Social Psych: Morality, Altruism, and Cooperation

Cooperation

working together for mutual benefit (though sometimes individual cost)

Altruism

prosocial behavior (helping others) at the cost of oneself

Flood and Dresher (1950): Prisoners dilemma

• thought experiment involving 2 rational agents, each of whom can either cooperate for mutual benefit or betray their partner for individual gain

  • Prisoner A and prisoner B confess = 5 years/each

  • A silent, B confess = 0, 20 years, and vice versa

  • A and B silent = 1 year/each

Kin selection

individuals sacrifice their own reproductive success or survival to help relatives, ensuring genes are passed on

Reciprocal altruism

• individuals can be conditionally altruistic toward each other if they have mechanism for keeping track of who is likely to return the favor "(cheater-detection)

  • “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours”

  • “If you don’t scratch my back, I won’t scratch yours”

Cosmides and Tooby (1989): adapted for cheater-detection

• logic puzzle with 4 cards

• human brain isn’t naturally wired for abstract logic such as knowing highways through which cities

• when framing the game as a social rule, we’re good at tracking who breaks social rules, keeping track of who does the good or bad thing enables us to do reciprocal altruism

Sober and Wilson (1999): Multilevel selection

• selfish individuals may outcompete altruists within a group, cooperative groups will outcompete self groups between them

• cooperators can out-compete individualists if they stick together

Muir (1996): Within-group selection

• studying breeding of chickens, best way to breed chickens

• 2 methods:

  • selected for ones that laid the most eggs

    • within a cage, you ended up with horribly unhealthy chickens

  • took the cages that overall have the most eggs produced and breed all those hens within those cages

    • after 6 generations, there are chickens that are good with surviving together

  • selectively breeding the most productive group of chickens does much better than selectively breeding the most productive individuals

Berethel-Haurwitz (2018): extraordinary altruists

• Emapthic-pain task

  • participants viewed videos (a) of a hand of the confederate then their own hand, in separate runs

  • on each trial (b), a variable anticipation period was followed by the administration or omission of painful stimulation to thumbnail

• The extraordinary altruists ad more similar brain activation for self and other’s pain; also had greater response to their fear

  • more sensitive to another person’s pain or fear, more likely to incur a large sacrifice on yourself in order to help someone else

Jenkins (2019): empathy may decrease helping behavior

• imagine you are very close to or imagine someone you are not close to

• senario: the person is suffering and there are 2 options

  • 1.) save their life (continue to suffer)

  • 2.) allow them to die (end suffering)

• second experiment: stranger but 2 conditions are

  • take their perspective (empathy)

  • or not (control)

• The closer you are, the more willing you are to let them die to end their suffering

• suggests that if we feel others’ distress, we might actually not be focused on helping them

Cameron & Payne (2011): backfiring empathy: compassion collapse

• people feel less empathy as the number of people in need of help increases (identifiable victim effect)

• found that this pattern is primarily found when people expected to be asked to give (money, time,e ect.) to the “victims” or people in need

  • people who are better at emotion regulation show the pattern more, suggesting that people intentionally regulate their empathic response

Klimecki et al (2014): empathy vs. compassion

• all-female participants underwent compassion training (affect) OR memory training

• Self-reported empathy and negative affect increased after empathy training

• Compassion training decreased negative affect and increased positive affect

Piff et al (2010): social class & prosociality, and the value of compassion

• neutral film clip vs. watching children in poverty

• had confederate acting as another participant

  • did people help fill our paper owrk

    • found after watching neutral clip: high SES clip helped less

    • in compassionate condition: high SES helped the same as low SES in neutral condition

Haidt (2001): Emotional dog and its rational tail

• critique of Kohlberg and emphasis on “cognition” and reasoning in moral judgement

• moral judgements are driven mostly entirely by intuitive emotional responses

Wheatley & Haidt, 2005

• subjects hypnotized to feel a flash of disgust at the word “take” or “often”

• 2 conditions either read a paragraph with the word or not

  • when the trigger was present, felt different vignettes were more morally wrong

Moral dumbfounding

• “it’s just wrong” despite being unable to provide supporting reasons, often occurring when intuitive disgust clashes with logical analysis

Haidt & Joseph (2004): moral foundations theory

• a theory proposing that there are five evolved, universal moral domains in which specific emotions guide moral judgments

• harm, fairness/justice, ingroup loyalty, concerns about purity, respecting authority

Graham, Haidt, & Nosek (2009): Liberals & Conservatives

• Conservatives value more than liberals: in-group loyalty, purity/sanctity, obedience to authority/hierarchy

• Liberals value more than conservatives: fairness and harm

Young et al (2010): Effects of intent vs. outcome

• participants go through a belief section: what the powder really is and what the person thinks the powder is

• If TMS knocks out RTPJ (important for theory of mind and empathy) then people believe the action is more morally okay when adding the powder to coffee and thinking its poison than if they have a control-TMS

  • judged less harshly because only judge more based on outcome

Young et al (2011)

• Intent matters more for harm than it does for purity

  • looked at intentional vs. accidental moral vignettes

Trolley Problem

• trolley is headed for 5 people

• you can flip a switch to divert it onto a side track where only 1 person is killed

Foot bridge Problem

• trolley heading toward 5 people

• you’re standing on a footbridge next to someone with a giant backpack on who you can push off the footbridge to stop the trolley

  • much more personal; feels less morally correct

Trolleyology

• trolley problem; utilitarian/consequentialist: 5>1, manual system (maximize good/minimize harm)

• footbridge problem: deontological: 1>5, automatic system because alarm is loud saying not to push off someone, follow rules

Ventromedial Prefrontal damage and moral judgement

• people who have damage on ventromedial prefrontal cortex are more likely to say yes to pushing someone off the footbridge

  • vmPFC important for integrative judgment (emotional reaction with potential benefits)

• damage to PFC increases utilitarian moral judgements

Hippocampus damage and moral decision making

• people who have hippocampal damage are less likely than controls to go with numbers

  • they are more likely to give emotional reasons

• increases deontological responses during moral decision making

• Hippocampus responsible for thinking about future outcomes and simulate scenarios

Aversive Harm

• action feels terrible but consequences are fine

• physiological arousal was highest for performing the seemingly harmful action

  • hitting a fake leg with a hammer

• physiological arousal was correlated with deontological judgments in the footbridge case

Costa et al (2014): native vs. foreign language

• when thinking about something that seems distant, you go with the more utilitarian than deontological answer

• answer in native vs. foreign language

  • if answering in native language, more likely not to push someone off

  • if answering in second language, more likely to say yes to push someone off

Trolleyology: Up close and personal

• if the switch on the trolly is far vs. you’re over the tracks on the footbridge

  • twice as likely to say yes to pulling the switch than the footbridge

Trolleyology: Distance or contact?

• you pull a switch right over the tracks to let the person on the footbridge fall: 59% yes

• you pull a switch somewhere else for the person to fall on the footbridge: 63% yes

• pushing the person onto the footbridge with your hands is 31% yes

Trolleyology: contact or personal force?

• On footbridge, you either push and make contact or use a pole so you’re not actually physically touching the person

  • 31% for hands, 33% for pole

    • feels less ok with physical contact

Singer (1972): Nearby Need

• 1st scenario: while you’re there for vacation, a hurricane wrecks the place you’re staying, a relief fund you can donate to

  • 68% say yes to donate

• 2nd scenario: you’re not there but your friend is, friend asks for help by you sending them money

  • 34% say yes

• People feel different when you’re present or you’re not present