We conducted three experiments indicating that characteristically deontological judgments—here, disapproving of sacrificing one person for the greater good of others—are preferentially supported by visual imagery. Experiment 1 used two matched working memory tasks—one visual, one verbal—to identify individuals with relatively visual cognitive styles and individuals with relatively verbal cognitive styles. Individuals with more visual cognitive styles made more deontological judgments. Experiment 2 showed that visual interference, relative to verbal interference and no interference, decreases deontological judgment. Experiment 3 indicated that these effects are due to people’s tendency to visualize the harmful means (sacrificing one person) more than the beneficial end (saving others). These results suggest a specific role for visual imagery in moral judgment: When people consider sacrificing someone as a means to an end, visual imagery preferentially supports the judgment that the ends do not justify the means. These results suggest an integration of the dual-process theory of moral judgment with construal-level theory.
AmitE.AlgomD.TropeY. (2009). Distance-dependent processing of pictures and words. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 138, 400–415.
2.
AmitE.AlgomD.TropeY.LibermanN. (2009). “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image”: The distance-dependence of representation. In MarkmanK. D.KleinW. M. P.SuhrJ. A. (Eds.), The handbook of imagination and mental simulation (pp. 53–68). New York, NY: Psychology Press.
3.
BucknerR. L.Andrews-HannaJ. R.SchacterD. L. (2008). The brain’s default network: Anatomy, function, and relevance to disease. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1124, 1–38.
4.
CarusoE. M.GinoF. (2011). Blind ethics: Closing one’s eyes polarizes moral judgments and discourages dishonest behavior. Cognition, 118, 280–285.
5.
CiaramelliE.MuccioliM.LadavasE.di PellegrinoG. (2007). Selective deficit in personal moral judgment following damage to ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 2, 84–92.
6.
CushmanF.YoungL.HauserM. (2006). The role of conscious reasoning and intuition in moral judgment: Testing three principles of harm. Psychological Science, 17, 1082–1089.
7.
De HouwerJ.HermansD. (1994). Differences in the affective processing of words and pictures. Cognition & Emotion, 8, 1–20.
GreeneJ. D. (2007). Why are VMPFC patients more utilitarian? A dual-process theory of moral judgment explains. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11, 322–323.
10.
GreeneJ. D.CushmanF. A.StewartL. E.LowenbergK.NystromL. E.CohenJ. D. (2009). Pushing moral buttons: The interaction between personal force and intention in moral judgment. Cognition, 111, 364–371.
11.
GreeneJ. D.HaidtJ. (2002). How (and where) does moral judgment work?Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 6, 517–523.
12.
GreeneJ. D.MorelliS. A.LowenbergK.NystromL. E.CohenJ. D. (2008). Cognitive load selectively interferes with utilitarian moral judgment. Cognition, 107, 1144–1154.
13.
GreeneJ. D.NystromL. E.EngellA. D.DarleyJ. M.CohenJ. D. (2004). The neural bases of cognitive conflict and control in moral judgment. Neuron, 44, 389–400.
14.
GreeneJ. D.SommervilleR. B.NystromL. E.DarleyJ. M.CohenJ. D. (2001). An fMRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgment. Science, 293, 2105–2108.
15.
HaidtJ. (2001). The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. Psychological Reviews, 108, 814–834.
16.
HolmesE. A.MathewsA. (2005). Mental imagery and emotion: A special relationship?Emotion, 5, 489–497.
17.
HolmesE. A.MathewsA.MackintoshB.DalgleishT. (2008). The causal effect of mental imagery on emotion assessed using picture-word cues. Emotion, 8, 395–409.
18.
JarvisW. B. G. (2006a). DirectRT (Version 2002) [Computer software]. New York, NY: Empirisoft.
19.
JarvisW. B. G. (2006b). MediaLab (Version 2002) [Computer software]. New York, NY: Empirisoft.
20.
KantI. (1993). Grounding for the metaphysics of morals; with “On a supposed right to live because of philanthropic concerns” (EllingtonJ. W., Trans.; 3rd ed.). Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing. (Original work published 1785)
21.
KensingerE. A.SchacterD. L. (2006). Processing emotional pictures and words: Effects of valence and arousal. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 6, 110–126.
22.
KirchnerW. K. (1958). Age differences in short-term retention of rapidly changing information. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 55, 352–358.
23.
KoenigsM.YoungL.AdolphsR.TranelD.CushmanF.HauserM.DamasioA. (2007). Damage to the prefrontal cortex increases utilitarian moral judgments. Nature, 446, 908–911.
24.
KosslynS. M. (1980). Image and mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
25.
KraemerD. M.RosenbergL. M.Thompson-SchillS. L. (2009). The neural correlates of visual and verbal cognitive style. Journal of Neuroscience, 29, 3792–3798.
26.
LibermanN.TropeY. (2008). The psychology of transcending the here and now. Science, 322, 1201–1205.
27.
MendezM. F.AndersonE.ShapiraJ. S. (2005). An investigation of moral judgment in frontotemporal dementia. Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology, 18, 193–197.
28.
MikhailJ. (2007). Universal moral grammar: Theory, evidence and the future. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11, 143–152.
29.
MikhailJ. (2011). Emotion, neuroscience, and law: A comment on Darwin and Greene (Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works, Paper No. 611). Retrieved from http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/611
30.
PaxtonJ. M.UngarL.GreeneJ. D. (2011). Reflection and reasoning in moral judgment. Cognitive Science, 35, 1–15.
31.
RaichleM. E.MacLeodA. M.SnyderA. Z.PowersW. J.GusnardD. A.ShulmanG. L. (2001). A default mode of brain function. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 98, 676–682.
32.
SlovicP.FinucaneM.PetersE.MacGregorD. G. (2007). The affect heuristic. In GilovichT.GriffinD.KahnemanD. (Eds.), Intuitive judgment: Heuristics and biases (pp. 1333–1352). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
33.
SprancaM.MinskE.BaronJ. (1991). Omission and commission in judgment and choice. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 27, 76–105.
34.
SuterR. S.HertwigR. (2011). Time and moral judgment. Cognition, 119, 454–458.
35.
ThomsonJ. (1985). The trolley problem. Yale Law Journal, 94, 1395–1415.
36.
TropeY.LibermanN. (2010). Construal level theory of psychological distance. Psychological Review, 117, 440–463.
37.
VallacherR.WegnerD. M. (1985). A theory of action identification. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
