Utilitarianism and its behavioral offspring Homo Economicus are founded on the idea that decisions are based on deliberate reasoning, where benefits and costs are weighed against each other and individuals choose the course of action that brings the most favorable consequences overall.

However, there were no significant interactions between gender and the treatment manipulations of intuitive versus reflective decision-making.Ī key issue in moral psychology is to what extent moral decisions are governed by fast, automatic, and intuitive “system 1” processes or by slower, more controlled, and reflective “system 2” processes. Across all samples and decision tasks men were more likely to make utilitarian moral judgments and act selfishly compared to women, providing further evidence that there are robust gender differences in moral decision-making. Thus we find no supporting evidence for the claim that intuitive moral judgments and dictator game giving differ from more reflectively taken decisions. Neither time-pressure nor cognitive load had any effect on moral judgments or altruistic behavior.

Overall we find converging evidence that intuitive states do not influence moral decisions. Decisions were made under time pressure/time delay or while experiencing cognitive load or control. All subjects responded to four trolley type dilemmas and four dictator games involving different charitable causes. We conduct experiments in three different countries (Sweden, Austria, and the United States) involving over 1,400 subjects. Do individuals intuitively favor certain moral actions over others? This study explores the role of intuitive thinking-induced by time pressure and cognitive load-in moral judgment and behavior.

Moral decisions