Papers by Hanne M Watkins
Personality & social psychology bulletin, 2021
We remember the past in order not to repeat it, but does remembrance of war in fact shape support... more We remember the past in order not to repeat it, but does remembrance of war in fact shape support for military or diplomatic approaches to international conflict? In seven samples from five countries (collected online, total N = 2,493), we examined support for military and diplomatic approaches to conflict during war commemorations (e.g., Veterans Day). During war commemorations in the United States, support for diplomacy increased, whereas support for military approaches did not change. We found similar results in the United Kingdom and Australia on Remembrance Day, but not in Germany, or France, nor in Australia on Anzac Day. Furthermore, support for diplomacy was predicted by concern about loss of ingroup military lives during war, independently of concern about harm to outgroup civilians. These studies expand our understanding of how collective memories of war may be leveraged to promote diplomatic approaches to contemporary geopolitical conflict.
Journal of Environmental Psychology
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
Tackling climate change presents an intergenerational dilemma: People must make sacrifices today,... more Tackling climate change presents an intergenerational dilemma: People must make sacrifices today, to benefit future generations. What causes people to feel an obligation to benefit future generations? Past research has suggested “intergenerational reciprocity” as a potential driver, but this research is quite domain specific, and it is unknown how well it applies to climate change. We explored a novel means of invoking a sense of intergenerational reciprocity: inducing reflection on the sacrifices made by previous generations. Our studies revealed that such reflection predicts and causes a heightened sense of moral obligation towards future generations, mediated by gratitude. However, there are also some downsides (e.g., feelings of unworthiness), and perceptions of obligation do not substantially affect pro-environmental attitudes or motivations. Thus, while reflecting on past generations’ sacrifices can generate a sense of intergenerational obligation, it is limited in the extent ...
We remember the past in order not to repeat it - but does remembrance of war in fact shape suppor... more We remember the past in order not to repeat it - but does remembrance of war in fact shape support for military or diplomatic approaches to international conflict? In 7 samples from 5 countries (collected online, total N = 2493), we examined support for military and diplomatic approaches to conflict during war commemorations (e.g., Veterans Day). During war commemorations in the U.S. support for diplomacy increased, while support for military approaches did not change. We found similar results in the U.K. and Australia on Remembrance Day, but not in Germany, or France, nor in Australia on Anzac Day. Further, support for diplomacy was predicted by concern about loss of ingroup lives during war, independently of concern about harm to outgroup civilians. These studies expand our understanding of how collective memories of war may be leveraged to promote diplomatic approaches to contemporary geopolitical conflict.
Perspectives on Psychological Science
Journal of Social Issues
The global human community is facing an increasingly urgent dilemma: How do we improve standards ... more The global human community is facing an increasingly urgent dilemma: How do we improve standards of living while lessening our impact on the environment? This special issue presents recent contributions from both psychological and interdisciplinary research on sustainable consumption. To situate these articles in a broader context, we first establish the necessity of improving sustainable consumption and discuss some of the foundational psychological work addressing
How does war influence moral judgments about harm? While the general rule is “thou shalt not kill... more How does war influence moral judgments about harm? While the general rule is “thou shalt not kill,” war appears to provide an exception to the moral prohibition on intentional harm. In three studies (N = 263, N = 557, N = 793), we quantify the difference in moral judgments across peace and war contexts, and explore two possible explanations for the difference. The findings demonstrate that people judge a trade-off of one life for five as more morally acceptable in war than in peace, especially if the one person is from an outgroup of the person making the trade-off. In addition, the robust difference in moral judgments across “switch” and “footbridge” trolley problems is attenuated in war compared to in peace. The present studies have implications for moral psychology researchers who use war-based scenarios to study broader cognitive or affective processes. If the war context changes judgments of moral scenarios by triggering group-based reasoning or altering the perceived structure of the moral event, using such scenarios to make decontextualized claims about moral judgment may not be warranted.
The principle of discrimination states that soldiers are legitimate targets of violence in war, w... more The principle of discrimination states that soldiers are legitimate targets of violence in war, whereas civilians are not. Is this prescriptive rule reflected in the descriptive judgments of laypeople? In 2 studies (Ns = 300, 229), U.S. Mechanical Turk workers were asked to evaluate the character traits of either a soldier or a civilian. Participants also made moral judgments about scenarios in which the target individual (soldier or civilian) killed or was killed by the enemy in war. Soldiers were consistently viewed as more dangerous and more courageous than civilians (Study 1). Participants also viewed killing by (and of) soldiers as more permissible than killing by (and of) civilians, in line with the principle of discrimination (Study 1). Altering the war context to involve a clearly just and unjust side (in Study 2) did not appear to moderate the principle of discrimination in moral judgment, although soldiers and civilians on the just side were evaluated more positively overall. However, the soldiers on the unjust side of the war were not attributed greater courage than were civilians on the unjust side. Theoretical and practical implications of these descriptive findings are discussed.
Phone number: +61 3 8344 3925 Keywords: models of moral judgment, model-free systems, model-based... more Phone number: +61 3 8344 3925 Keywords: models of moral judgment, model-free systems, model-based systems, intentions Word count: 622 Running head: MENTAL STATES AND MODELS OF MORALITY
Currently under review. Pre-print, materials, and data, available at the OSF: https://osf.io/w4wbh/
Comment on Johnson, Li, and Cohen: Fundamental social motives and the varieties of religious expe... more Comment on Johnson, Li, and Cohen: Fundamental social motives and the varieties of religious experience.
Proponents of the linguistic analogy (Dwyer, 2009; Mikhail, 2011) suggest that methodologies orig... more Proponents of the linguistic analogy (Dwyer, 2009; Mikhail, 2011) suggest that methodologies originally developed for investigating linguistic grammar can also be fruitfully applied to the empirical study of moral grammar: the causal and intentional representations of moral events which – according to the linguistic analogy – drive moral judgments. In the current study we put this claim to the empirical test. Participants were presented with moral dilemmas which previously have been shown to implement a central principle in moral judgments: the principle of double effect (PDE). Participants responded to by and in order to probes to assess causal and intentional representations of this principle. Results show that these linguistic probes do not relate to moral judgment in the manner predicted by proponents of the linguistic analogy and moral grammar. Although the linguistic analogy is a theoretically rich framework, the procedures posited to give it empirical traction require revision.
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Papers by Hanne M Watkins