Moral and Ethical Decision Making

Abstract : This report summarizes the work completed in contract W7711-037897/A. The purpose of this contract was to conduct an empirical investigation of both the cognitive and affective components of peoples reactions to moral and ethical choice dilemmas and their influence on the decisionmaking process and outcome. Respondents were contacted by email through their enrollment in the Virtual Lab of the Center for the Decision Sciences at Columbia University. They responded to a set of two civilian and two military ethical decisions. Their choices, in addition to cognitive and affective components of each choice and the scenario as a whole, were recorded. These scenarios and questions were developed as a result of an extensive literature review performed as the initial task of this contract. Surveys were placed on-line, allowing participants to complete them via a variety of web browsers. The sample consisted of 212 respondents, all of whom resided in the United States. There were 121 female and 91 male respondents. The mean age was 47.89 years, standard deviation 7.87. The youngest respondent was 19 and the oldest was 66.

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