title: The Role of Self-Sacrifice in Moral Dilemmas.
abstract: Centuries' worth of cultural stories suggest that self-sacrifice may be a cornerstone of our moral concepts, yet this notion is largely absent from recent theories in moral psychology. For instance, in the footbridge version of the well-known trolley car problem the only way to save five people from a runaway trolley is to push a single man on the tracks. It is explicitly specified that the bystander cannot sacrifice himself because his weight is insufficient to stop the trolley. But imagine if this were not the case. Would people rather sacrifice themselves than push another? In Study 1, we find that people approve of self-sacrifice more than directly harming another person to achieve the same outcome. In Studies 2 and 3, we demonstrate that the effect is not broadly about sensitivity to self-cost, instead there is something unique about sacrificing the self. Important theoretical implications about agent-relativity and the role of causality in moral judgments are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Social Science Research Unit, US Forest Service, Evanston, IL, United States of America.
authors.forename: Sonya
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sachdeva
authors.affiliation: Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States of America.
authors.forename: Rumen
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Iliev
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Molecular and Cellular Imaging, Iranian National Center for Addiction Studies, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; Translational Neuroscience Program, Institute for Cognitive Science Studies, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Hamed
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ekhtiari
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States of America; Brain and Creativity Institute, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States of America.
authors.forename: Morteza
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dehghani
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009014:Morals; D019455:Self Psychology; D055815:Young Adult