UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — When people scan the latest political headlines or watch a video from a war-ravaged land, they tend to feel snap ethical or moral responses first and reason through them later. Now a team of psychologists have developed news tests and mathematical models that help to capture and quantify those snap moral and empathetic judgments.
In a series of studies that looked at people's intuitive moral judgments and empathic responses, the researchers found that certain situations could trigger instant moral and empathetic assessments, even when they were directed to counteract those feelings.
"The studies were really sparked by this big picture question: How do people morally react to the world around them?" said Daryl Cameron, who directs the Empathy and Moral Psychology Laboratory as an assistant professor of psychology and a research associate in the Rock Ethics Institute, Penn State. "Although many theories focus on reasoning as an important part of moral life, within psychology in the past two decades, a lot of new theories have been developed that point to the central importance of intuitive reactions in our moral lives."
Cameron added that although much work remains, these measures for intuitive moral judgment and empathy could lead to tests to help criminologists and psychologists better understand pathological behavior. Cameron's laboratory is currently extending the tasks to understand moral intuitions and empathy for pain in clinical and incarcerated populations.
"In the case of criminal psychopaths, these are people who can tell you exactly what is morally right and wrong, but they often appear to lack these emotional intuitions that sustain ethically appropriate behavior," said Cameron. "So, perhaps in the future, we can find a way to capture these immediate gut reactions and that could, in turn, help us learn how to predict who is going to behave in moral situations."