Morality and Conformity: A Hypothetical Experimental Design Exploring the Relationship Between Moral Standing and Social Pressure

Ziming Wang

doi:10.54097/5446zm47

Authors

Ziming Wang

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54097/5446zm47

Keywords:

Morality, Moral Dilemmas, Conformity, Social Pressure, Asch’s Conformity Experiments, the Trolley Problem.

Abstract

Morality is one of the crucial founding bricks of human society. Research has shown that even newborn babies demonstrate an innate sense of morality. However, recent studies have shown that situational factors significantly impact people’s moral decisions. One study, in particular, measures the effect of social pressure on moral judgments but makes a potentially inaccurate assumption about participants’ moral standing. To reexamine the results of this study, a hypothetical experiment is designed to investigate the relationship between morality and conformity. This experiment combines the methods of Asch’s conformity experiments and variations of the Trolley problem and addresses the deficiencies in the previous study. The participants in the study will take part in a survey section, a seminar section, and an interview section. In the survey section, the participants answer questions regarding demographics and moral dilemmas. During the seminar section, the participants are asked to announce their answers to the moral dilemmas in front of a group of confederates. The confederates will provide their answers individually, and the participant will be the last to share his answer. Since the confederates know the participant’s answer from the survey session, they will all share an answer different from the participant’s. During the interview section, the participants will be debriefed. The purpose of this experiment is to see whether the participant will conform or not under the pressure of confederates. Hopefully, future scholars can improve and conduct this experiment to investigate the relationship between morality and conformity.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Hamlin, J. K., Wynn, K., Bloom, P., & Mahajan, N. How infants and toddlers react to antisocial others. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2011, 108(50): 19931-19936.

Hamlin, J. K., Wynn, K. Young infants prefer prosocial to antisocial others. Cognitive Development, 2011, 26(1): 30-39.

Schnall, S., Haidt, J., Clore, G. L., Jordan, A. H. Disgust as embodied moral judgment. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2008, 34(8): 1096-1109.

Nichols, S., Mallon, R. Moral dilemmas and moral rules. Cognition, 2006, 100(3): 530-542.

Schwitzgebel, E., Cushman, F. Expertise in moral reasoning? Order effects on moral judgment in professional philosophers and non-philosophers. Mind Language, 2012, 27(2), 135-153.

Kundu, P., Cummins, D. D. Morality and conformity: The asch paradigm applied to moral decisions. Social Influence, 2013, 8(4), 268-279.

Graham, J., Meindl, P., Beall, E., Johnson, K. M., Zhang, L. Cultural differences in moral judgment and behavior, across and within societies. Current Opinion in Psychology, 2016: 8, 125-130.

Asch, S. E. Effects of group pressure upon the modification and distortion of judgments. Documents of Gestalt Psychology, 1951, 34: 222–236.

Asch, S. E. Studies of independence and conformity: I. A minority of one against a unanimous majority. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied, 1956,70(9): 1-70.

Marton-Alper, I. Z., Sobeh, A., Shamay-Tsoory, S. G. The effects of individual moral inclinations on group moral conformity. Current Research in Behavioral Sciences, 2022, 3: 100078.