Citation

Piazza J, Sousa P, Holbrook C. Cognition 2013; 128(3): 261-270.

Affiliation

University of Pennsylvania, Department of Psychology, 3720 Walnut St., Solomon Labs Bldg., Philadelphia, PA 19104-6241, United States. Electronic address: jpiazza@psych.upenn.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.cognition.2013.05.001

PMID

23747648

Abstract

Three studies tested the conditions under which people judge utilitarian harm to be authority dependent (i.e., whether its right or wrongness depends on the ruling of an authority). In Study 1, participants judged the right or wrongness of physical abuse when used as an interrogation method anticipated to yield useful information for preventing future terrorist attacks. The ruling of the military authority towards the harm was manipulated (prohibited vs. prescribed) and found to significantly influence judgments of the right or wrongness of inflicting harm. Study 2 established a boundary condition with regards to the influence of authority, which was eliminated when the utility of the harm was definitely obtained rather than forecasted. Finally, Study 3 replicated the findings of Studies 1-2 in a completely different context-an expert committee's ruling about the harming of chimpanzees for biomedical research. These results are discussed as they inform ongoing debates regarding the role of authority in moderating judgments of complex and simple harm.

Language: en