Week 12 – Morality & Evolutionary Psychology:

Question 1

Evolution

Answer 1

change in inherited characteristics within a population over successive generations

Question 2

Darwinian evolution (via natural selection)

Answer 2

• Individuals of a species show variation in traits (behavioral, morphological, psychological, physiological characteristics)
• Some of these traits are heritable: some traits will be passed on from one generation to the next
• Some traits provide benefits in terms of survival and reproductive success (fitness advantages). Such traits are called adaptations

Question 3

The consequences of evolution

Answer 3

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

Question 4

Evolutionary Psychology (EP)

Answer 4

application of evolutionary theorizing to understanding human psychology and behavior

Question 5

Assumption of Ep

Answer 5

Assumes that the mind is composed of a collection of evolved psychological mechanisms (many of which are adaptations) that are domain-specific
They are designed to solve various specific recurrent problems faced by our evolutionary ancestors (e.g. disease avoidance, mate selection, kin care etc.)

Question 6

The problem of altruism

Answer 6

-if evolution tailors organisms to behave in ways that facilitate their own reproductive success, doesn’t this mean that organisms will be selfish?
Need to take a ‘gene’s-eye view’ * Selfish genes vs. selfish individuals
* If a prosocial behavior happens to increase thelikelihood that a gene is passed on to future generations, then such a behavior may be selected for

Question 7

Inclusive fitness

Answer 7

refers to the capacity for genetic information to spread in the population. Inclusive fitness is comprised of:
o Direct (classical) fitness: the number of offspring produced.
o Indirect fitness: occurs via increasing the classical fitness of others who also share one’s genes (i.e. kin, relatives). If we can help kin to survive and reproduce, then, because we share genes with kin, we are indirectly increasing the chances that shared genes spread in the population. 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 8

Case study: belding ground squirrels

Answer 8

• investigated alarm calls in response to predators. Found that squirrels were more likely to call in the presence of sisters, aunts and nieces (more likely to perform altruistic acts in the presence of kin).

Question 9

In humans, Essock-Vitale & McGuire (1985) alturistic study

Answer 9

women from LA were far more likely to give and receive help from those whom the participants is related to more strongly

Question 10

Daly & Wilson (1988) on altruristic behavior of step parent

Answer 10

-single largest predictor of child abuse and homicide is the presence of a step-parent in the home – these are 40-100x more likely if there is a step-parent at home (vs. both genetic parents). This shows that relatedness constraints behaviour of this kind.

Question 11

mums vs. dads

Answer 11

Due to paternity uncertainty (mothers are more certain of the genetic relatedness of their children), mothers have been shown to be nicer and more likely to invest in their offspring

Question 12

Grandparental certainty

Answer 12

found that this parental uncertainty extends to grandparents –maternal grandparents are more likely to be warmer and invest in their grandchildren versus parental grandparents. Similarly, grandchildren feel the
warmest towards their mother’s mother, followed by their mother’s father then their father’s mother and finally their father’s father. This might be explained by the fact that the father’s mother may have more certain grandkids that she is investing in (grandkids through daughters)

Question 13

Challenges & criticisms to evolutionary psychology

Answer 13

® Pan-adpatationism: evolutionary psychologists claim that all psychological characteristics are an adaptation (which is not true).
® Genetic determinism: evolutionary psychologists believe that everything is determined by genes, and that nurture (the environment) does not play any role.
® Implications for morality: evolutionary psychology implies that our adaptations are morally good – a criticism based on naturalistic fallacy

Question 14

Value of evolutionary psychology

Answer 14

® Evolutionary psychology acts as metatheory – providing an organizing framework for understanding the complex aspects of human social behaviour.
® Addresses questions of function and distal causes – explaining why psychological processes occur.
® Is generative or fruitful – can lead to the development of novel hypotheses or explanations or predictions that cannot be easily got to by other theories.

Question 15

Definition of Morality

Answer 15

: a code of conduct or set of rules pertaining to ‘right’, ’good’, ’wrong’, ’bad’ held by an individual or group

Question 16

The moral/conventional distinction

Answer 16

-Turiel (1987) investigated violations of rule (e.g. a child hitting another, a child wearing a dress to school, a child talking out of turn in class).
-He asked whether the act was wrong/serious, punishable, authority dependent, general in scope, and how the wrongness was explained.
-Turiel described that the signature moral response (SMR) consists of a violation being a constellation of serious/wrong/bad, punishable, authority dependent, and general in scope (universal), and that this response tended to be given to stimuli/rule violations that involved harm or welfare (also rights and justice). If there is harm (or injustice or violation of rights), then it is a SMR (the scope of morality).

Question 17

Pattern of respond to Turiel

Answer 17

The signature moral response (SMR):
* Serious, wrong, bad
* Punishable
* Authority independent
* General in scope (universal)
Convention respond
* The key distinguishing feature of stimulus: harm or welfare (also rights and justice)

Question 18

Haidt, Koller & Dias (1993)

Answer 18

found that non-harm violations also can evoke the signature moral response (e.g. cleaning a toilet with an American flag, eating a family dog after it has been killed by a car).
This is because some people judge these transgressions as authority independent and general in scope

Question 19

Systematizing variability in moral responses

Answer 19

Schweder et al. (1997) provided a three-domain descriptive account of morality – suggesting that violations primarily pertain to:
1. Autonomy (a violation of one’s individual freedom/rights). To decide whether an action is wrong, you think about things like harm, rights, justice, freedom, fairness, individualism and the importance of individual choice and liberty.
2. Community (hierarchy): an action is wrong because a person fails to carry out his/her duties within a community or social hierarchy. To decide if an action is wrong, you think about things like duty, role-obligation, respect for authority, loyalty, group honour, interdependence, and the preservation of the community.
3. Divinity (purity): violations of divinity/purity. In these cases, the person disrespects the sacredness of God, or causes impurity or degradation to himself/herself or others. To decide if an action is wrong, you think about things like sin, the natural order of things, sanctity, and the protection of the soul or the world from degradation and spiritual defilement.
® Cultural and demographic factors influence SMR to these domains

Question 20

Moral Foundations Theory (Haidt & Graham, 2004, 2007

Answer 20

Expanded Schweder’s account of morality to 5 domains. Also a descriptive account of morality.
1. Harm/care: representing concerns about violence and the suffering of others, including compassion and care.
2. Fairness/reciprocity: representing the norms of reciprocal relations, equality, rights and justice.
3. Authority/respect (vertical dimension): representing moral obligations related to hierarchical relations such as obedience, duty, respect for superiors, and the protection of subordinates.
4. Ingroup/loyalty (horizontal dimension): covering moral obligations related to group membership, such as loyalty, betrayal, and expectations of preferential treatment for ingroup members relative to outgroup members.
5. Purity/sanctity – representing the moral ideal of living in an elevated, noble and less carnal way, based on intuitions about divinity, feelings of moral disgust, and purity of body, mind and soul.

Question 21

What accounts for judgments of right and wrong?

Answer 21

• Psychological answers (versus historical, cultural, sociological)
• What is in the moral black box?
• 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 22

Reasoning vs intuition

Answer 22

• moral reasoning: (from Haidt, 2001) conscious mental activity that consists of transforming given information about people in order to reach a moral judgment. To say that moral reasoning is a conscious process means that the process is intentional, effortful, and controllable and that the reasoner is aware that it is going on
• moral intuition: (from Haidt, 2001) sudden appearance in consciousness of a moral judgment, including an affective valence (good-bad, like-dislike), without any conscious awareness of having gone through steps of searching, weighing evidence, or inferring a conclusion.
• Moral intuitions are largely dependent on emotions

Question 23

Moral dumbfounding

Answer 23

(Haidt, Koller & Dias, 1993) is where people defend the wrongness of an action, even though all of their reasons have been defused. They cannot justify why they believe the action is wrong, but they simply insist that it is(based on a gut feeling/reaction). (In this study, this was a brother and sister kissing). This may occur because reasoning processes are not accessible here, so they may not even be employed

Question 24

Social Intuitionist Model (Haidt, 2001):

Answer 24

® Suggests that moral judgement is a function of affect-laden intuitions. Reasoning is post-hoc rationalization.

Question 25

Reasoning and emotion/intuition

Answer 25

• Reasoning or emotion/intuition
• Reasoning vs. emotion/intuition (in competition)
• Both kinds of processes are likely involved in moral judgments, but they compete in order to give rise to a judgment

Question 26

The ‘Switches and Footbridges’ Scenario

Answer 26

® The ‘switches and footbridges’ scenario pits a deontological option (based on the rule ‘do not kill innocents’) against a utilitarian option (‘greatest good for the greatest number’). Most people say yes to flick the switch (utilitarian) but no to pushing the man off the footbridge (deontological)
® Greene et al. (2001, 2004) suggests that the deontological response is driven by gut reactions, emotions and intuitions, whereas the utilitarian response is driven by controlled, effortful reasoning processes.

Question 27

Cause for action in the switches and footbrigdge

Answer 27

® Because the footbridge involves direct contact with another in order to kill (‘personal dilemma’), sacrificing this one person is more emotionally aversive, and thus the deontological response is more potent.
® In the switch scenario, there is no direct contact (and therefore less emotion), and therefore the utilitarian response overrides the deontological response. In the footbridge scenario, there is direct contact with the man on the bridge, and therefore more emotion – causing the deontological response to override the
utilitarian response
-As such, if one reduces negative affect during dilemma processing, one should see more utilitarian responding
-Valdesolo & DeSteno (2006) found that reducing negative affect during dilemma processing (by generating positive emotion via showing participants a clip from SNL) results in more utilitarian responses (more pushing off the footbridge responses).

Question 28

The Moral Dyad:

Answer 28

® A representation of an agent doing something intentionally to a patient.
® The relational model that frames the dyad makes a difference in moral judgement, as well as the identity of the patient and the moral circle.
® The way we judge an action as being right or wrong depends on the relational context under which the action takes place (e.g. communal sharing vs authority ranking)

Question 29

Moral patients and the moral circle

Answer 29

® The moral circle: the category of entities in the world worthy of moral concern. We deem things within the moral circle to be impermissible to harm or treat unfairly (e.g. human babies are within the moral circle, rocks are not). Some things might sit in-between the moral circle (e.g. certain animals such as cows)
® Over time, we have seen a historical expansion of the moral circle (such that we show concern/care for more things in the world)

Question 30

Psychological processes which increase/decrease the size of the moral circle include

Answer 30

® Inclusion versus exclusion discrepancy (IED) (Yaniv & Schul, 1997): inclusion mindsets (circling) lead to smaller final choice sets than exclusion mindsets (crossing out). This is because borderline cases are treated differently under these two mindsets – anything that doesn’t have sufficient evidence for exclusion is left in in the exclusion mindset.
® Laham (2009) found that for non-human animals and things on the margins of life (e.g. persistent vegetative state, foetus), those in exclusion mindsets had largermoral circles. This expansion of moral circle accounted for a range of positive attitudes towards outgroups. Those who adopted inclusion mindsets had smallermoral circles