title: Deontic reasoning with emotional content: evolutionary psychology or decision theory?
abstract: Three experiments investigated the contrasting predictions of the evolutionary and decision-theoretic approaches to deontic reasoning. Two experiments embedded a hazard management (HM) rule in a social contract scenario that should lead to competition between innate modules. A 3rd experiment used a pure HM task. Threatening material was also introduced into the antecedent, p, of a deontic rule, if p then must q. According to the evolutionary approach, more HM responses (Cosmides & Tooby, 2000) are predicted when p is threatening, whereas decision theory predicts fewer. All 3 experiments were consistent with decision theory. Other theories are discussed, and it is concluded that they cannot account for the behavior observed in these experiments.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Wales.
authors.forename: Nick
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Perham
authors.forename: Mike
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Oaksford