The effects of cognitions on self-paced reading of moral vignettes

Date

2020-12

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Abstract

Understanding how we cognitively and affectively represent moral-related information is crucial to understanding tasks performed with moral stimuli present. Reading offers a task to assess processing of moral information while reading and the findings likely also speak to how moral information outside of reading is processed. A two-part self-paced reading study probed the effect of moral features on cognitive representations. During Part 1, participants read first-person vignettes sentence-by-sentence that described two types of moral dilemmas, personal and impersonal, and one of two solutions differing in outcome utility, maximum and minimum, that was taken to resolve the dilemma. Solutions were presented in concluding target sentences. During Part 2, each vignette was reread, and its situation and solution were rated on exploratory variables, like interest and plausibility. First, it was hypothesized that the personal dilemmas’ target sentences would be read significantly faster than those in impersonal dilemmas. Maximum-utility solutions in these dilemmas are tied to reprehensible behaviors that are shown to increase emotion and avoidance responses. Previous research shows that emotionally arousing text is often read faster than neutral text. Next, it was hypothesized that maximum-utility target sentences would be read significantly faster than their minimum-utility counterparts. Previous research shows that text that is expected often speeds reading, and other research shows that individuals typically have benevolent expectations of the future, therefore, would more readily process high utility solutions. Last, it was hypothesized that the dilemma type might moderate this effect of utility, with it being reduced by the avoidance responses evoked from personal dilemmas. Given the nested structure of the study’s data, with responses nested within vignettes and subjects, hypotheses were tested using cross-classified random-effects models. Findings indirectly supported the latter two hypotheses and opposed the first. For the latter two, findings supported the claims, but only in individuals whose overall average reaction rating responses to specific questions, for instance, “How important was the situation…?”, were higher than the overall average rating given by all participants to it. For the first hypothesis, the results showed that target sentences in personal dilemmas were read significantly slower than their impersonal counterparts, which was the opposite of what was hypothesized. Mediation analyses revealed that this might have been due to participants perceiving greater importance in the personal dilemmas’ situations. Study findings support the idea that individuals are sensitive to the moral features of vignettes and that this is observable in the reading times of moral vignettes’ target sentences. Notably, the study’s findings support the idea that cognitive processing of moral situations and their solutions increases as the moral stimuli induce higher amounts of emotional affect or as individual characteristics, related to how keenly the stimuli are perceived, increase.

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Keywords

Moral dilemmas, Moral vignettes, Self-paced reading, Reading, Cross-classified random-effects modeling, Multilevel modeling, Moral cognition, Cognition, Vignettes, Dilemmas, Affect, Target-sentences, Utility, Utilitarianism, Moral stimuli, Moral representation, Moral cognitive processing, Moral-personal, Moral-impersonal

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