TY - JOUR
T1 - The Needs of the Many Do Not Outweigh the Needs of the Few
T2 - The Limits of Individual Sacrifice across Diverse Cultures
AU - Sheskin, Mark
AU - Chevallier, Coralie
AU - Adachi, Kuniko
AU - Berniunas, Renatas
AU - Castelain, Thomas
AU - Hulín, Martin
AU - Lenfesty, Hillary
AU - Regnier, Denis
AU - Sebestény, Anikó
AU - Baumard, Nicolas
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was partially supported by ANR-10-LABX-0087 IEC and ANR-10-IDEX-0001-02 PSL*, as well as European Commission’s Sixth Framework Programme (‘Explaining Religion’). The authors thank Stéphane Debove for valuable discussion about the theoretical framing.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
PY - 2018
Y1 - 2018
N2 - A long tradition of research in WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) countries has investigated how people weigh individual welfare versus group welfare in their moral judgments. Relatively less research has investigated the generalizability of results across non-WEIRD populations. In the current study, we ask participants across nine diverse cultures (Bali, Costa Rica, France, Guatemala, Japan, Madagascar, Mongolia, Serbia, and the USA) to make a series of moral judgments regarding both third-party sacrifice for group welfare and first-person sacrifice for group welfare. In addition to finding some amount of cross-cultural variation on most of our questions, we also find two cross-culturally consistent judgments: (1) when individuals are in equivalent situations, overall welfare should be maximized, and (2) harm to individuals should be taken into account, and some types of individual harm can trump overall group welfare. We end by discussing the specific pattern of variable and consistent features in the context of evolutionary theories of the evolution of morality.
AB - A long tradition of research in WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) countries has investigated how people weigh individual welfare versus group welfare in their moral judgments. Relatively less research has investigated the generalizability of results across non-WEIRD populations. In the current study, we ask participants across nine diverse cultures (Bali, Costa Rica, France, Guatemala, Japan, Madagascar, Mongolia, Serbia, and the USA) to make a series of moral judgments regarding both third-party sacrifice for group welfare and first-person sacrifice for group welfare. In addition to finding some amount of cross-cultural variation on most of our questions, we also find two cross-culturally consistent judgments: (1) when individuals are in equivalent situations, overall welfare should be maximized, and (2) harm to individuals should be taken into account, and some types of individual harm can trump overall group welfare. We end by discussing the specific pattern of variable and consistent features in the context of evolutionary theories of the evolution of morality.
KW - evolution
KW - fairness
KW - moral judgment
KW - moral psychology
KW - welfare tradeoffs
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U2 - 10.1163/15685373-12340026
DO - 10.1163/15685373-12340026
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85046260284
SN - 1567-7095
VL - 18
SP - 205
EP - 223
JO - Journal of Cognition and Culture
JF - Journal of Cognition and Culture
IS - 1-2
ER -