Dures as Experiment 1. A new participant group [n = 896; mean age: 24.8 years (SD = 15.7), mean education: 13.2 years (SD = 4.2)] was tested on a different pair of scenarios (Table S1). First, the standard fumes dilemma (impersonal scenario) asked whether it was morally permissible to redirect toxic fumes into one patient’s room to save the lives of three other patients. The utilitarian response was to flip the switch to redirect the fumes from three people and onto one person instead, whereas the non-utilitarian response was to allow the fumes to kill the three people. Second, the order POR-8 crying baby dilemma (personal scenario) asked whether it was morally permissible to smother a baby to death, while hiding during wartime, so that the soldiers would not hear the baby cry and kill everyone in hiding (including the baby). The utilitarian response was to smother theVariables included in the leftmost column served as predictors in the classification of (1) UTIL from NON-UTIL and MAJORITY participants, and (2) NON-UTIL from MAJORITY participants. Empathic Concern was the factor that most strongly classified UTIL participants apart. MBI = Moral Pyrvinium embonate custom synthesis Behavior Inventory; DSES = Daily Spiritual Experience Scale; IRI = Interpersonal Reactivity Index. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0060418.tPLOS ONE | www.plosone.orgEmpathic Concern Predicts Non-Utilitarianismbaby to save the others, whereas the non-utilitarian response was to let the baby cry, alerting the soldiers, resulting in many deaths. Relevant to the current hypothesis, the crying baby scenario (like the footbridge scenario in Experiment 1) pits one life against many lives in an emotionally salient (personal) context. We note that the crying baby scenario differs from the footbridge scenario of Experiment 1 in at least two respects. First, the crying baby scenario is a war-time (as opposed to peace-time) scenario. Second, the crying baby scenario is a “pareto” dilemma, since the one person who would be killed to save the other people would die no matter what the decision turned out to be [36]. The inclusion of the crying baby scenario allows us to explore preliminarily whether the pattern observed in Experiment 1 extends to wartime contexts and pareto tradeoffs. As in Experiment 1, participants were classified into four groups based on their responses to the pair of scenarios: 117 (13.1 ) UTIL, 249 (27.5 ) NON-UTIL, 522 (58.3 ) MAJORITY, and 11 (1.2 ) OUTLIER.ResultsUTIL vs. NON-UTIL comparison. Of chief importance, we replicated the key result of Experiment 1 (Figure 2): UTIL responders exhibited significantly lower empathic concern scores than NON-UTIL responders (t361 = 24.84, p,.001, Cohen’s d = 0.51). Also as in Experiment 1, no significant differences were found for fantasy (t361 = 20.79, p = .43, Cohen’s d = .08), perspective taking (t361 = 20.81, p = .04, Cohen’s d = .09), or personal distress (t361 = 20.86, p = .58, Cohen’s d = .09). There was no difference between the UTIL and NON-UTIL groups in age (t361 = 1.25, p = .21, Cohen’s d = .13), gender (x2 = 0.21, p = .65), education (t361 = 0.31, p = .76, Cohen’s d = .03), moral knowledge (t361 = 20.09, p = .93, Cohen’s d ,.01), or religiosity (t361 = 20.45, p = .66, Cohen’s d = .05) (Table 4). Similar results were found when including the MAJORITY group (all p..13), and both the MAJORITY and OUTLIER groups (all p..11) in the ANOVAs. Personal vs. Impersonal scenarios. Impersonal scenario. 546 (61.7 ) participants delivered the utilitariand = .06) an.Dures as Experiment 1. A new participant group [n = 896; mean age: 24.8 years (SD = 15.7), mean education: 13.2 years (SD = 4.2)] was tested on a different pair of scenarios (Table S1). First, the standard fumes dilemma (impersonal scenario) asked whether it was morally permissible to redirect toxic fumes into one patient’s room to save the lives of three other patients. The utilitarian response was to flip the switch to redirect the fumes from three people and onto one person instead, whereas the non-utilitarian response was to allow the fumes to kill the three people. Second, the crying baby dilemma (personal scenario) asked whether it was morally permissible to smother a baby to death, while hiding during wartime, so that the soldiers would not hear the baby cry and kill everyone in hiding (including the baby). The utilitarian response was to smother theVariables included in the leftmost column served as predictors in the classification of (1) UTIL from NON-UTIL and MAJORITY participants, and (2) NON-UTIL from MAJORITY participants. Empathic Concern was the factor that most strongly classified UTIL participants apart. MBI = Moral Behavior Inventory; DSES = Daily Spiritual Experience Scale; IRI = Interpersonal Reactivity Index. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0060418.tPLOS ONE | www.plosone.orgEmpathic Concern Predicts Non-Utilitarianismbaby to save the others, whereas the non-utilitarian response was to let the baby cry, alerting the soldiers, resulting in many deaths. Relevant to the current hypothesis, the crying baby scenario (like the footbridge scenario in Experiment 1) pits one life against many lives in an emotionally salient (personal) context. We note that the crying baby scenario differs from the footbridge scenario of Experiment 1 in at least two respects. First, the crying baby scenario is a war-time (as opposed to peace-time) scenario. Second, the crying baby scenario is a “pareto” dilemma, since the one person who would be killed to save the other people would die no matter what the decision turned out to be [36]. The inclusion of the crying baby scenario allows us to explore preliminarily whether the pattern observed in Experiment 1 extends to wartime contexts and pareto tradeoffs. As in Experiment 1, participants were classified into four groups based on their responses to the pair of scenarios: 117 (13.1 ) UTIL, 249 (27.5 ) NON-UTIL, 522 (58.3 ) MAJORITY, and 11 (1.2 ) OUTLIER.ResultsUTIL vs. NON-UTIL comparison. Of chief importance, we replicated the key result of Experiment 1 (Figure 2): UTIL responders exhibited significantly lower empathic concern scores than NON-UTIL responders (t361 = 24.84, p,.001, Cohen’s d = 0.51). Also as in Experiment 1, no significant differences were found for fantasy (t361 = 20.79, p = .43, Cohen’s d = .08), perspective taking (t361 = 20.81, p = .04, Cohen’s d = .09), or personal distress (t361 = 20.86, p = .58, Cohen’s d = .09). There was no difference between the UTIL and NON-UTIL groups in age (t361 = 1.25, p = .21, Cohen’s d = .13), gender (x2 = 0.21, p = .65), education (t361 = 0.31, p = .76, Cohen’s d = .03), moral knowledge (t361 = 20.09, p = .93, Cohen’s d ,.01), or religiosity (t361 = 20.45, p = .66, Cohen’s d = .05) (Table 4). Similar results were found when including the MAJORITY group (all p..13), and both the MAJORITY and OUTLIER groups (all p..11) in the ANOVAs. Personal vs. Impersonal scenarios. Impersonal scenario. 546 (61.7 ) participants delivered the utilitariand = .06) an.
