Professional Documents
Culture Documents
net/publication/313221261
CITATIONS READS
0 288
1 author:
Michael Klenk
Delft University of Technology
28 PUBLICATIONS 53 CITATIONS
SEE PROFILE
Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:
All content following this page was uploaded by Michael Klenk on 02 February 2017.
Review of: Forgas, Joseph P.; Jussim, Lee; Van Lange, Paul A.M. (eds): The Social Psychology of
Morality. The Sydney Symposium of Social Psychology Series, Volume 18. Routledge, New York,
If you put chimpanzees from different communities together you can expect mayhem - they are not keen
on treating each other nicely. There is closely related species of apes, however, whose members have
countless encounters with unrelated specimen on a daily basis and yet almost all get through the day in
one piece - that species is us, homo sapiens. But what makes us get along, most of the time?
The first message of Fargas, Jussim, and Van Lange, the editors of this collection of essays on the
social psychology of morality, is that we get along because we have the ability to think and act in terms of
overarching moral rules; an ability they regard as one “defining hallmark[s] of our species”, so much that
we might as well be called “homo moralis,” the moral man (1). Their second message is that social
psychology occupies a “pivotal role” and a “privileged position” when it comes to understanding morality
because the foundations of morality are based on “predominantly social concerns”, such as fairness or
loyalty (2). Their aim is to provide an “informative and interesting” overview of the current status of this
Morality as such is, perhaps surprisingly, not a mainstream research topic in social psychology.
Most textbooks in the field do not even mention the term morality at all (and focus on ‘prosociality’
instead). This relative lack of ‘coverage’ might have to do with the difficulty of operationalising
‘morality’ in a fitting way (more on this below). However, morality certainly is a social phenomenon and
therefore the collection of Fargas, Jussim, and Van Lange is certainly a step in the right direction; it offers
an extensive overview of the field and is suggestive of the vast potential of studying morality through the
In the introduction, the editors provide useful background information about current social
psychological perspectives on morality as well as brief summaries of the seventeen essays contained in
1
Michael Klenk, Utrecht University, m.b.o.t.klenk@uu.nl Review Forgas, Jussim, Lange 2016
the volume. The contributed essays are aimed at an academic, specialist audience and presuppose
knowledge of technical terms from social psychology and, in some articles, a basic understanding of
statistics. They are grouped under four headings: ‘The Nature of Moral Values and Decisions,' ‘Moral
Aspects of Interpersonal Behaviour,' ‘Ironic and Paradoxical Effects of Morality,’ and finally ‘Morality
and Collective Behaviour.’ Given the generality of these themes, the groupings are mostly justified but
not very informative. For example, all chapters somehow relate to the ‘Nature of Moral Values and
Decisions’ and obviously, this being social psychology, to the ‘Moral Aspects of Interpersonal
Behaviour’ and to ‘Morality and Collective Behaviour.' Aside from that, speaking about ‘Ironic and
Paradoxical Effects of Morality’ suggests that chapters under this heading contain normative claims about
certain outcomes being ‘immoral,' ‘ironic’ or ‘paradoxical,' which none of the essays actually does.
However, all chapters share a methodological commitment to study morality descriptively; that is,
none tells you what you should do but rather how and why people like you behave, feel, or think about
moral matters in social contexts in such-and-such ways. Most chapters address either of two major
themes.
The first is the study of the influencing factors on overt moral behaviour. Gawronski et al. use
experimental designs based on the trolley-dilemma to examine how individual’s action tendencies affect
decisions in moral dilemmas (’Understanding Responses to Moral Dilemmas’). Simpson et al. lay the
conceptual groundwork to study the interpersonal influences on moral behaviour by proposing testable
hypotheses about the determinants of moral intuitions in intimate relationships (’A Relational Perspective
of Social Influence on Moral Issues’). Galinsky & Lee review existing experimental findings of the
contexts with conflicting interests leads to ‘unethical’ behaviour (’When Perspective Takers Turn
Unethical’). Forgas studies outcomes in games from experimental economics, like the ultimatum or the
dictator game, and shows persuasively that subjects induced with negative moods show less selfish
behaviour, measured by the amount of resources they share with others (’Affective Influences on Moral
Decisions’). Graziano & Schroeder speculate about possible determinants of prosociality (‘Sin, Morality,
2
Michael Klenk, Utrecht University, m.b.o.t.klenk@uu.nl Review Forgas, Jussim, Lange 2016
and Opponent Motives for Prosocial Behaviour’). Crockett presents a computational model of moral
decisions, based on experiments with economic games, which models moral decisions on three
parameters (’Computational Modeling of Moral Decisions’). Von Hippel et al. focus the determinants of
leadership styles in groups and argue, based on a review of ethnographic and sociobiological findings,
that the presence of inequality within a group leads to ‘immoral’ leadership styles (’Of Baboons and
Elephants’).
The second theme is the study of the origins and correlational determinants of covert moral rules.
Laham & Corless employ exploratory factor analysis to determine the influence of threat-sensitivity on
neuroticism, a personality trait often reported to influence the moral and political values of individuals
(’Threat, Morality, and Politics’). Brandt et al. review existing studies and discuss the relation of self-
argues that the origins of moral rules can be partly explained by terror-management theory (‘God Save
Us’). Firmer assesses how groups create moral idols to motivate and navigate the members of the group;
an exemplary case of the pragmatic utility of adopting a moral system (’Groups Create Moral
Superheroes to Defend Sacred Values’). Miller & Monin offer a fine conceptual analysis of two separate
The remaining contributions do not fit the two major themes: Cooper presents own experimental
data and explains how social-psychological factors can lead people to confess to immoral acts – warning
us that people can be lead to make self-incriminating confessions even if the stakes are very high
(’Confessing To An Immoral Act’). Jussim et al. review research findings on controversial, normatively
‘loaded’ topics, like research on sex differences, and persuasively argue that moral rules can bias
researchers in interpreting their findings (’Can High Moral Purposes Undermine Scientific Integrity?’).
Fiedler takes the conduct of researchers in response to what he deems “haphazard standards and
instructions” (218) about good scientific conduct as a test case for the explanatory power of Kohlberg’s
moral rationalism (cf. Kohlber & Hersh 1977) and Moral Foundations Theory (cf. Graham et al. 2013),
arguing that neither fares very well in explaining this case (’Ethical Norms and Moral Values’). Haslam
3
Michael Klenk, Utrecht University, m.b.o.t.klenk@uu.nl Review Forgas, Jussim, Lange 2016
similarly applies social psychology on a meta-level as an explanation of what he calls ‘concept creep’: his
review of the use of concepts like ‘abuse’ or ‘bullying’ shows that they are applied more phenomena and
to milder instances of their original referents, which he explains in terms of an expansion of the ‘moral
circle’ and an increased sensitivity to harm (’Concept Creep’). Bastian & Crimston assess what leads
people to assign moral values to resources and infer practical implications of this manifest tendency (’The
Naturally, each of the seventeen individual chapters offers more than what I could briefly
summarise here. Taken together, they form an impressive showcase of the manifold of topics related to
morality that is now being approached, in a nuanced manner, with the tools of social psychology. Below I
register a general concern about this approach and then highlight a contribution that exemplifies this error,
as well as one that stands out for being exceptionally insightful and suggestive of further research.
My general concern is the menacing problem of operationalising what counts as moral when
studying behaviour, convictions, or action-guiding rules. In short, we need to be careful about what we
end up studying when we ask about moral behaviour and the variety of dissimilar, and thus potentially
problematic, operationalisations of the concept found in this volume counsel caution about premature
optimism. For instance, the seven essays that address influences on overt moral behaviour work with four
scenarios that involve bodily harm to other people (e.g. in the trolley dilemma); about selfish vs. unselfish
behaviour in economic games, where keeping resources to yourself is dubbed ‘selfish’; about group-
serving vs. ‘self-serving’ behaviour in groups, where it is not clear what either concept amounts to; and
I have no qualms with counting considerations about harm as moral. However, why think that
keeping all the money that you receive in a dictator game (where you are given, say, 10€ and are free to
decide how much to give to someone else) is immoral? It is selfish, sure, but drawing valid conclusions
about moral behaviour depends on whether we agree, on normative grounds, that we have a moral
obligation to share almost unconditionally. Hence, it is certainly a challenge for those interested in
4
Michael Klenk, Utrecht University, m.b.o.t.klenk@uu.nl Review Forgas, Jussim, Lange 2016
research on morality to find out how empirically investigate morality, the real deal, and not just a masked
The problem with unclear terms is evident in the contribution of Galinsky and Lee. They argue that
perspective taking (e.g. imagining the thoughts, feelings, and motivations of another person) can lead to
“unethical” behaviour in competitive contexts (133). What they find is, roughly, that subjects who gauge
the competitive intentions of their competitors are more likely to behave themselves competitively, too.
What is ‘unethical’ about that? Galinsky and Lee do not seem to be quite sure either, and so they describe
the apparent “immoral” (127) behaviour also in less-loaded terms such as “egoistically” (127), “selfish”
(131), or “antisocial” (134). Arguably, however, something being ‘antisocial,' understood along the lines
of ‘not welcome by other people’, is quite different from being ‘unethical’ - particularly in competitive
contexts. After all, everyone strives to do things unwelcome to their opponents, but few strive to behave
unethically.
Moreover, even if we agree that perspective taking sometimes leads to unethical behaviour, that
finding should not be surprising at all. The authors seem to be fighting a straw-men who, mistakenly,
suggests that perspective taking always leads to moral behaviour, or, worse still, that perspective-taking is
morally good in itself. But perspective taking in itself is normatively neutral: if you see a person with a
face-mask and a knife entering a shop, you might gauge the criminal intentions and call the police or you
might run away. But what is or isn’t ethical in that situation is what you do after you ‘took the
perspective’ of the would-be robber. Surely the authors would agree; and since they do not show that
anyone actually believes that perspective taking itself is a “royal road to morality,” their main claim is
et al. Their findings challenge a widely held view about the determinants of utilitarian (outcome-based)
and deontological (norm-based) decisions through careful consideration of the operationalisations used in
experimental designs. They use an experimental design to study responses to the trolley dilemma: a
trolley is on track to five number of people standing on the track and respondents have to decide about
5
Michael Klenk, Utrecht University, m.b.o.t.klenk@uu.nl Review Forgas, Jussim, Lange 2016
diverting the trolley to another track on which it would kill only one person (there are multiple variations
of this basic scenario). Usually, switching tracks, that is killing one instead of five, is interpreted as
because, the reasoning goes, subjects judge that switching tracks would be akin to killing, which is
proscribed by forceful norms. Many findings suggested that cognitive load, for instance having to
memorise numbers during the task, increased the proportion of deontological judgements in trolley cases,
which is part of the evidence for the claim that characteristically deontological judgements are based on
emotional processes (e.g. Green 2008). However, Gawronski et al. included a check for general action
tendencies (that is, whether subjects prefer to act or stay passive) in their experiments and found that a
tendency for inaction often explained decisions that other researchers attributed to a preference for
deontological moral judgements. In contrast to that, Gawronski et al. show that “limited cognitive
resources influence moral judgements by inducing a general preference for inaction … rather than by
In conclusion: the book is well worth reading for anyone interested in empirical approaches to
studying morality and for those who want to get an impression of the breadth of recent social
psychological research on the matter. All chapters reward the reader with interesting insights, based both
on new empirical data and novel reviews of existing findings. And while the problems mentioned above
suggest that we should not be satisfied yet with social psychology assuming its role as “the core discipline
for understanding morality,” the editors certainly achieved their goal of showcasing the current status of
References
Graham J, Haidt J, Koleva S, Motyl M, Iyer R, Wojcik SP, Ditto PH (2013) Moral foundations theory:
The pragmatic validity of moral pluralism. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 47:55–130
6
Michael Klenk, Utrecht University, m.b.o.t.klenk@uu.nl Review Forgas, Jussim, Lange 2016
Greene JD (2008) The secret joke of Kant's soul. In: Sinnott-Armstrong W (ed) Moral psychology: The
neuroscience of morality: Emotion, brain disorders, and development. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass,
pp 35–79
Haidt J (2001) The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment.
Kohlberg L, Hersh RH (1977) Moral Development: A review of the theory. Theory Into Practice 16:53-
59 Kohlberg L, Hersh RH (1977) Moral Development: A review of the theory. Theory Into Practice
16:53-59