian responding

Valdesolo and DeSteno (2006)
Clip ‘SNL’ or documentary
Footbridge qn:
more choose Utilitarian responses after SNL -> happy?

Question 28

Relational models should influence

moral judgments

Answer 28

Relationship Regulation Theory 
(Rai & Fiske, 2011)
	CS: Unity
	AR: Hierarchy
	EM: Equality
	MP: Proportionality 
Simpson, Laham & Fiske (2016)

wrongness judgement depends on the type of relations

Question 29

The moral circle: that category of entities in

the world worthy of moral concern

Answer 29

That we deem it impermissible to harm or treat unfairly

Historical expansion of the moral circle (Pinker, 2011; Singer, 1981)

Question 30

Inclusion vs. Exclusion Mindsets

Inclusion-exclusion discrepancy (IED; Yaniv & Schul, 1997, 2000)

Answer 30

Inclusion mindsets (circling) lead to smaller final choice sets than exclusion mindsets (crossing out)

Hinges on the treatment of borderline cases and foci of justification:
Items have a greater probability of being retained in the final choice set under exclusion mindsets (Yaniv et al., 2002)

Question 31

IED and the moral circle

Laham (2009)

Answer 31

Non-human animals
Margins of life (e.g., PVS, foetus

results:
Those in exclusion mindsets had larger moral circles

This expansion of moral circle accounted for a range of positive attitudes towards outgroups