Emotional and cognitive response to the pain of others: Perspective taking and cognitive style

(2015). Emotional and cognitive response to the pain of others: Perspective taking and cognitive style. Korean Journal of Psychology: General, 34(3), 685-707, https://doi.org/10.22257/kjp.2015.09.34.3.685

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Abstract

Recent work in moral psychology is focused on questions about utilitarianism (i.e., saving more people’s lives) and deontology (i.e., disapproving of sacrificing one person for the greater good of others). This study aimed to answer two questions. First, which individual differences in emotional and cognitive processes have a critical impact on utilitarian and deontological judgments? Second, do cognitive styles facilitate a specific moral judgment? In Study 1, various moral dilemma scenarios were presented and the participants had to indicate how morally appropriate it would be for them to kill one person to save others. In addition, they completed a self-report questionnaire regarding empathic empathic concern, perspective-taking, need for cognition and moral identity. The results revealed that participants with preferences for utilitarian judgments showed lower perspective-taking than other participants. In Study 2, the findings revealed the relationship between verbalizer-visualizer cognitive styles and utilitarian judgments. The visualizer cognitive styles showed reduced utilitarian judgments. These results implicated the possibility that reduced empathy (i.e. perspective taking) and the verbalizer cognitive style regulated the automatic emotional process and resulted in increased utilitarian judgements. Finally, limitations of this study and future work were discussed.

keywords: utilitarian, deontology, perspective taking, cognitive style, 공리주의적 관점, 의무론적 관점, 타인 조망수용, 인지유형

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Article Contents

Vol.34 No.3

Emotional and cognitive response to the pain of others: Perspective taking and cognitive style

Abstract

Reference

Korean Journal of Psychology: General