Asymmetrical effects of reward and punishment on attributions of morality.
The authors found that 3 experiments revealed that compliance with a pro-social request for an anticipated reward as opposed to a threatened punishment resulted in greater inferences of personal morality. In Experiment 1, participants received information about a teaching assistant (TA) who was either promised a reward or threatened with a punishment when asked for compliance. The participants perceived the TA as more moral for complying given the positive incentive as opposed to the negative incentive. Experiment 2 replicated this finding in a different culture, using different vignettes and incentives. Last, in Experiment 3, the results revealed that a perceived actor's real intentions mediated the effect of incentive valence on dispositional causation. That is, given a reward relative to a punishment, participants were more likely to assume that the agent would have helped even if no incentive had been offered.
Greitemeyer
Tobias
T
Department of Psychology, University of Sussex, Pevensey 1, BN1 9QH, Brighton, UK. t.greitemeyer@sussex.ac.uk
Weiner
Bernard
B
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D009014:Morals; D011582:Psychological Theory; D011678:Punishment; D012201:Reward; D012938:Social Perception; D012941:Social Responsibility; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires