Virtue Discounting: Observers Infer that Publicly Virtuous Actors Have Less Principled Motivations

Kraft-Todd, G., Kleiman-Weiner, M., 

& Young, L. (2022, May 27). 

https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/hsjta

Abstract

Behaving virtuously in public presents a paradox: only by doing so can people demonstrate their virtue and also influence others through their example, yet observers may derogate actors’ behavior as mere “virtue signaling.” We introduce the term virtue discounting to refer broadly to the reasons that people devalue actors’ virtue, bringing together empirical findings across diverse literatures as well as theories explaining virtuous behavior. We investigate the observability of actors’ behavior as one reason for virtue discounting, and its mechanism via motivational inferences using the comparison of generosity and impartiality as a case study among virtues. Across 14 studies (7 preregistered, total N=9,360), we show that publicly virtuous actors are perceived as less morally good than privately virtuous actors, and that this effect is stronger for generosity compared to impartiality (i.e. differential virtue discounting). An exploratory factor analysis suggests that three types of motives—principled, reputation-signaling, and norm-signaling—affect virtue discounting. Using structural equation modeling, we show that the effect of observability on ratings of actors’ moral goodness is largely explained by inferences that actors have less principled motivations. Further, we provide experimental evidence that observers’ motivational inferences mechanistically contribute to virtue discounting. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings, as well as future directions for research on the social perception of virtue.

General Discussion

Across three analyses martialing data from 14 experiments (seven preregistered, total N=9,360), we provide robust evidence of virtue discounting. In brief, we show that the observability of actors’ behavior is a reason that people devalue actors’ virtue, and that this effect can be explained by observers’ inferences about actors’ motivations. In Analysis 1—which includes a meta-analysis of all experiments we ran—we show that observability causes virtue discounting, and that this effect is larger in the context of generosity compared to impartiality. In Analysis 2, we provide suggestive evidence that participants’ motivational inferences mediate a large portion (72.6%) of the effect of observability on their ratings of actors’ moral goodness. In Analysis 3, we experimentally show that when we stipulate actors’ motivation, observability loses its significant effect on participants’ judgments of actors’ moral goodness.  This gives further evidence for   the hypothesis that observers’ inferences about actors’ motivations are a mechanism for the way that the observability of actions impacts virtue discounting.We now consider the contributions of our findings to the empirical literature, how these findings interact with our theoretical account, and the limitations of the present investigation (discussing promising directions for future research throughout). Finally, we conclude with practical implications for effective prosocial advocacy.

The research is here.

Behavioral and Neural Representations en route to Intuitive Action Understanding

L. Tarhan, J. De Freitas, & T. Konkle

BioRxiv

doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.04.08.438996

Abstract

When we observe another person’s actions, we process many kinds of information – from how their body moves to the intention behind their movements. What kinds of information underlie our intuitive understanding about how similar actions are to each other? To address this question, we measured the intuitive similarities among a large set of everyday action videos using multi-arrangement experiments, then used a modeling approach to predict this intuitive similarity space along three hypothesized properties. We found that similarity in the actors’ inferred goals predicted the intuitive similarity judgments the best, followed by similarity in the actors’ movements, with little contribution from the videos’ visual appearance. In opportunistic fMRI analyses assessing brain-behavior correlations, we found evidence for an action processing hierarchy, in which these three kinds of action similarities are reflected in the structure of brain responses along a posterior-to-anterior gradient on the lateral surface of the visual cortex. Altogether, this work joins existing literature suggesting that humans are naturally tuned to process others’ intentions, and that the visuo-motor cortex computes the perceptual precursors of the higher-level representations over which intuitive action perception operates.

From the Discussion

Intuitive Action Representations in the Mind

Our primary finding was that judgments about the similarity of actors’ goals was the best predictor of intuitive action similarity judgments. In addition, these goals accounted for the most unique variance in the intuitive similarity data. We interpret this to mean that humans naturally and intuitively process other actors’ internal motivations and thoughts, even in the absence of an explicitly social task. This conclusion adds to a rich literature showing that humans automatically represent others in terms of their mental states, even from a very young age (Gergely and Csibra, 2003; Jara-Ettinger et al., 2016; Liu et al., 2017; Reid et al., 2007; Thornton et al., 2019a,b). In addition, we found that similarity in the actors’ movements also predicted intuitive judgments moderately well and accounted for a smaller amount of unique variance in the data. This finding goes beyond our current understanding of the factors driving natural action processing, to suggest that kinematic information also contributes to intuitive action perception. In contrast, similarity in the videos’ visual appearance did not account for any unique variance in the data, suggesting that lower-level visual properties such as color, form, and motion direction do not have much influence on natural action perception.

A natural extension of these findings is to investigate the specific features that we use to calculate actors’ goals and movements. For example, how important are speed, trajectory, and movement quality (e.g., shaky or smooth) for our assessment of the similarity among actions’ movements? And, do we consider physical variables – such as facial expression – when inferring actors’ goals? Digging into these specific feature dimensions will bring further clarity to the cognitive processes driving intuitive action perception.

The research is here.

Does observability amplify sensitivity to moral frames? Evaluating a reputation-based account of moral preferences

Capraro, V., Jordan, J., & Tappin, B. M. 

(2020, April 9). 

https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/bqjcv

Abstract

A growing body of work suggests that people are sensitive to moral framing in economic games involving prosociality, suggesting that people hold moral preferences for doing the “right thing”. What gives rise to these preferences? Here, we evaluate the explanatory power of a reputation-based account, which proposes that people respond to moral frames because they are motivated to look good in the eyes of others. Across four pre-registered experiments (total N = 9,601), we investigated whether reputational incentives amplify sensitivity to framing effects. Studies 1-3 manipulated (i) whether moral or neutral framing was used to describe a Trade-Off Game (in which participants chose between prioritizing equality or efficiency) and (ii) whether Trade-Off Game choices were observable to a social partner in a subsequent Trust Game. These studies found that observability does not significantly amplify sensitivity to moral framing. Study 4 ruled out the alternative explanation that the observability manipulation from Studies 1-3 is too weak to influence behavior. In Study 4, the same observability manipulation did significantly amplify sensitivity to normative information (about what others see as moral in the Trade-Off Game). Together, these results suggest that moral frames may tap into moral preferences that are relatively deeply internalized, such that the power of moral frames is not strongly enhanced by making the morally-framed behavior observable to others.

From the Discussion

Our results have implications for interventions that draw on moral framing effects to encourage socially desirable behavior. They suggest that such interventions can be successful even when behavior is not observable to others and thus reputation is not at stake—and in fact, that the efficacy of moral framing effects is not strongly enhanced by making behavior observable. Thus, our results suggest that targeting contexts where reputation is at stake is not an especially important priority for individuals seeking to maximize the impact of interventions based on moral framing.  This  conclusion  provides  an  optimistic  view  of  the  potential  of such interventions, given that there may be many contexts in which it is difficult to make behavior observable but yet possible to frame a decision in a way that encourages prosociality—for example, when  crowdsourcing  donations  anonymously(or  nearly  anonymously)on  the Internet.Future research should investigate the power of moral framing to promote prosocial behaviour in anonymous contexts outside of the laboratory.

A pdf of the research is here.

How to motivate people to do good for others

Erez Yoeli
TED Talk

How can we get people to do more good: to go to the polls, give to charity, conserve resources or just generally act better towards others? MIT research scientist Erez Yoeli shares a simple checklist for harnessing the power of reputations -- or our collective desire to be seen as generous and kind instead of selfish -- to motivate people to act in the interest of others. Learn more about how small changes to your approach to getting people to do good could yield surprising results.