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Cognitive Properties of Sacred Values

Cognitive Properties of Sacred Values. With Dan Bartels Rumen Iliev Sonya Sachdeva Scott Atran Jeremy Ginges. Sacred Values. Resist tradeoffs—especially between the sacred and the secular Quantity Insensitivity---e.g. harming one is no less wrong than harming five

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Cognitive Properties of Sacred Values

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  1. Cognitive Properties of Sacred Values With Dan Bartels Rumen Iliev Sonya Sachdeva Scott Atran Jeremy Ginges

  2. Sacred Values • Resist tradeoffs—especially between the sacred and the secular • Quantity Insensitivity---e.g. harming one is no less wrong than harming five • Deontological rather than consequentialist decision rules (e.g. do no harm, do it because it’s the right thing to do regardless of the consequences).

  3. Protected values and Omission bias(Ritov & Baron, 1999) A vaccination program will prevent 1000 children from dying from an epidemic of new infectious diseases. The vaccine itself will kill 100 children because it sometimes causes the same diseases. Would you initiate the program? Y N What is the largest number of children killed by the vaccine at which you would initiate the program?__________ • People with PVs show omission bias, less quantity sensitivity • Taken as supportive evidence that PVs arise from deontological rules concerning actions • (But not the consequences of those actions)

  4. Study 1:Quantity sensitivity Comparison of Baron and Ritov’s methods with those modeled after Connolly and Reb (2003) Looked at both specific PVs and a tendency to have a lot of PVs (domain general).

  5. Study 1: CR Version A convoy of food trucks is on its way to a refugee camp during a famine in Africa. (Airplanes cannot be used.) You find that a second camp has even more refugees. If you tell the convoy to go to the second camp instead of the first, you will save 1000 people from death, but many people in the first camp will die as a result. Would you send the convoy to the second camp if 100 refugees in the first camp would die as a result? Y N Would you send the convoy to the second camp if 300 refugees in the first camp would die as a result? Y N Would you send the convoy to the second camp if 500 refugees in the first camp would die as a result? Y N Would you send the convoy to the second camp if 700 refugees in the first camp would die as a result? Y N Would you send the convoy to the second camp if 900 refugees in the first camp would die as a result? Y N

  6. Study 1 Results • Domain-Specific Analyses: • PVs  Low QS in RB design • PVs  HIGH QS in CR design

  7. Study 1 Results • Domain-General Analyses: • The more PVs endorsed, the less quantity sensitive s/he appeared in RB (r = -.402) • The more PVs endorsed, the more quantity sensitive s/he appeared in CR (r = .342)

  8. Followup Is it any less wrong to do x than to do 5x? Is it any more wrong to do 5x and to do x? (including data from Palestinians)

  9. Summary • People with PVs don’t necessarily appear to be less sensitive to quantity—in fact they may be more quantity sensitive to quantity, depending on the assessment method

  10. Deontological versus Consequentialist Orientations Typically measured in a way that makes them mutually exclusive Previous results: Sacred values are associated with the absence of framing effects (Tanner and Medin, 2004)

  11. New Data Factor analysis: Data from Switzerland and Germany suggest that they are at least partially independent and may be orthogonal Preliminary results: largest framing for High Cons-High Deon

  12. Summary and Challenge Two keys properties of SVs, use of deontological rules and insensitivity to quantity, are undermined by these studies We need to understand how people with sacred values can be both consequentialist and deontological and both quantity sensitive and quantity insensitive

  13. Other cognitive properties of SVs • Greater conjunction fallacy • Less effect of an irrelevant anchor • Larger Stroop effect for value-related words • Better incidental memory for value related words

  14. All three scenarios

  15. Multiple regression DV: Combined abortion fallacy IV: PVa, Neutral fallacy Neutral fallacy b=.48* PVa b =.19* PVaXNeutral b=.20* * p<.05

  16. Multiple regression DV: Target (percents) IV: PVa, Anchor anchor b=.30* PVaXAnchor b=-.13* * p<.05

  17. PV or importance • In a replication of these findings we changed the one-sided PV question to a more symmetrical measurement of importance, where both pro-life and pro-choice people could express their attitude • Using this measure, we basically replicated the findings

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