Nudging the better angels of our nature: A field experiment on morality and well-being.

Adam Waytz, & Wilhelm Hofmann
Emotion, Feb 28 , 2019, No Pagination Specified

Abstract

A field experiment examines how moral behavior, moral thoughts, and self-benefiting behavior affect daily well-being. Using experience sampling technology, we randomly grouped participants over 10 days to either behave morally, have moral thoughts, or do something positive for themselves. Participants received treatment-specific instructions in the morning of 5 days and no instructions on the other 5 control days. At each day’s end, participants completed measures that examined, among others, subjective well-being, self-perceived morality and empathy, and social isolation and closeness. Full analyses found limited evidence for treatment- versus control-day differences. However, restricting analyses to occasions on which participants complied with instructions revealed treatment- versus control-day main effects on all measures, while showing that self-perceived morality and empathy toward others particularly increased in the moral deeds and moral thoughts group. These findings suggest that moral behavior, moral thoughts, and self-benefiting behavior are all effective means of boosting well-being, but only moral deeds and, perhaps surprisingly, also moral thoughts strengthen the moral self-concept and empathy. Results from an additional study assessing laypeople’s predictions suggest that people do not fully intuit this pattern of results.

Here is part of the Discussion:

Overall, inducing moral thoughts and behaviors toward others enhanced feelings of virtuousness compared to the case for self-serving behavior. This makes sense given that people likely internalized their moral thoughts and behaviors in the two moral conditions, whereas the treat-yourself condition did not direct participants toward morality. Restricting analyses to days when people complied with treatment-specific instructions revealed significant positive effects on satisfaction for all treatments. That is, compared to receiving no instructions to behave morally, think morally, or treat oneself, receiving and complying with such instructions on treatment-specific days increased happiness and satisfaction with one’s life. Although the effect size was highest in the treat-yourself condition, improvements in satisfaction were statistically equivalent across conditions. Overall, the moral deeds condition in this compliant-only analysis revealed the broadest improvements across other measures related to well-being, whereas the treat-yourself condition was the only condition to significantly reduce exhaustion. Examining instances when participants reported behaving morally, thinking morally, or behaving self-servingly, independent of treatment, revealed comparable results for moral deeds and self-treats enhancing well-being generally, with moral thoughts enhancing most measures of well-being as well.

The research is here.

Can self-preservation be virtuous in disaster situations?

By Justin Oakley
Journal of Medical Ethics 
doi:10.1136/medethics-2013-101631

Ordinary moral rules and virtues can be found seriously inadequate in circumstances where natural catastrophes afflict large numbers of people. Satoshi Kodama provides a strong defence of the rule of tsunami-tendenko being invoked as an evacuation policy in these exceptional situations, such as that facing many people in the Tōhoku region of Japan during the severe earthquake and subsequent tsunami there on 11 March 2011.1 As Kodama explains, tsunami-tendenko tells a person in such situations to prioritise self-preservation over attempting to help others, and people living in earthquake-prone and tsunami-prone areas have learned from past experience that acting on such a rule is likely to save more lives overall than is acting on a policy of searching for and attempting to help others escape the disaster.

Tsunami-tendenko seems to be a reasonable general principle for people to follow in such exceptional circumstances, particularly where disasters strike suddenly, and the resulting chaos can make efforts to locate others not only extremely difficult but in some cases suicidal. Kodama provides plausible indirect consequentialist arguments for this principle to be used in these dramatic situations.

The entire article is here.

Which Beliefs Contribute to Virtuous Behavior?

By Christian Miller
Big Questions Online
June 15, 2012 (and still relevant today)

Which beliefs contribute to virtuous behavior? In other words, which beliefs can we form to make it more likely that we act virtuously in the future – more honestly, more compassionately, more courageously, more humbly, and the like? In this brief essay, I will propose four different answers, but I want to stress that these are not the only ones that could be given. I have included them only because these answers repeatedly show up in my own reading of research in psychology and philosophy.

First we should note that our question is asking specifically about beliefs. Beliefs are not the only mental states worth mentioning – desires and emotions are also incredibly important to virtuous behavior (but will have to wait for another essay).

The entire story is here.