We theorize that victim anonymity is an important factor in ethical decision making, such that actors engage in more self-interested and unethical behaviors toward anonymous victims than they do toward identifiable victims. Three experiments provided empirical support for this argument. In Study 1, participants withheld more life-saving products from anonymous than from identifiable victims. In Study 2, participants allocated a sum of payment more unfairly when interacting with an anonymous than with an identifiable partner. Finally, in Study 3, participants cheated (...) more from an anonymous than from an identifiable person. Anticipated guilt fully mediated these effects in all three studies. Taken together, our research suggests that anonymous victims may be more likely to incur unethical treatment, which could explain many unethical business behaviors. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

People use social categories to perceive and interact with the social world. Different categorizations often share similar cognitive, affective and behavioral features. This leads to a hypothesis of the common representational forms of social categorization. Studies in social categorization often use the terms “ingroup” and “outgroup” without clear conceptualization of the terms. I argue that the ingroup/outgroup distinction should be treated as an elementary relational ego-centric form of social categorization based on specific cognitive mechanisms. Such an abstract relational form should (...) produce specific effects irrespective of the nature of a particular social category. The article discusses theoretical grounds for this hypothesis as well as empirical evidence from behavioral and brain research. It is argued that what is commonly termed as “ingroup” and “outgroup” can be produced by distinct cognitive operations based on similarity assessment and coalitional computation. (shrink)

This research examined how and why group membership diminishes the attribution of mind to individuals. We found that mind attribution was inversely related to the size of the group to which an individual belonged . Mind attribution was affected by group membership rather than the total number of entities perceived at once . Moreover, mind attribution to an individual varied with the perception that the individual was a group member. Participants attributed more mind to an individual that appeared distinct or (...) distant from other group members than to an individual that was perceived to be similar or proximal to a cohesive group . This effect occurred for both human and nonhuman targets, and was driven by the perception of the target as an entitative group member rather than by the knowledge that the target was an entitative group member. (shrink)

Efficiency as quantified and promoted by cost-effectiveness analysis sometimes conflicts with equity and other ethical values, such as the “rule of rescue” or rights-based ethical values. We describe the utilitarian foundations of cost-effectiveness analysis and compare it with alternative ethical principles. We find that while fallible, utilitarianism is usually superior to the alternatives. This is primarily because efficiency – the maximization of health benefits under a budget constraint – is itself an important ethical value. Other ethical frames may be irrelevant, (...) incompatible with each other, or have unacceptable implications. When alternatives to efficiency are considered for precedence, we propose that it is critical to quantify the trade-offs, in particular, the lost health benefits associated with divergence from strict efficiency criteria. Using an example from HIV prevention in a high-prevalence African country, we show that favoring a rights-based decision could result in 92–118 added HIV infections per $100,000 of spending, compared to one based on cost-effectiveness. (shrink)

Efficiency as quantified and promoted by cost-effectiveness analysis sometimes conflicts with equity and other ethical values, such as the “rule of rescue” or rights-based ethical values. We describe the utilitarian foundations of cost-effectiveness analysis and compare it with alternative ethical principles. We find that while fallible, utilitarianism is usually superior to the alternatives. This is primarily because efficiency – the maximization of health benefits under a budget constraint – is itself an important ethical value. Other ethical frames may be irrelevant, (...) incompatible with each other, or have unacceptable implications. When alternatives to efficiency are considered for precedence, we propose that it is critical to quantify the trade-offs, in particular, the lost health benefits associated with divergence from strict efficiency criteria. Using an example from HIV prevention in a high-prevalence African country, we show that favoring a rights-based decision could result in 92–118 added HIV infections per $100,000 of spending, compared to one based on cost-effectiveness. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The use of social media by extreme right groups and the self-proclaimed formation of the ‘alt-right’ in recent years have been linked to the rise in US white nationalism. Against a backdrop of widespread concern regarding the growing nature of the ‘alt-right’ phenomenon, this article responds to the pressing need to understand its appeal. Specifically, we examine the discursive means by which a hitherto unexamined US ‘alt-right’ group, the Traditionalist Worker Party, constructs its group identity and ideology online. Corpus (...) assisted discourse analysis of this group’s blog reveals that the Traditionalist Worker Party regularly mobilises five discourses in order to assert subject positions of victimhood for its members, alongside recurrent use of explicit out-grouping strategies. The out-groups are blamed for a general malaise – an uncertain, chaotic reality that can and must be changed through affiliation with the Traditionalist Worker Party. The study also shows that the Traditionalist Worker Party constructs itself a highly entitative group as a means to enhancing its recruitment appeal. (shrink)

This research investigated how interpersonal communication with a large audience can influence communicators’ attitudes. Research on the saying-is-believing effect has shown that when an individual’s attitude is perceived in advance by a communicator, the communicator tunes the message to the person, which biases the communicator’s attitude toward the person’s attitude. In this study, we examined the conditions under which audience tuning and attitude bias can occur with audiences containing more than one individual. We manipulated communicators’ perceived group entity for a (...) large audience and the audience’s prior attitudinal valence and measured the audience’s epistemic trust. The results showed that communicators tuned their messages to the audience’s attitude when they perceived group entitativity and epistemic trust. Furthermore, tuning the message to the audience was found to bias communicators’ subsequent impressions of the topic in a direction closer to the audience’s attitude. These results suggest that perceiving a large audience as a group influences the subsequent impressions of electronic word-of-mouth product or service communicators. (shrink)

Machine learning algorithms reshape how people communicate, exchange, and associate; how institutions sort them and slot them into social positions; and how they experience life, down to the most ordinary and intimate aspects. In this article, we draw on examples from the field of social media to review the commonalities, interactions, and contradictions between the dispositions of people and those of machines as they learn from and make sense of each other.

Actions are usually generalized among social group members. Importantly, the efficiency of an action with respect to achieving an external target determines action understanding, and it may have different degrees of social relevance to social groups. Thus, this study explored the role of action efficiency in action generalization. We used computer animations to simulate actions in social groups initiated by visual action cues or category labels, and we measured differences in response times between identifying actions that were and were not (...) consistent with group members, without explicit requirements regarding generalization. It was found that in both visually introduced and explicitly labeled social groups, when the group members acted inefficiently toward the external object, perceivers identified group‐consistent actions faster than group‐inconsistent actions, indicating that the exemplars' common inefficient actions are generalized to the unknown ingroup member, accordingly facilitating the identification of expected consistent inefficient action (Experiment 1). As this effect was not present when removing social group cues, it was determined to be specific to social groups (Experiment 2). Importantly, such generalization was not observed when the identical action was deemed efficient toward the external object (Experiment 3) and was specific to the demonstration of the action being completed by multiple group members rather than being repeated twice by one group member, supporting the group‐based inference and ruling out the possibility of the increased memorability of inefficient actions leading to more generalization relative to efficient actions (Experiment 4). Therefore, the efficiency of an action bounds the generalization of the action across social group members through a process that is spontaneous and implicit. This constrained action generalization may be due to inefficient actions being represented as culture‐specific conventional forms. (shrink)

The Under— and Overestimation Effects in Comparative Judgments — Assimilation and Contrast Mechanisms The aim of the studies presented in this paper was to propose a new explanation of under— and overestimation effects in comparative judgments. The fundamental assumption of this new interpretation is that in comparative judgments the target is contrasted with the comparison standard when the compared objects seem generally dissimilar and assimilated to the standard when the objects seem generally similar. In a series of three studies students (...) were asked to compare the chances of certain events occurring to two objects. The direction of comparison was manipulated. Generally, when the more salient object was compared to the less salient object, irrespective of the valence of the events, the overestimation effects occurred only in case of frequent events and the underestimation effects only in case of rare events. The reversal of direction of comparisons yielded the clear reduction of comparative bias. (shrink)

Reasoning about social groups and their associated markers was investigated as a particular case of human reasoning about cue-category relationships. Assertions that reasoning involving cues and associated categories elicits specific probabilistic assumptions are supported by the results of three experiments. This phenomenon remains intact across the use of categorical syllogisms, conditional syllogisms, and the use of social groups that vary in their perceived cohesiveness, or entitativity. Implications are discussed for various theories of reasoning, and additional aspects of social group/coalitional reasoning (...) are also discussed. (shrink)

The studies presented here apply the concept of entitativity in order to understand how belonging to a particular geographical area – neighborhood - can determine the way others organize information and form impressions about area’s residents. In order to achieve this objective, three studies were carried out. The first study aims to verify if a neighborhood varies in terms of perceived entitativity, and identify the physical and social characteristics of the neighborhoods that are more strongly associated with the perception of (...) entitativity. The Study 2 and 3 used an experimental paradigm to explore how people’s perceptions of neighborhoods’ entitativity influenced their impressions of residents. To activate stereotypes, Study 2 used the name of real neighborhoods, and Study 3 employed only a set of pictures of unknown neighborhoods. The results show that the neighborhoods vary significantly with the regard to the perception of entitativity, and a set of physical attributes of place were strongly related with entitativity. The results showed that, independent of stimuli, the neighborhoods perceived as highly entitative, the supposed residents were subject to more extreme and quicker trait judgments, supported by greater confidence on the part of perceivers. Study 3 also reported that in highly entitative neighborhoods, the perceivers transferred more traits from the group to individual members. These results provide strong evidence that physical structure of neighborhoods imply different entitatity judgments that influences the way in which residents are perceived. (shrink)

The Protestant Work Ethic is a powerful force in Western culture with far reaching effects on our values and judgments. While research on PWE as a cultural value is abundant in diverse disciplines, little research has explored how this cultural value facilitates the use of heuristics when evaluating the morality of others. Using both PWE and illusory correlation as foundations, this paper explores whether people attribute positive moral characteristics to others merely based upon a description as hardworking. Three experiments suggest (...) merely being described as hardworking leads to perceptions of greater honesty, a more careful and detailed approach to one’s work, accompanied by a lesser likelihood of engaging in cheating behavior and a greater likelihood of accountability. These results have implications regarding the detection of deviant/fraudulent behavior. (shrink)

Groups have committed historical wrongs (e.g., genocide, slavery). We investigated why people blame current groups who were not involved in the original historical wrong for the actions of their predecessors who committed these wrongs and are no longer alive. Current models of individual and group blame overlook the dimension of time and therefore have difficulty explaining this phenomenon using their existing criteria like causality, intentionality, or preventability. We hypothesized that factors that help psychologically bridge the past and present, like perceiving (...) higher (a) connectedness between past and present perpetrator groups, (b) continued privilege of perpetrator groups, (c) continued harm of victim groups, and (d) unfulfilled forward obligations of perpetrator groups would facilitate higher blame judgments against current groups for the past. In two repeated-measures surveys using real events (N1 = 518, N2 = 495) and two conjoint experiments using hypothetical events (N3 = 598, N4 = 605), we find correlational and causal evidence for our hypotheses. These factors link present groups to their past and cause more historical blame and support for compensation policies. This work brings the dimension of time into theories of blame, uncovers overlooked criteria for blame judgments, and questions the assumptions of existing blame models. Additionally, it helps us understand the psychological processes undergirding intergroup relations and historical narratives mired in historical conflict. Our work provides psychological insight into the debates on intergenerational justice by suggesting methods people can use to ameliorate the psychological legacies of historical wrongs and atrocities. (shrink)

Impression of helpers can vary as a function of the magnitude of helping and of situational and motivational aspects. Over three studies conducted in Sweden and the US, we manipulated both the amount and the type of help in ten diverse vignettes and measured participants’ impressions of the described helpers. Impressions were almost unaffected when increasing the amount of help by 500%, but clearly affected by several type of help-manipulations. Particularly, helpers were less positively evaluated if they had mixed motives (...) for helping, did not experience intense emotions or empathy, or if helping involved no personal sacrifice. In line with the person-centered theory of moral judgment, people seem to form impressions of helpers primarily based on the presumed underlying processes and motives of prosociality rather than its consequences. (shrink)