Psychological Science ( IF 10.172 ) Pub Date : 2021-04-02 , DOI: 10.1177/09567976211002821 Maayan S. Malter 1 , Sonia S. Kim 1 , Janet Metcalfe 2
In five experiments (N = 1,490), participants were asked to imagine themselves as programmers of self-driving cars who had to decide how to program the car to respond in a potential accident: spare the driver or spare pedestrians. Alternatively, participants imagined that they were a mayor grappling with difficult moral dilemmas concerning COVID-19. Either they, themselves, had to decide how to program the car or which COVID-19 policy to implement (high-agency condition) or they were told by their superior how to act (low-agency condition). After learning that a tragic outcome occurred because of their action, participants reported their felt culpability. Although we expected people to feel less culpable about the outcome if they acted in accordance with their superior’s injunction than if they made the decision themselves, participants actually felt more culpable when they followed their superior’s order. Some possible reasons for this counterintuitive finding are discussed.
中文翻译:
谦卑的感觉:只服从命令还是自己做决定
在五个实验(Ñ= 1,490),要求参与者将自己想象成自动驾驶汽车的程序员,他们必须决定如何对汽车进行编程以应对潜在事故:使驾驶员或行人空余。另外,参与者还以为自己是一位市长,在与COVID-19相关的道德困境上挣扎。他们自己要么必须决定如何对汽车编程,要么要实施哪种COVID-19政策(高机构条件),或者上级会告诉他们如何采取行动(低机构条件)。在得知他们的行为导致悲剧性结局后,参与者报告了自己的罪魁祸首。尽管我们希望人们按照上级的命令行事比对结果感到轻罪,而不是自己做出决定,参加者遵循上级的命令时,实际上会感到更加卑鄙。讨论了这种违反直觉的发现的一些可能原因。