Hypothetical Judgment and Real-Life Decision-Making in Sacrificial Dilemmas: A Replication of “of Mice, Men and Trolleys”

Do people respond similarly to hypothetical moral dilemmas as they do to real-life dilemma situations? Bostyn et al. (2018) explored this question by confronting one group of participants with a real dilemma involving mice, and another with a hypothetical description of that dilemma situation. In the current manuscript, we report the results of three new data collections involving the same research paradigm aimed at replicating and extending this earlier work. One sample included a within-subjects condition where participants encountered both versions of the dilemma which demonstrated that a significant proportion of participants (19%) change their decisions when moving from the hypothetical to real-life context. Switching behavior showed an asymmetry: participants were more likely to switch from rejecting to accepting sacrificial harm than vice versa. However, in contrast to earlier findings, we find that responses to hypothetical dilemma batteries significantly predict real-life dilemma decisions. This work reinforces the utility of using hypothetical scenarios to study moral psychology while also demonstrating that responses can differ systematically between hypothetical and real-life contexts.