Perceptions of moral agency are studied across varied human and celebrity targets.
Evidence
Targets. There were 14 targets representing four groups: 3 good moral agents (Mother Theresa, Dalai Lama, and Martin Luther King Jr.), 3 bad moral agents (Osama bin Laden, Hitler, and Ted Bundy), 3 patients (an orphan, a victim of date rape, and a man with Down’s Syndrome), and 5 neutral targets (e.g., a radiology technician, Britney Spears, a network administrator, Prince Harry, and a high school teacher). For each target, the name and a brief description were presented (e.g., Keith Washington, Network Administrator), followed by the four questions. — Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting, 65
Categorization
- XREF: The design deliberately pairs real historical figures with fictional generic people (e.g., Keith Washington, Network Administrator) to hold fame constant — a modeling choice worth copying when comparing ‘religious group’ vs an invented named subgroup. — connects to: Perceived moral agency and perceived moral patiency vary inversely across targets — Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting: Divergent…, 39; Moral typecasting may reflect a general person-perception tendency. — Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting: Divergent…, 160
- SEED: The fictional-vs-famous target pairing is a reusable dodge for the confound that familiar named groups carry reputational baggage — could anchor an essay on why experimentalists invent unremarkable human stand-ins.
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting: Divergent…, 65
Broader Connections
- Perceived moral agency and perceived moral patiency vary inversely across targets
#expands(0.78) — Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting, 39 - Moral typecasting may reflect a general person-perception tendency.
#expands(0.75) — Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting, 160