Social Impressions and Moral-Dilemma Judgments

Prior research suggests that people hold more favorable impressions of others who make deontological (vs. utilitarian) judgments in sacrificial moral dilemmas. To examine the specific factors underlying this phenomenon, two preregistered studies ( N = 644) measured impressions of morality, sociability, and competence of a known target person and investigated their associations with welfare maximization, norm adherence, and general action aversion in presumed moral-dilemma judgments of the target person. Results suggest a reliable positive association between perceived morality and norm adherence in presumed moral-dilemma judgments. Other factors of social impressions and moral-dilemma judgments revealed inconsistent results. The findings underscore the centrality of norm adherence in naïve intuitions of morality.