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The psychosemantics of free riding: dissecting the architecture of a moral concept.

ABSTRACT: For collective action to evolve and be maintained by selection, the mind must be equipped with mechanisms designed to identify free riders--individuals who do not contribute to a collective project but still benefit from it. Once identified, free riders must be either punished or excluded from future collective actions. But what criteria does the mind use to categorize someone as a free rider? An evolutionary analysis suggests that failure to contribute is not sufficient. Failure to contribute can occur by intention or accident, but the adaptive threat is posed by those who are motivated to benefit themselves at the expense of cooperators. In 6 experiments, we show that only individuals with exploitive intentions were categorized as free riders, even when holding their actual level of contribution constant (Studies 1 and 2). In contrast to an evolutionary model, rational choice and reinforcement theory suggest that different contribution levels (leading to different payoffs for their cooperative partners) should be key. When intentions were held constant, however, differences in contribution level were not used to categorize individuals as free riders, although some categorization occurred along a competence dimension (Study 3). Free rider categorization was not due to general tendencies to categorize (Study 4) or to mechanisms that track a broader class of intentional moral violations (Studies 5A and 5B). The results reveal the operation of an evolved concept with features tailored for solving the collective action problems faced by ancestral hunter-gatherers.

SUBMITTER: Delton AW

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3365621 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The psychosemantics of free riding: dissecting the architecture of a moral concept.

Delton Andrew W AW Cosmides Leda L Guemo Marvin M Robertson Theresa E TE Tooby John J

Journal of personality and social psychology 20120123 6

For collective action to evolve and be maintained by selection, the mind must be equipped with mechanisms designed to identify free riders--individuals who do not contribute to a collective project but still benefit from it. Once identified, free riders must be either punished or excluded from future collective actions. But what criteria does the mind use to categorize someone as a free rider? An evolutionary analysis suggests that failure to contribute is not sufficient. Failure to contribute c ...[more]

PMID: 22268815

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Project description:Aims and objectivesTo describes nurses' moral experiences with Medical Assistance in Dying in the Canadian context.BackgroundNurses perform important roles in Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada and do so within a unique context in which Medical Assistance in Dying is provided through healthcare services and where accessibility is an important principle. International literature indicates that participating in Medical Assistance in Dying can be deeply impactful for nurses and requires a high degree of moral sense-making.DesignA qualitative interview study guided by Interpretive Description using the COREQ checklist.ResultsFifty-nine nurses from across Canada participated in the study. The decision to participate in Medical Assistance in Dying was influenced by family and community, professional experience and nurses' proximity to the act of Medical Assistance in Dying. Nurses described a range of deep and sometimes conflicting emotional reactions provoked by Medical Assistance in Dying. Nurses used a number of moral waypoints to make sense of their decision including patient choice, control and certainty; an understanding that it was not about the nurse; a commitment to staying with patients through suffering; consideration of moral consistency; issues related to the afterlife; and the peace and gratitude demonstrated by patients and families.DiscussionThe depth of nurses' intuitional moral responses and their need to make sense of these responses are consistent with Haidt's theory of moral experience in which individuals use reasoning primarily to explain their moral intuition and in which moral change occurs primarily through compassionate social interaction. Further, work on the moral identity of nursing provides robust explanation of how nurses' moral decisions are contextually and relationally mediated and how they seek to guard patient vulnerability, even at their own emotional cost.ConclusionMedical Assistance in Dying is impactful for nurses, and for some, it requires intensive and ongoing moral sense-making.Relevance to clinical practiceThere is a need to provide support for nurses' moral deliberation and emotional well-being in the context of Medical Assistance in Dying care.

Dataset Information

The psychosemantics of free riding: dissecting the architecture of a moral concept.

Publications

The psychosemantics of free riding: dissecting the architecture of a moral concept.

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