Self–other moral bias: Evidence from implicit measures and the Word-Embedding Association Test

Abstract

Self–other bias can engender disagreement, misunderstanding, and conflict in real-world interactions. Moral perspectives are powerful in shaping thoughts and behaviors. Whether there is a self–other moral bias is poorly understood. We leveraged the Implicit Association Test (Study 1), the evaluative priming task (Study 2), and the Word-Embedding Association Test (Study 3) to demonstrate the self–other moral bias. We found that 1) people held a significantly stronger association between self and deontology (other and utilitarianism) than other and deontology (self and utilitarianism); and 2) the association between the self and other words and the deontological and utilitarian words was further identified in large bodies of English-language text from the Internet. An awareness of the self–other moral bias may facilitate a better understanding of others' attitudes and behaviors.