ABSTRACT

Imaginative resistance refers to cases in which one’s otherwise flexible imaginative capacity is constrained by an unwillingness or inability to imaginatively engage with a given claim. In three studies, we explored which specific imaginative demands engender resistance when imagining morally deviant worlds and whether individual differences in emotion predict the degree of this resistance. In Study 1 (N = 176), participants resisted the notion that harmful actions could be morally acceptable in the world of a narrative regardless of the author’s claims about these actions but did not resist imagining that a perpetrator of harm could believe their actions to be morally acceptable. In Study 2 (N = 167) we replicated the findings of Study 1 and showed that imaginative resistance is greatest among participants who experience more negative affect in response to imagining harm and are lower in either trait anxiety or trait psychopathy. In Study 3 (N = 210) we show that this is the case even when the harms assessed include both low-severity (i.e., emotional harm) and high-severity (i.e., killing) cases. Thus, people’s moral beliefs constrain their ability to imagine hypothetical moral alternatives, although this ability systematically varies on the basis of stable individual differences in emotion.

摘要

想象抗拒是指一个人原本灵活的想象能力由于不愿意或无法想象地参与给定的主张而受到限制的情况。在三项研究中，我们探讨了在想象道德偏差的世界时哪些特定的想象力需求会产生抵抗，以及情绪的个体差异是否可以预测这种抵抗的程度。在研究 1 ( N = 176) 中，参与者拒绝认为在叙事世界中有害行为在道德上是可以接受的，而不管作者对这些行为的声明如何，但没有拒绝想象伤害的肇事者可以相信他们的行为是道德上可以接受。在研究 2 ( N= 167）我们复制了研究 1 的结果，并表明在对想象伤害产生更多负面影响的参与者中，想象抵抗力最大，而特质焦虑或特质精神病的表现则较低。在研究 3 ( N = 210) 中，我们表明即使评估的危害包括低严重性（即情绪伤害）和高严重性（即杀戮）案例，情况也是如此。因此，人们的道德信念限制了他们想象假设的道德选择的能力，尽管这种能力会根据情绪的稳定个体差异而系统地变化。