What question did this study set out to answer?

To determine whether individuals evaluate harmful omissions differently from harmful commissions when intentions, motives, and consequences remain constant.

January 1, 1991Journal of Experimental Social PsychologyOpen Access

Omission and commission in judgment and choice

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Authors

MSMark SprancaAbt Global (United States)EMElisa MinskCalifornia University of Pennsylvania JBJonathan BaronNew York University Press

Discussion

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Implication

Behavioral experiment demonstrates omission bias during moral evaluations, indicating an overgeneralization of decision heuristics regarding causality.

Key Points

To determine whether individuals evaluate harmful omissions differently from harmful commissions when intentions, motives, and consequences remain constant.
Presented scenario-based tasks comparing omission and commission options with standardized intentions, motives, and consequences.
Assessed subject ratings of actor morality, decision goodness, and outcome causality across conditions varying physical movement, alternative causes, and actor knowledge.
Subjects rated harmful omissions as less immoral and less bad as decisions than harmful commissions, an effect linked to judgments that omissions do not actively cause outcomes.
A reverse effect was absent for beneficial outcomes, and some subjects accepted greater overall harm to avoid taking direct action.
Disparities in moral judgment between omissions and commissions depended on physical movement, alternative external causes, and whether outcomes would occur during actor absence or ignorance.

Cite This Study

Spranca et al. (1991) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a12fed245487b7639a78281 https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-1031(91)90011-t

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Implication

Behavioral experiment demonstrates omission bias during moral evaluations, indicating an overgeneralization of decision heuristics regarding causality.

Omission and commission in judgment and choice

Discussion

Member takes

Implication

Key Points

Cite This Study

Omission and commission in judgment and choice

Discussion

Member takes

Implication

Key Points

Cite This Study

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