Moral Impression Updating Driven by Uncertainty: Cognitive Oscillation of Fast and Slow Systems

Existing research on moral impression updating mostly focuses on examining the changes in participants’ impressions given the context of a specified event. These studies typically involve certain contexts, even when dealing with probabilistic scenarios, where the probability of each choice corresponding to a behavioral outcome is predetermined or assigned. This makes it difficult to capture the cognitive complexity under uncertainty in real-world social situations, particularly on social media. To address this issue, this paper explores the evolving mechanism of moral impressions in a dynamic flow of information from the perspective of dynamic updating. Specifically, the fast system triggers rapid and extreme judgments through fragmented and deterministic cues (such as behavioral labels), while the slow system encourages individuals to delay judgment or complexify attribution when encountering contradictory information. Moreover, emotional states and the level of uncertainty in the information will influence the coordination and interaction of these two systems. The analysis in this paper provides a new perspective on understanding the fluctuating stance in moral controversies in real-world contexts, especially in the high-uncertainty environment of social media (such as public opinion reversal).