The Influence Of Cognitive Load On Moral Dilemma Judgment In Different Levels Of Physical Injury And Different Types Of Injury

Moral judgment is a process in which individuals assign moral evaluations to the behaviors and events of specific individuals or groups based on moral standards or values.The dual-process theory proposed by Greene is an important theory of moral judgment,which has been supported by a series of behavioral experiments,functional magnetic resonance imaging studies,and studies on patients with brain injury.According to this theory,there should be two different processing systems in the process of individual moral judgment: one is a slow,conscious and controlled cognitive reasoning system;the other is a fast,unconscious and automated emotional intuition system.When an individual is making moral judgments,the two systems are simultaneous and compete with each other.When emotion overcomes cognition,the individual makes deontology moral judgments;when cognition overcomes emotions,the individual makes utilitarianism moral judgments.The empirical research supporting the dual-process theory adopts the dilemma to judge that the injuries involved in the story scenario are mainly fatal injury,but in real life people encounter not only physical injury,but also other types of injury such as mental trauma and property damage,even physical injury is not only involve the fatal injury,more is in addition to death in the other different levels of physical injury.The purpose of this research is to examine whether the basic hypothesis of the dual-process theory of moral judgment is valid in moral dilemma situations with different levels of physical injury and different types of injury,that is,increasing cognitive load or reducing cognitive resources will reduce the individual’s utilitarian moral judgment tendency,in order to carry out an extended test on the dual-process theory of moral judgment.This research included three experiments.Experiment 1 used the classic moral dilemma scenario to repeatedly verify the hypothesis of the dual-process theory.The results showed that the main effect of cognitive load was significant,and high cognitive load would significantly reduce the individual’s utilitarianism tendency in moral dilemma.Experiments 2 and 3 used self-made moral dilemma scenarios to examine the effects of cognitive load on moral dilemma judgment of different degrees of physical injury and different types of injury.The results of experiment 2 showed that:(1)The main effect of cognitive load was significant,and high cognitive load would significantly reduce the individual’s utilitarianism tendency in the moral dilemma judgment;(2)The main effect of the degree of physical injury was significant.The more serious the physical injury,the lower the utilitarianism tendency in the moral dilemma judgment;(3)The interaction between cognitive load and the degree of physical injury was not significant.The results of experiment 3 showed that:(1)The main effect of cognitive load was significant,and high cognitive load would significantly reduce the individual’s utilitarianism tendency in the moral dilemma judgment;(2)The main effect of the injury type was significant,and the individual’s utilitarianism moral judgment tendency in the context of property damage was higher than that of physical injury and mental trauma.(3)There was a marginal significant interaction between cognitive load and injury type.The main conclusions of this study are as follows:(1)The degree of physical injury affects the individuals’ utilitarianism tendency in moral dilemma judgment.The more serious the degree of physical injury,the lower the individuals’ utilitarianism tendency in moral judgment.There is no difference in the effect of cognitive load on individuals’ moral dilemmas under different degrees of physical injury,that is,under the conditions of fatal injury,serious injury,and slight injury,increasing cognitive load will reduce the individuals’ utilitarianism tendency in moral judgments.(2)The type of injury affects the individuals’ utilitarianism tendency in moral judgment.The utilitarianism moral judgment tendency of individuals in the situation of property damage is higher than that of physical injury and mental trauma.There is no difference in the effect of cognitive load on individuals’ moral dilemmas under different injury types,that is,under the condition of physical injury,mental trauma and property damage,increasing cognitive load will reduce the individuals’ utilitarianism tendency in moral judgments.In conclusion,the effect of cognitive load on individuals’ moral judgments is consistent under different levels of physical injury and different types of injury in moral dilemma judgments,that is,high cognitive load will reduce the individuals’ utilitarianism tendency in moral judgments,which supports the basic hypothesis of the double-process theory of moral judgment.