A Multinomial Process Model of Moral Judgment

几个世纪以来，社会一直在努力解决如何平衡个人权利与更大利益的问题（例如，保护公民权利与保护免受恐怖袭击）。我们社会目前的许多紧迫辩论和紧迫挑战的根源都是这些问题。为了保护一个人的个人权利而采取行动（或不采取行动），而不考虑更广泛的背景或更广泛的后果，这符合道义论的道德原则。另一方面，当大量人的福祉将因这些决定而受到损害时，它就造成了一种困境，因为这违反了功利主义的道德原则。因为这两个道德原则在直觉上都是合理的，当这两个原则在特定情况下提出不同的结论时，它们可能会导致个人内部的心理冲突和社会中的意识形态冲突。为了提供一个解决这种冲突的基础上，拟议的研究将探讨人们的道德困境，他们的情境和个人的决定因素，以及在不同的情况下，他们对道德行为的反应的心理过程。为了实现研究目标，该项目将测试和利用一个新开发的数学模型，该模型量化了决定人们对道德困境的反应的三个组成部分的独特贡献。两个是道义论和功利主义;第三个是人们对行动和不行动的一般倾向。在一系列的14项研究中，研究人员将研究认知和情感过程对道德困境反应的贡献，神经内分泌因素在塑造道德决策中的作用，以及这些过程对道德相关行为（如欺骗和帮助）的下游影响。通过提供对这些成分的细粒度测量，拟议的研究将为道德判断的心理过程提供更深入的见解，并为解决社会中的道德争议提供有价值的实践意义。除了阐明道德判断的原因和后果外，本项目的研究结果还将通过确定道德思想和情感导致和不导致相应道德行为的条件，有助于对人类行为的科学理解。该项目还为研究基础设施的发展做出了宝贵的贡献，提供了一种新的工具，用于详细分析道德判断，其他研究人员可以免费使用。

For centuries, societies have wrestled with the question of how to balance the rights of the individual versus the greater good (for example, protection of civil rights versus protection from terrorist attacks). Many currently pressing debates in our society and urgent challenges have such issues at their root. To act (or omit acting) in order to protect the individual rights of one person, independent of any consideration of the broader context or broader consequences, abides by the moral principle of deontology. On the other hand when the well-being of a large number of people will be harmed as a result of those decisions it creates a dilemma, as this violates a moral principle of utilitarianism. Because both moral principles are intuitively plausible, they can lead to psychological conflicts within individuals and ideological conflicts in society when the two principles suggest different conclusions in a particular situation. To provide a basis for the resolution of such conflicts, the proposed research will examine the psychological processes underlying people's responses to moral dilemmas, their situational and individual determinants, and their effects on moral behavior in different contexts. To address the study aims, the project will test and utilize a newly developed mathematical model that quantifies the unique contributions of three components that determine people's responses to moral dilemmas. Two are deontology and utilitarianism; the third is people's general tendencies toward action and inaction. In a series of 14 studies, the researcher will examine the contribution of cognitive and emotional processes to moral dilemma responses, the role of neuroendocrine factors in shaping moral decisions, and downstream effects of these processes on morally relevant behavior such as cheating and helping. By offering fine-grained measurements of the components, the proposed studies will provide deeper insights into the psychological processes underlying moral judgments and valuable practical implications for the resolution of moral controversies in society. In addition to illuminating the causes and consequences of moral judgments, the findings of this project will contribute to the scientific understanding of human action by identifying the conditions under which moral thoughts and feelings do and do not result in corresponding moral actions. The project also makes a valuable contribution to the development of research infrastructure by offering a novel tool for detailed analyses of moral judgments that will be freely available to other researchers.