"End-of-life" biases in moral evaluations of others.
When evaluating the moral character of others, people show a strong bias to more heavily weigh behaviors at the end of an individual's life, even if those behaviors arise in light of an overwhelmingly longer duration of contradictory behavior. Across four experiments, we find that this "end-of-life" bias uniquely applies to intentional changes in behavior that immediately precede death, and appears to result from the inference that the behavioral change reflects the emergence of the individual's "true self".
School of Management, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, United States. george.newman@yale.edu
George E
GE
Newman
Kristi L
KL
Lockhart
Frank C
FC
Keil
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology; D001293:Attitude to Death; D001519:Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D003643:Death; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009014:Morals; D012067:Religion