Extreme time-pressure reveals utilitarian intuitions in sacrificial dilemmas

Abstract

Abstract The mainstream version of the dual-process model of moral cognition claims that utilitarian responses (URs) to sacrificial moral dilemmas are the outputs of controlled cognitive processes. This version predicts that interfering with cognitive resources should elicit more intuitive-deontological responses. Attempts in the literature to experimentally confirm this prediction have been inconclusive. Some experiments partially confirm the prediction, but others suggest that URs are slightly favoured in the time-pressure condition. We present a sequence of four studies with the same background design (total N = 2261) implementing extreme time-pressure. Our data consistently suggest that time-pressure increases URs. The effect is small, but the trend is stable. When confronted with sacrificial dilemmas, our samples slightly favour URs under time pressure. Models of moral cognition should be prepared to include both deontological and utilitarian intuitions as part of the basic structure of moral processing.