Abstract

Over the last decade, social media has increasingly been used as a platform for political and moral discourse. We investigate whether conformity, specifically concerning moral attitudes, occurs in these virtual environments apart from face-to-face interactions. Participants took an online survey and saw either statistical information about the frequency of certain responses, as one might see on social media (Study 1), or arguments that defend the responses in either a rational or emotional way (Study 2). Our results show that social information shaped moral judgments, even in an impersonal digital setting. Furthermore, rational arguments were more effective at eliciting conformity than emotional arguments. We discuss the implications of these results for theories of moral judgment that prioritize emotional responses.

摘要

在过去的十年中，社交媒体越来越多地被用作政治和道德话语的平台。我们调查除了面对面的互动之外，在这些虚拟环境中是否发生了符合性，尤其是关于道德态度的符合性。参与者进行了在线调查，或者看到了某些响应的频率统计信息，如人们在社交媒体上可能会看到的（研究1），或以理性或情感方式捍卫响应的论点（研究2）。我们的结果表明，即使在非个人数字环境下，社会信息也会影响道德判断。此外，理性论证比情感论证更能引起人们的认同。我们讨论了这些结果对优先考虑情感反应的道德判断理论的影响。