Showing papers by "Michael E. McCullough published in 2019"

Does Cooperation in the Laboratory Reflect the Operation of a Broad Trait

Abstract: The Dictator Game, a face valid measure of altruism, and the Trust Game, a face valid measure of trust and trustworthiness, are among the most widely used behavioural measures in human cooperation ...

Is empathy the default response to suffering? A meta-analytic evaluation of perspective-taking???s effect on empathic concern

Abstract: We conducted a series of meta-analytic tests on experiments in which participants read perspective-taking instructions-that is, written instructions to imagine a distressed persons' point of view ("imagine-self" and "imagine-other" instructions), or to inhibit such actions ("remain-objective" instructions)-and afterwards reported how much empathic concern they experienced upon learning about the distressed person. If people spontaneously empathize with others, then participants who receive remain-objective instructions should report less empathic concern than do participants in a "no-instructions" control condition; if people can deliberately increase how much empathic concern they experience, then imagine-self and imagine-other instructions should increase empathic concern relative to not receiving any instructions. Random-effects models revealed that remain-objective instructions reduced empathic concern, but "imagine" instructions did not significantly increase it. The results were robust to most corrections for bias. Our conclusions were not qualified by the study characteristics we examined, but most relevant moderators have not yet been thoroughly studied.

Cooperation and Learning in Unfamiliar Situations

Abstract: Human social life is rife with uncertainty. In any given encounter, one can wonder whether cooperation will generate future benefits. Many people appear to resolve this dilemma by initially coopera...

An Evolutionary Perspective on Forgiveness

Abstract: We present an evolutionary perspective on forgiveness that conceptualizes forgiveness as the output of psychological mechanisms that evolved to help solve the ancestrally recurrent adaptive problem of exploitation. Appealing to principles of good design, evolution-minded researchers suggest that the cognitive mechanisms that execute forgiveness should draw heavily upon two internal representations—representations of the transgressor’s relationship value and representations of the transgressor’s exploitation risk. Our review of research that examines the hypothesized role of these variables in forgiveness reveals three insights. First, perceived relationship value is a consistent predictor of forgiveness, with empirical support emerging largely irrespective of differences in study design, methodology, sample, or measurement. Second, growing evidence suggests that relationship value plays a causal role in forgiveness. Third, there is an emerging consensus that perceived exploitation risk, at least as it has been measured so far, plays a less important role than relationship value in people’s decisions about forgiveness. Empirical studies have produced mixed evidence for the previously tendered hypothesis that relationship value more strongly influences forgiveness when the transgressor is perceived to pose little exploitation risk. Whether these inconsistent results are due to methodological differences, cultural differences, or other factors remains unclear. We conclude by forging conceptual links between the evolutionary approach to forgiveness and two other prominent models of forgiveness: the stress-and-coping model and the interdependence model.

Moral reasoning performance determines epistemic peerdom.

Abstract: We offer a friendly criticism of May's fantastic book on moral reasoning: It is overly charitable to the argument that moral disagreement undermines moral knowledge. To highlight the role that reasoning quality plays in moral judgments, we review literature that he did not mention showing that individual differences in intelligence and cognitive reflection explain much of moral disagreement. The burden is on skeptics of moral knowledge to show that moral disagreement arises from non-rational origins.