Casting someone as a moral agent reduces perceived sensitivity to pain

Evidence

In this study, Jeffrey was described as a relative good moral agent relative to Michael. Both of them worked for a company that was committed to environmentally friendly policies, and participants were told that a new chief executive officer (CEO) had taken over the company, one who planned to scrap the eco-friendly policies in favor of more profit. Jeffrey takes a stand against the CEO and walks out of a meeting; Michael also decides to walk out of the meeting, but after Jeffrey. … To check whether the agency manipulation was successful, we asked participants to rate who, between Jeffrey and Michael, deserved more praise for their actions. As predicted, Jeffrey, the man who left the meeting first, was seen to be relatively more agentic and earned more praise (M 6.28, SD 0.83), t(49) 19.33, p .001. To determine who was viewed as more of a patient, we told participants that Michael and Jeffrey were at restaurant and had scalding coffee spilled on both of them. We asked which, if either, of Michael and Jeffrey felt more pain from the hot coffee. As predicted, Jeffrey, the relative moral agent, was viewed as less of a patient, as participants indicated that Michael experienced more pain (M 3.16, SD 1.40), t(49) 4.23, p .001. These results complement the previous study by finding that moral typecasting works in both causal directions; not only does patiency affect agency but agency causally influenced perceptions of patiency. — Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting, 88

To check that Jeffrey was indeed viewed as more of an agent, we asked which of them deserved more blame. As predicted, Jeffrey was given more blame for his actions, indicating that he was indeed seen as more of a moral agent (M 5.24, SD 1.16), t(41) 6.89, p .001. Then as in Study 3b, participants were asked to evaluate who, between Michael and Jeffrey, they believed experienced more pain after having coffee spilled on them. As predicted, Jeffrey, the relative moral agent, was viewed as less of a patient, as participants rated Michael as experiencing more pain (M 3.64, SD 1.10), t(41) 2.10, p .05. This study replicates the effects of the last study, but with bad agents, and suggests that, in general, perceptions of moral agency are inversely and causally related to perceptions of moral patiency. Incidentally, this result appears to contradict the just world hypothesis (Lerner & Miller, 1978), as justice would entail that the more evil of the two of them feels the most pain. — Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting, 91

Categorization

• XREF: This is exactly the causal template for testing whether recategorizing a religious group as ‘ideological’ rather than ‘religious’ shifts perceived threat — framing the group as agents of an ideology rather than patients of their faith. — connects to: Perceiving someone as a moral agent reduces perceived moral patiency. — Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting: Divergent…, 1; Moral patiency rests on a target’s perceived capacity for pain and pleasure. — Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting: Divergent…, 14; Perceiving someone as a moral agent may preclude perceiving them as a moral patient — Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting: Divergent…, 21 (+7 more)
• ADDENDUM: Methodological model for extending the moral-typecasting logic of the ‘religious vs ideological’ recategorization test — the coffee-spill pain measure is a clean dependent-variable paradigm.
• corroborated: 4 independent passages support this claim — Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting: Divergent…, 88; Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting: Divergent…, 91

Broader Connections

• Perceived moral agency predicts expected behavioral tolerance of pain #corroborates (0.95) — Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting, 75
• Judgments of pain sensitivity reveal a target’s perceived moral patient status #corroborates (0.88)
• Moral typecasting overrides self-presentational reluctance to inflict pain #expands (0.82) — Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting, 144
• People rationally allocate pain and pleasure by target moral sensitivity. #expands (0.80) — Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting, 137
• A moral versus nonmoral context shifts who is seen as vulnerable to pain. #corroborates (0.78) — Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting, 100
• Perceived moral agency uniquely suppresses perceived victimhood, separable from general agency #qualifies (0.76) — Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting, 105
• War cruelty is reconciled with pain-sensitivity by quantifying pain #exemplifies (0.72) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 573