Emotion and social motivation in university students’ real life moral dilemmas.

Research output: Contribution to conferenceAbstractpeer-review

Original languageEnglish
Publication statusPublished - 2003
EventAnnual Meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP), 2003 - Los Angeles, CA, United States
Duration: 2003 Feb 62003 Feb 8

Conference

ConferenceAnnual Meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP), 2003
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityLos Angeles, CA
Period2003/02/062003/02/08

Bibliographical note

Abstract: Studied the relationship between social motivation and approaches to moral decision making, and also the emotions people experience in real life moral dilemmas. 44 students were interviewed about a moral dilemma that they had faced in the past. Social motivation was measured with Emmons’ (1989) idiographic personal strivings method. Intimacy motivation was related to a preference for making decisions after having consulted others and to being open to their values and norms, whereas achievement motivation was related to consequence-oriented moral reasoning and a concrete construal of moral problems. When asked to think of and relive their moral dilemma, participants scored significantly lower than their baseline level on a mood questionnaire, females scoring significantly lower than the males. Possible implications of negative emotion on the cognitive processes involved in solving moral dilemmas are discussed.

Subject classification (UKÄ)

  • Psychology

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