Consultation as a moral process.

This article identifies several common elements of different consulting processes and reviews 5 moral principles that might be used in evaluating relationships and action. An analysis of the moral implications of the common elements of the consulting process is provided. The conclusion drawn is that consultation not only has important moral impact in human systems, but that consultation is, in fact, an essentially moral process. A recommendation is made that consultation increasingly provide for critical moral discourse within our client systems and the consulting process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Crowd size as a factor in the persuasion process: A study of religious crusade meetings.

Tested the proposition that in larger audiences, a greater proportion of audience members will be persuaded by the speaker with data from 4 separate religious crusades led by Billy Graham and Leighton Ford in Australia (N?=?57 meetings). A reliable positive relationship was found between crowd size and the proportion of "inquirers" (attenders who made a decision for Christ) at weekday meetings. (Distinctive patterns of attendance and inquiring made it necessary to distinguish weekend from weekday meetings, but there were too few weekend meetings for separate analysis). Females and young people constituted greater proportions of inquirers in larger crowds, and the proportion of first-time inquirers increased with crowd size. Possible explanations include enhancement of social influence in large crowds and factors related to changes in crowd composition associated with crowd size. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stimulating transitions in moral reasoning as a function of stage of cognitive development.

Examined L. Kohlberg's proposition that cognitive development is necessary though not sufficient for moral development. The specific hypothesis tested, in a pre–posttest control group design involving 44 female adolescents (mean age 16.2 yrs), was that Moral Stage 3 Ss who have attained "early basic formal operations" are more susceptible to attempts to stimulate moral development than Stage 3 Ss who have attained only "beginning formal operations" and lack the cognitive prerequisites for moral transitions. A series of pretests (verbal reasoning and logico-physical problems, and Moral Judgment Interview) was used to obtain Ss who met the appropriate cognitive and moral criteria. The treatment exposed Ss to Stage 4 reasoning in individual role-playing situations. A moral judgment posttest followed 1 wk later. Results confirm the hypothesis, thus providing evidence for the proposition that cognitive development is necessary for moral reasoning development. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rationality, possibility and difference as bases of moral development.

Discusses the bases of moral development, based on a review of relevant literature. L. Kohlberg's (1981) cognitive structural theory of moral development prescribes abstract egalitarianism as the ideal form of moral reasoning. It is argued that this conceptualization represents an overly modernist, individualist reading of Platonic moral philosophy. H. G. Gadamer (1986), in contrast, sees Plato teaching that virtue is learned implicitly, through exemplifying a virtuous person. Belief that virtue must be justified rationally leads to the dissolution of social, communal bases of moral learning. His view suggests a more humanly relevant rendering of Platonic moral reasoning than that suggested by Kohlberg. This view suggests the possibility that virtue is irreducibly social, seen in the meaningful differences that acts have for others, and in implicit interpersonal relatedness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gratitude as moral sentiment: Emotion-guided cooperation in economic exchange.

Economic exchange often pits options for selfish and cooperative benefit against one another. Decisions favoring communal profit at the expense of self-interest have traditionally been thought to stem from strategic control aimed at tamping down emotional responses centered on immediate resource acquisition. In the present article, evidence is provided to argue against this limited view of the role played by emotion in shaping prosociality. Findings demonstrate that the social emotion gratitude functions to engender cooperative economic exchange even at the expense of greater individual financial gains. Using real-time inductions, increased gratitude is shown to directly mediate increased monetary giving within the context of an economic game, even where such giving increases communal profit at the expense of individual gains. Moreover, increased giving occurred regardless of whether the beneficiary was a known individual or complete stranger, thereby removing the possibility that it stemmed from simple awareness of reciprocity constraints. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Violence with a conscience: Religiosity and moral certainty as predictors of support for violent warfare.

Objective: Emerging research on the moral licensing effect implies that increasing a person's moral certainty may decrease concerns about the moral consequences of violent warfare. Therefore, if religion increases moral certainty, then it may also contribute to support for violent warfare. The present experiment tested the extent to which religion's contribution to moral certainty explains participants' support for the United States' war in the Middle East. Method: Ninety-three predominantly Catholic and Protestant participants from a university setting completed the present study. The study was completed across two separate days. On the first day of the experiment, individual differences in a variety of types of religiosity (e.g., prayer), and moral certainty were measured. On the second day of the experiment, the perception that the United States' war in the Middle East is a religious or geopolitical conflict was experimentally manipulated, and support for violent warfare was measured. Results: Regression analyses and an analysis of variance yielded support for the moral certainty hypothesis. As predicted, greater religiosity relates to greater moral certainty, and greater moral certainty strengthens the (positive) relation between religiosity and support for violent warfare. Furthermore, moral certainty is a stronger predictor of support for violent warfare in religious conflict than it is in geopolitical conflict. Conclusion: The results support the moral certainty hypothesis and suggest that stronger moral certainty (1) predicts greater support for violent warfare, (2) is an underlying moderator of the relation between religiosity and support for violent warfare, and (3) is particularly influential in religious conflict. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Vicarious moral licensing: The influence of others' past moral actions on moral behavior.

This article investigates the effect of others' prior nonprejudiced behavior on an individual's subsequent behavior. Five studies supported the hypothesis that people are more willing to express prejudiced attitudes when their group members' past behavior has established nonprejudiced credentials. Study 1a showed that participants who were told that their group was more moral than similar other groups were more willing to describe a job as better suited for Whites than for African Americans. In Study 1b, when given information on group members' prior nondiscriminatory behavior (selecting a Hispanic applicant in a prior task), participants subsequently gave more discriminatory ratings to the Hispanic applicant for a position stereotypically suited for majority members (Whites). In Study 2, moral self-concept mediated the effect of others' prior nonprejudiced actions on a participant's subsequent prejudiced behavior such that others' past nonprejudiced actions enhanced the participant's moral self-concept, and this inflated moral self-concept subsequently drove the participant's prejudiced ratings of a Hispanic applicant. In Study 3, the moderating role of identification with the credentialing group was tested. Results showed that participants expressed more prejudiced attitudes toward a Hispanic applicant when they highly identified with the group members behaving in nonprejudiced manner. In Study 4, the credentialing task was dissociated from the participants' own judgmental task, and, in addition, identification with the credentialing group was manipulated rather than measured. Consistent with prior studies, the results showed that participants who first had the opportunity to view an in-group member's nonprejudiced hiring decision were more likely to reject an African American man for a job stereotypically suited for majority members. These studies suggest a vicarious moral licensing effect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of moral justifications and moral reasoning on altruism.

Studied 167 female college students to test the predictions that for Ss whose moral reasoning is predominantly at the lower stages, a curvilinear relation would exist between the level of justification and altruism; altruism should increase from a Level 1 to Level 2 justification and then decrease from Level 2 to Level 3. The pattern of results for the interaction and the trend analyses provide qualified support for the predictions made on the basis of comprehension and preference. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Knowledge, moral praise, and moral side effects.

Thomas Nadelhoffer (2004) claims that a morally praiseworthy agent cannot knowingly produce a morally positive side effect. I claim that the argument Nadelhoffer uses to establish this claim has two false premises. The two false premises are: (1) If something is a side effect, then it is not desired or intended; and (2) If agent S is morally praiseworthy and knows that her performing p will produce a morally positive q, then q forms part of S's reason for p-ing. I offer a counterexample that shows the falsity of (1) and (2). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of moral judgment and moral identity on moral behavior: An empirical examination of the moral individual.

Recognizing limitations in classic cognitive moral development theory, several scholars have drawn from theories of identity to suggest that moral behavior results from both moral judgments and moral identity. The authors conducted 2 survey-based studies with more than 500 students and managers to test this argument. Results demonstrated that moral identity and moral judgments both independently influenced moral behavior. In addition, in situations in which social consensus regarding the moral behavior was not high, moral judgments and moral identity interacted to shape moral behavior. This interaction effect indicated that those who viewed themselves as moral individuals pursued the most extreme alternatives (e.g., never cheating, regularly cheating)--a finding that affirms the motivational power of a moral identity. The authors conclude by considering the implications of this research for both theory and practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mechanisms of moral disengagement in the exercise of moral agency.

This research examined the role of mechanisms of moral disengagement in the exercise of moral agency. Regulatory self-sanctions can be selectively disengaged from detrimental conduct by converting harmful acts to moral ones through linkage to worthy purposes, obscuring personal causal agency by diffusion and displacement of responsibility, misrepresenting or disregarding the injurious effects inflicted on others, and vilifying the recipients of maltreatment by blaming and dehumanizing them. The study examined the structure and impact of moral disengagement on detrimental conduct and the psychological processes through which it exerts its effects. Path analyses reveal that moral disengagement fosters detrimental conduct by reducing prosocialness and anticipatory self-censure and by promoting cognitive and affective reactions conducive to aggression. The structure of the paths of influence is very similar for interpersonal aggression and delinquent conduct. Although the various mechanisms of moral disengagement operate in concert, moral reconstruals of harmful conduct by linking it to worthy purposes and vilification of victims seem to contribute most heavily to engagement in detrimental activities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

In a very different voice: Unmasking moral hypocrisy.

Across 3 small studies, 80 female undergraduates were confronted with the dilemma of deciding whom—themselves or another research participant—to assign to a positive consequences task, leaving the other to do a dull, boring task. In Study 1, where morality was not mentioned, 16 of 20 assigned themselves to the positive consequences task, even though in retrospect only 1 said this was moral. In Studies 2 and 3, a moral strategy was suggested: either flipping a coin or accepting task assignment by the experimenter. In Study 2, 10 of 20 participants flipped a coin, but of these, 9 assigned themselves the positive consequences task. In Study 3, participants were significantly more likely to accept the experimenter's assignment when it gave them the positive consequences task. Overall, results suggested motivation to appear moral yet still benefit oneself. Such motivation is called moral hypocrisy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conflict and moral judgment.

Employed a conflict procedure, in which reliance on adult values was opposed to reliance on damage as a measure of blame, in a study with 20 preschool children, 50 2nd graders, and 25 adults. The procedure facilitated the 2nd graders' use of intention in making moral judgments of story pairs, but conflict had no effect on the judgments of preschoolers or adults. Question wording affected adults but not 2nd graders. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Testing a social-cognitive model of moral behavior: The interactive influence of situations and moral identity centrality.

This article proposes and tests a social-cognitive framework for examining the joint influence of situational factors and the centrality of moral identity on moral intentions and behaviors. The authors hypothesized that if a situational factor increases the current accessibility of moral identity within the working self-concept, then it strengthens the motivation to act morally. In contrast, if a situational factor decreases the current accessibility of moral identity, then it weakens the motivation to act morally. The authors also expected the influence of situational factors to vary depending on the extent to which moral identity was central to a person’s overall self-conception. Hypotheses derived from the framework were tested in 4 studies. The studies used recalling and reading a list of the Ten Commandments (Study 1), writing a story using morally laden terms (Study 4), and the presence of performance-based financial incentives (Studies 2 and 3) as situational factors. Participants’ willingness to initiate a cause-related marketing program (Study 1), lie to a job candidate during a salary negotiation (Studies 2 and 3), and contribute to a public good (Study 4) were examined. Results provide strong support for the proposed framework. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychotherapy and moral discourse.

Argues that psychotherapy's (PT's) claim to be a universal scientific practice that objectively treats ahistorical illnesses is untenable. PT is a cultural product, so it both reflects and reproduces its cultural context. Because cultural context is in part composed of moral traditions embedded in political structures, PT is unavoidably a moral practice with political consequences. Implicit moralities in current practices are discussed. Philosophical hermeneutics in PT practice are offered as an alternative. In a discussion of intersecting traditions, it is suggested that a hermeneutic perspective can portray the keeping of family secrets as a commitment to a particular moral code, rather than the products of a "dysfunctional family." If PT theories can be changed so that they are more historically situated, and if PT practices can be changed to use hermeneutics, then a different moral frame can be put forth. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mapping the moral domain.

The moral domain is broader than the empathy and justice concerns assessed by existing measures of moral competence, and it is not just a subset of the values assessed by value inventories. To fill the need for reliable and theoretically grounded measurement of the full range of moral concerns, we developed the Moral Foundations Questionnaire on the basis of a theoretical model of 5 universally available (but variably developed) sets of moral intuitions: Harm/Care, Fairness/Reciprocity, Ingroup/Loyalty, Authority/Respect, and Purity/Sanctity. We present evidence for the internal and external validity of the scale and the model, and in doing so we present new findings about morality: (a) Comparative model fitting of confirmatory factor analyses provides empirical justification for a 5-factor structure of moral concerns; (b) convergent/discriminant validity evidence suggests that moral concerns predict personality features and social group attitudes not previously considered morally relevant; and (c) we establish pragmatic validity of the measure in providing new knowledge and research opportunities concerning demographic and cultural differences in moral intuitions. These analyses provide evidence for the usefulness of Moral Foundations Theory in simultaneously increasing the scope and sharpening the resolution of psychological views of morality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Changes in moral judgment and self-acceptance in college students as a function of companionship with hospitalized mental patients.

The present investigation describes studies undertaken to determine the effects of association with hospitalized mental patients on the personalities of 32 male college students who were compared to a control group of 24 comparable students who had not been involved in this experience with mental patients. The former demonstrate significant positive change in self-acceptance and in moral judgments concerning sexual and aggressive behaviors. The nature of the companionship experience is examined in order to elucidate the reasons for these changes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Moral typecasting: Divergent perceptions of moral agents and moral patients.

Moral agency is the capacity to do right or wrong, whereas moral patiency is the capacity to be a target of right or wrong. Through 7 studies, the authors explored moral typecasting—an inverse relation between perceptions of moral agency and moral patiency. Across a range of targets and situations, good- and evil-doers (moral agents) were perceived to be less vulnerable to having good and evil done to them. The recipients of good and evil (moral patients), in turn, were perceived as less capable of performing good or evil actions. Moral typecasting stems from the dyadic nature of morality and explains curious effects such as people's willingness to inflict greater pain on those who do good than those who do nothing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Understanding moral thought: Effects on moral reasoning and decision making.

89 16–18 yr olds' understanding of processes involved in moral reasoning and decision making was examined in relation to the Ss' level of moral reasoning, extent of prudential concerns, and consistency of decision making. Four qualitatively different levels of understanding of moral thought were identified. These levels were related to moral scores in 2 dilemmas: one involving a fictitious other and the other involving the self as protagonist. Ss with less understanding of moral thought were more likely to demonstrate lower moral scores and more prudential concerns in each perspective and to make a different decision (often prudentially rather than morally based) in the self-perspective. Ss who changed their decision in the self-perspective demonstrated lower self-perspective moral scores than Ss who demonstrated decision consistency. It is suggested that Ss with less understanding of the processes involved in moral thought are more likely to use moral reasons in the service of decisions they want to make for prudential reasons. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

To be moral, must psychology have a moral face?

Comments on an article (see record 1992-34951-001) by Richard N. Williams which takes a look at the issue of human agency which has been confused with the question of determinism vs indeterminism. The author takes the position that to argue for agency is not necessarily to argue for indeterminism. The current author suggests that Williams has been persuaded from his philosophical reading that a moral-ethical understanding of behavior requires an intelligible notion of freedom. The current author feels that much more can be said about the senses of a deconstructed agency, its utility, and its respect for diversity engendered by psychological moral restraint, but not in these few pages. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)