The study examined how participants justified decisions involving human lives versus money. Participants provided rationales for choices in scenarios about a disease outbreak or monetary gamble. Their justifications were coded as relating to emotion, risk, or morality. Results showed participants made more morality-based statements for human life scenarios than monetary ones. For outbreak scenarios, more risk statements were made about the general public, while more morality statements were about prisoners, often dehumanizing them. Future research could use larger, more diverse samples and additional coding schemes.

1. Josh Biber, Maisa Boyte, Brandon Durst
Minnesota State University, Mankato, Department of Psychology
Decision-Making and Justifications
Background
Method
References
Discussion
Results
The results of the study showed that participants made more
statements based on morality when the scenarios given involved
human lives. Specifically, the participants made more statements
based on morality when the scenarios involved prisoner lives. Most
of these statements were dehumanizing prisoners.
It is important to note that this data is only a small extract of data
within a much larger overarching study. Future analyses will
examine how participants’ rationales related to the choice they made
in each scenario.
Future research should consider a more diverse, larger group of
participants. Future research could also develop other types of
coding schemes to examine participants’ rationales, or specifically
prompt participants to discuss their emotions or other thoughts about
the decision.
Current Study:
The purpose of the current study is to better understand how
participants think about decision scenarios and justify their
choices, and if participants think differently about scenarios
presenting different types of decisions.
Do participants justify decisions about human life differently
than decisions about money?
Do participants justify decisions about prisoners differently
than decisions about the general public?
We hypothesize that the participants will focus on morally right
feelings when justifying decisions regarding human lives, but
will focus more on risk when justifying decisions about
gambling and money. It is also predicted that participants of the
study will be less likely to sympathize with the value of a human
life in their justifications when the humans involved are
prisoners or criminals.
Research on decision-making has asked participants to provide a
rationale for their decisions, and found that sometimes, justifying
their choice will influence their decisions (Miller & Fagley,
1991). However, researchers rarely examine the actual content of
how participants rationalize their choices.
395 participants (84% female) completed the study. All were
students in Psychology courses.
Participants read four decision-making scenarios (based on
Tversky & Kahneman, 1981); two dealt with a monetary
gamble, and two regarded an outbreak of a disease that put
human lives at risk. Of the human lives scenarios, one outbreak
occurred in the general population, whereas the other outbreak
occurred in a major prison complex.
For each scenario, participants decided how to respond to the
situation, and wrote a short justification of their choice.
Three undergraduate researchers working independently of one
another read through the participants’ justifications. Each
researcher coded the justification into the categories of emotion,
risk/probability, and morality.
Miller, P. M., & Fagley, N. S. (1991). The effects of framing, problem variations, and providing
rationale on choice. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 17(5), 517-522.
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1981). The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice. Science,
211(4481), 453-458.
Do participants justify decisions about human life differently than decisions
about money?
Participants made more statements related to morality when justifying decisions
about human life compared to decisions about money (F (1, 244) = 67.2, p < .001). There
was no significant difference in how often they mentioned emotions or risk (ps >
.331).
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
Emotion Risk Morality
Average number of different types of statements
Human lives
Money
Do participants justify decisions about prisoners differently than
decisions about the general public?
Participants made more statements about risk when justifying decisions
about the general public compared to prisoners (F (1, 244) = 19.23, p < .001).
Participants made more statements about morality when justifying
decisions about prisoners compared to the general public (F (1, 244) = 31.28, p
< .001).
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1
Emotion Risk Morality
Average number of different types of statements
General public
Prisoners
For additional information regarding this study, please contact Josh Biber at
Joshua.Biber@mnsu.edu or Dr. Emily Stark at Emily.Stark@mnsu.edu.
Decision Scenarios
Human Lives
Imagine that you are the head of the State Department
of health and you have just learned that there has
been a large outbreak of E. coli in the United
States. Investigators believe that 6,000 people have
been infected by eating contaminated beef.
OR: Imagine that you are the head of the state
Department of Health and you have just learned the
news that there has been a large outbreak of anthrax
at the maximum security prison.
Monetary Risk
Imagine that a year ago you decided to start investing
in the stock market. You bought $6,000 worth of stock
from a company that seemed to be doing well.
However, this company has just filed a claim for
bankruptcy and your stock is now worthless.
OR: gambling in a poker game.
Each scenario presented a choice between a certain
outcome and a risky outcome to deal wit h the
situation.
Sample Rationales
Mention of Emotion: stating a
positive or negative emotion
• “I would stay positive and hope
for the best.”
Mention of Risk: discussion of
risk or gambling
• “I don’t like to take a chance so I
would choose certainty which
would be plan A.”
• “You might as well win big or go
home.”
Mention of Morality: stating what
is ‘right’, statement about the
value of lives
• “If they are prisoners they did
something wrong in the first
place to go to jail, so if some
aren't saved it shouldn't be that
big of a deal....”
• “I don’t want to doom
people…every life matters.”