Name: Anushka Chakraborty University: Saginaw Valley State Univercity Assignment 5 Topic: The right of the Indian people to choose if they want to eat beef or not URL: Kouchaki, M., Smith, I. H., &...

Name: Anushka Chakraborty
University: Saginaw Valley State Univercity
Assignment 5 Topic: The right of the Indian people to choose if they want to eat beef or not
URL:
Kouchaki, M., Smith, I. H., & Savani, K XXXXXXXXXXDoes deciding among morally relevant options feel like making a choice? how morality constrains people’s sense of choice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 115(5), XXXXXXXXXXdoi: http:
0-dx.doi.org.li
ary.svsu.edu/10.1037/pspa0000128
URL:
Mustafa, F., & Sohi, J. S XXXXXXXXXXFreedom of religion in india: Cu
ent issues and supreme court acting as clergy. Brigham Young University Law Review, 2017(4), XXXXXXXXXXRetrieved from https:
0-search-proquest-com.li
ary.svsu.edu/docview/ XXXXXXXXXX?accountid=960
Does_deciding_am
ong_morally_re.pdf
Does Deciding Among Morally Relevant Options Feel Like Making a
Choice? How Morality Constrains People’s Sense of Choice
Maryam Kouchaki
Northwestern University
Isaac H. Smith
Cornell University
Krishna Savani
Nanyang Technological University
We demonstrate that a difference exists between objectively having and psychologically perceiving
multiple-choice options of a given decision, showing that morality serves as a constraint on people’s
perceptions of choice. Across 8 studies (N � 2,217), using both experimental and co
elational methods,
we find that people deciding among options they view as moral in nature experience a lower sense of
choice than people deciding among the same options but who do not view them as morally relevant.
Moreover, this lower sense of choice is evident in people’s attentional patterns. When deciding among
morally relevant options displayed on a computer screen, people devote less visual attention to the option
that they ultimately reject, suggesting that when they perceive that there is a morally co
ect option, they
are less likely to even consider immoral options as viable alternatives in their decision-making process.
Furthermore, we find that experiencing a lower sense of choice because of moral considerations can have
downstream behavioral consequences: after deciding among moral (but not nonmoral) options, people (in
Western cultures) tend to choose more variety in an unrelated task, likely because choosing more variety
helps them reassert their sense of choice. Taken together, our findings suggest that morality is an
important factor that constrains people’s perceptions of choice, creating a disjunction between objectively
having a choice and subjectively perceiving that one has a choice.
Keywords: morality, choice, moral conviction, variety seeking, process tracing
Objectively, people make choices whenever they select an op-
tion from two or more alternatives, and this is the definition of
choice enshrined in neoclassical economics (Neumann & Morgen-
stern, XXXXXXXXXXHowever, psychologically, what constitutes a choice?
There are certainly times when people pick one of multiple options
ut do not necessarily feel like they are making a choice at all
(Savani, Markus, Naidu, Kumar, & Berlia, XXXXXXXXXXConsider Mu-
hammed Chohan, who was sitting in his car when he witnessed a
thief smash the passenger window of the car in front him, slap a
woman sitting in the driver’s seat, grab her bag, and then start
unning away. Chohan suddenly had a decision to make. Would he
go about his business as if nothing had happened, or would he try
to intervene on the victim’s behalf? Chohan did the latter. He
jumped out of his own car and chased the thief. The thief ulti-
mately escaped, but Chohan was able to retrieve some of the
woman’s possessions that the thief had dropped during the pursuit.
Chohan was hailed as a hero by the media and praised for his
avery. It is reasonable to expect that Chohan might view his
decision to help as a deliberate personal choice—one reflective of
his upstanding character—granting him personal and public credit
for making a morally praiseworthy decision. In a subsequent
interview, however, Chohan remarked, “When I noticed a young
lady in need, I had no choice but to help.” (Mkamba, 2013).
Although Chohan was faced with an objective choice between
staying put or chasing the thief, his comments do not reflect a
strong sense of choice in the matter. In the present research, we
investigate whether morality is a factor that constrains people’s
perceptions of choice, creating a disjunction between objectively
having a choice and psychologically perceiving that one has a
choice, and examine a downstream behavioral consequence of this
disjunction (i.e., variety seeking).
Moral Choices
Philosophers, psychologists, and lay people have long been
concerned with perceptions of choice. In general, people value
their ability to choose to such an extent that many psychologists
consider autonomy to be a fundamental psychological need (Ryan
This article was published Online First July 26, 2018.
Maryam Kouchaki, The Management & Organizations Department,
Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University; Isaac H. Smith,
S. C. Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell S. C. Johnson
College of Business, Cornell University; Krishna Savani, Culture Science
Institute, Division of Strategy, Management, and Organisation, Nanyang
Business School, Nanyang Technological University.
This research was partially supported by a Nanyang Assistant Profes-
sorship grant awarded by Nanyang Technological University to Krishna
Savani.
Co
espondence concerning this article should be addressed to Maryam
Kouchaki, The Management & Organizations Department, Kellogg School
of Management, Northwestern University, 2211 Campus Drive, Evanston,
IL XXXXXXXXXXE-mail: XXXXXXXXXX
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Journal of Personality and Social Psychology:
Attitudes and Social Cognition
© 2018 American Psychological Association 2018, Vol. 115, No. 5, 788–804
XXXXXXXXXX/18/$12.00 http:
dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000128
788
mailto: XXXXXXXXXX
http:
dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000128
& Deci, XXXXXXXXXXThis drive for autonomy is so strong that people
often subjectively perceive that they have made a choice even
when they have not (Bear & Bloom, XXXXXXXXXXPeople also tend to
have an illusion of control, believing that they can unduly influ-
ence chance or near-chance events (Langer, XXXXXXXXXXThis sense of
personal choice can be functional and adaptive, contributing to
etter mental health (Taylor & Brown, 1988) and even longevity
(Langer & Rodin, 1976; Schulz, 1976).
While a wealth of research has shown that people are motivated
to perceive that they have choices, some initial research has
demonstrated that there are variations in people’s choice percep-
tions. For example, a cross-cultural study found that Indians are
less likely than Americans to view mundane actions, such as
picking which of two cubicles to sit in, as choices (Savani et al.,
2010). However, even within the U.S. sample, there was substan-
tial variation in people’s tendency to perceive the act of picking
one of multiple options as a choice (Savani et al., XXXXXXXXXXAside
from cultural influences, however, there is little empirical research
on factors that shape or constrain whether people perceive an act
of selecting one of multiple options as a choice. We ask whethe
morality is one such factor.
Morality involves appraisals of right and wrong, as reflected in
the definition provided by the American Psychological Associa-
tion’s Dictionary of Psychology (Morality, 2018): morality is “a
system of beliefs or set of values relating to right conduct, against
which behavior is judged to be acceptable or unacceptable.” Ac-
cording to this definition, morality prescribes what people think
they should do, not what they feel forced to do. For centuries,
philosophers have acknowledged important connections between
people’s morality and their decisions, arguing that a sense of
choice and free will are prerequisite for holding people morally
esponsible for their actions (Kant, 1788/1997). Some even claim
that in the absence of free will, there does not seem to be much
place for ethics at all (Lemmon, XXXXXXXXXXIn the present research, we
ask whether morality influences people’s perceptions of choice
when they are making a decision. Two lines of research in moral
psychology make contrasting predictions.
Given that autonomy is highly valued in many cultures (Ryan &
Deci, 2000), and that people can maintain a sense of autonomy by
elieving that they are freely making choices, one might expect
that people would perceive the act of picking one of multiple
morally relevant options as a choice. Indeed, a person’s sense of
choice might even be amplified by morality, because moral deci-
sions are typically more personally important than nonmoral de-
cisions (Skitka, 2010; Turiel, XXXXXXXXXXAs people strive to main
positive self-views, and positive moral self-views in particula
(Mazar, Amir, & Ariely, 2008), they might be more likely to view
their moral decisions as choices because doing so could allow
them to claim moral credits for having freely chosen the morally
ight option—credits that researchers have shown people some-
times use to excuse subsequent immoral behavior (Monin &
Miller, 2001).
Yet, there exists an alternative possibility: that perceptions of
morality constrain people’s psychological sense of choice, such
that moral decisions feel less like choices than decisions that are
not moral in nature. In contrast to preferences or desires, which
eflect people’s likes and dislikes (Zajonc, 1980), people often
view moral beliefs and attitudes in terms of oughts and ideals—
duties to be upheld and virtues to be developed—that reflect thei
evaluations of what is right and wrong (Cornwell & Higgins,
2015). Whereas people find it acceptable that different people have
different preferences—at least in Western cultures—people tend to
view their own moral beliefs as universally true and more objec-
tive (Skitka, Bauman, & Sargis, XXXXXXXXXXThus, when people make a
choice between morally relevant options, they may consciously o
unconsciously rule out morally wrong alternatives, leaving them
with a single acceptable option (Tetlock, XXXXXXXXXXIn such cases, the
person might be less likely to experience a sense of choice (the
subjective perception of whether multiple choice options exist)
even when they actually made a choice (between the objectively
available options). Thus, morality might be an important facto
that constrains people’s perceptions of choice—an argument that
we elaborate below.
By empirically examining the effect of morality on people’s
perceptions of choice, we help extend the scope of moral psychol-
ogy research from examining individuals’ moral judgments and
decision-making to how individuals psychologically experience
morally relevant decisions. While people’s moral views form and
inform their evaluations of what is right and wrong in a given
situation, it is unclear how such moral evaluations psychologically
influence their sense of choice in the moment. Moral beliefs help
people decide what they should do, but people still have a choice
as to what