Although recent research has highlighted that social relationships influence moral judgment, many questions remain. Across two pre-registered experiments (total N = 1310), we investigated one social relationship and its link to morality: kinship and its obligations. Experiment 1 varied genetic relatedness between helpers and beneficiaries (i.e., strangers, cousins, siblings), investigating differences in perceived obligations to help and downstream moral evaluations of helpers. Experiment 2 investigated whether these patterns varied via agents being estranged versus friendly, and whether relatedness impacts obligation judgments through other social interaction inferences (e.g., social closeness, frequency of prior help). Before helping occurred, agents were judged as having stronger obligations toward relatives than strangers, and closer relatives (i.e., siblings) than distant relatives (i.e., cousins). After helping occurred, agents who helped strangers were judged as more morally good than agents who helped relatives, but agents who helped strangers instead of relatives (or cousins instead of siblings) were judged as less morally good than agents who did the opposite. Perceived obligation differences shaped moral evaluation differences at the individual level only in contexts where agents helped one beneficiary over another. Importantly, social interaction inference differences were always more strongly correlated with obligation judgment differences than relatedness judgment differences were. Additionally, endorsement of family values and ingroup-loyalty correlated positively with obligations toward family, whereas endorsement of impartial beneficence correlated positively with obligations toward strangers. By broadening the theoretical and methodological scope of prior work, this research offers a richer characterization of some of the determinants and consequences of perceiving obligations to help.

尽管最近的研究强调社会关系会影响道德判断，但仍有许多问题。在两个预先注册的实验中（总共N = 1310），我们调查了一种社会关系及其与道德的联系：亲属关系及其义务。实验 1 改变了帮助者和受益人（即陌生人、堂兄弟、兄弟姐妹）之间的遗传相关性，调查了帮助者的感知义务和下游对帮助者的道德评价的差异。实验 2 调查了这些模式是否因代理疏远与友好而不同，以及相关性是否通过其他社会互动推断（例如，社会亲密度、先前帮助的频率）影响义务判断。在帮助发生之前，代理人被认为对亲戚比陌生人有更强的义务，近亲（即兄弟姐妹）比远亲（即表亲）更有义务。帮助发生后，帮助陌生人的代理人被认为比帮助亲属的代理人在道德上更善良，但帮助陌生人而不是亲戚（或表亲而不是兄弟姐妹）的代理人被认为在道德上不如做相反行为的代理人。只有在代理人帮助一个受益人而不是另一个受益人的情况下，感知义务差异才会在个人层面形成道德评价差异。重要的是，与相关性判断差异相比，社会互动推理差异与义务判断差异的相关性总是更强。此外，对家庭价值观和群体忠诚的认可与对家庭的义务呈正相关，而对公正善行的认可与对陌生人的义务呈正相关。