Cold Side-Effect Effect: Affect Does Not Mediate the Influence of Moral Considerations in Intentionality Judgments.

Rodrigo Díaz,Hugo Viciana,Antoni Gomila

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00295

Abstract

Research has consistently shown that people consider harmful side effects of an action more intentional than helpful side effects. This phenomenon is known as the side-effect effect (SEE), which refers to the influence of moral considerations in judgments of intentionality and other non-moral concepts. There is an ongoing debate about how to explain this asymmetric pattern of judgment and the psychological factors involved in it. It has been posited that affective reactions to agents that bring about harmful side-effects could bias intentionality attributions in these cases, explaining the asymmetric pattern of intentionality judgments that we observe in the SEE. We call this the affective bias hypothesis (ABH). Evidence for the ABH is mixed, with some findings suggesting a role for affective processes, while others suggesting that affective processes play no role in the SEE. A possible explanation for these apparently contradictory results points to affective processes involved in the SEE being confined to anger. In a series of empirical studies, we systematically measured and manipulated participants’ anger in order to test this possibility. Our findings suggest that anger play no role in intentionality judgments in SEE cases, while providing support for a non-emotional motivation to blame as a factor underlying the SEE.

Highlights

In everyday social life, we constantly attribute mental states such as beliefs and intentions to others
Eight participants failed the Attention Check Questions (ACQs), 27 participants affirmed being familiar with the chairman scenario, and four participants mentioned a relationship between our independent and dependent variables when asked about the experimental hypothesis
We tested the role of anger on intentionality attributions for negative side effects to which the agent expresses indifference

Summary

Introduction

We constantly attribute mental states such as beliefs and intentions to others. This ability to understand other’s mental states, typically called theory of mind or folk psychology, has been argued to be essential for social functioning and cultural development (Tomasello et al, 2005). Whether or not an action is done intentionally influences judgments of moral wrongness (Barrett et al, 2016). Most moral and legal systems consider intentionality as a fundamental input for judgment of right or wrong. Recent investigations suggest that the relationship could hold in the opposite direction, with moral judgments influencing folk psychological attributions, at least as regards side effects of actions. In a seminal study, Knobe (2003) presented participants with the following vignette: Cold Side-Effect Effect

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