Treating Morality as a Fact Promotes Better Behaviour, Researcher Finds

Rebecca Lewis January 30, 2013

Looking at morality as an objective fact rather than a subjective one can help people improve their moral behaviour, a new study suggests.

The study, which was led by Liane Young, a psychology professor and researcher at Boston College, looked at how people’s perception on morality affects their behaviour. In two similar experiments, participants were primed to favour either moral realism or moral antirealism. The latter suggests that morality is subject on a person’s preference, while the former suggests that moral beliefs are like facts.

In the first experiment, a street canvasser attempted to solicit donations from passerby for a charity that aids less fortunate children. Participants were divided into two groups. The first group was asked whether or not they agree that some things are just morally right or wrong to prime a belief in moral realism. The second group, on the other hand, was asked whether or not they agree that morals and values are shaped by one’s culture and upbringing to prime the belief for moral antirealism. For the study control, another set of participants were not asked with any priming questions.

Researchers found that those who were primed with moral realism are twice more likely to donate than those who were primed with moral antirealism and those who were not primed at all.

The second experiment also involved measuring the likelihood of the participants to donate after being primed to choose moral realism or moral antirealism. But this time, the test was done online. Same with the results of the first experiment, those who were primed with moral realism were found to be more willing to donate than those who were made to believe that morality is a subjective matter.

According to Professor Young, since ‘real’ moral stakes may come with corresponding consequences, priming a belief in moral realism can encourage people to behave better. Their findings reveal that getting people to believe that morality must be perceived in an objective manner could enhance moral behaviour under certain conditions, especially when people find the right thing to do to be relatively unambiguous. However, the researchers warn that there could be a different outcome when individuals are faced with more controversial moral issues.

Her report was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Source of this article:

Moral realism as moral motivation: The impact of meta-ethics on everyday decision-making