Abstract
Royzman and Baron (2002) demonstrated that people prefer indirect harm to direct harm: they judge actions that produce harm as a by-product to be more moral than actions that produce harm directly. In two preregistered studies, we successfully replicated Study 2 of Royzman and Baron (2002) with a Hong Kong student sample (N = 46) and an online American Mechanical Turk sample (N = 314). We found con- sistent evidential support for the preference for indirect harm phenomenon (d = 0.46 [0.26, 0.65] to 0.47 [0.18, 0.75]), weaker than effects reported in the original findings of the target article (d = 0.70 [0.40, 0.99]). We also successfully replicated findings regarding reasons underlying a preference for indirect harm (di- rectness, intent, omission, probability of harm, and appearance of harm). All materials, data, and code are available at osf.io/ewq8g.
Highlights
Long Ho Ngai2, Yuk Kwan Lau2, Iban Kaur Bhattal2, Pui Sin Keung2, Yan To Wong2, Wing Zhang Tong2
We found consistent evidential support for the preference for indirect harm phenomenon (d = 0.46 [0.26, 0.65] to 0.47 [0.18, 0.75]), weaker than effects reported in the original findings of the target article (d = 0.70 [0.40, 0.99])
Preference for indirect harm is central in the understanding of moral judgment
Summary
Long Ho Ngai, Yuk Kwan Lau, Iban Kaur Bhattal, Pui Sin Keung, Yan To Wong, Wing Zhang Tong. Acts of omission are considered more moral than acts of commission, despite leading to the same result (omission bias) (Spranca, Minsk, & Baron, 1991) In their 2002 article, Royzman and Baron found that people preferred indirect harm to direct harm and considered indirect harm as more moral (Studies 1 and 2). Royzman and Baron (2002) hypothesized and found that even if a negative outcome is the same, people judge the morality of actions leading to that negative outcome as dependent on whether there was a direct or indirect link between the action and outcome This in turn resulted in a strategic preference for indirect harm. In line with these results, more recent research found further support for the intuitive nature of preference for indirect harm, as evaluation mode (joint vs. separate) moderated the effect (Paharia, Kassam, Greene, & Bazerman, 2009)
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