You See, the Ends Don’t Justify the Means

We conducted three experiments indicating that characteristically deontological judgments—here, disapproving of sacrificing one person for the greater good of others—are preferentially supported by visual imagery. Experiment 1 used two matched working memory tasks—one visual, one verbal—to identify individuals with relatively visual cognitive styles and individuals with relatively verbal cognitive styles. Individuals with more visual cognitive styles made more deontological judgments. Experiment 2 showed that visual interference, relative to verbal interference and no interference, decreases deontological judgment. Experiment 3 indicated that these effects are due to people’s tendency to visualize the harmful means (sacrificing one person) more than the beneficial end (saving others). These results suggest a specific role for visual imagery in moral judgment: When people consider sacrificing someone as a means to an end, visual imagery preferentially supports the judgment that the ends do not justify the means. These results suggest an integration of the dual-process theory of moral judgment with construal-level theory.

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