The worst-motive fallacy: A negativity bias in motive attribution

Simple item page
dc.contributor.authorWalmsley, Joel
dc.contributor.authorO'Madagain Cathal
dc.contributor.funderUniversity College Corken
dc.contributor.funderAgence Nationale de la Rechercheen
dc.date.accessioned2020-11-11T09:07:36Z
dc.date.available2020-11-11T09:07:36Z
dc.date.issued2020-10-21
dc.date.updated2020-11-11T08:42:55Z
dc.description.abstractIn this article, we describe a hitherto undocumented fallacy-in the sense of a mistake in reasoning-constituted by a negativity bias in the way that people attribute motives to others. We call this the "worst-motive fallacy," and we conducted two experiments to investigate it. In Experiment 1 (N = 323), participants expected protagonists in a variety of fictional vignettes to pursue courses of action that satisfy the protagonists' worst motive, and furthermore, participants significantly expected the protagonist to pursue a worse course of action than they would prefer themselves. Experiment 2 (N = 967) was a preregistered attempted replication of Experiment 1, including a bigger range of vignettes; the first effect was not replicated for the new vignettes tested but was for the original set. Also, we once again found that participants expected protagonists to be more likely than they were themselves to pursue courses of action that they considered morally bad. We discuss the worst-motive fallacy's relation to other well-known biases as well as its possible evolutionary origins and its ethical (and meta-ethical) consequences.en
dc.description.sponsorshipUniversity College Cork (Department of Philosophy,grant); Agence Nationale de la Recherche (FrontCog: ANR-17-EURE-0017)en
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden
dc.description.versionAccepted Versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.citationWalmsley, J. and O'Madagain, C. (2020) 'The worst-motive fallacy: A negativity bias in motive attribution', Psychological Science. doi: 10.1177/0956797620954492en
dc.identifier.doi10.1177/0956797620954492en
dc.identifier.eissn1467-9280
dc.identifier.issn0956-7976
dc.identifier.journaltitlePsychological Scienceen
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/10750
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherSAGE Publicationsen
dc.rights© 2020, the Authors. Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications. This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of the following article: Walmsley, J. and O'Madagain, C. (2020) 'The worst-motive fallacy: A negativity bias in motive attribution', Psychological Science, doi: 10.1177/0956797620954492. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797620954492en
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/en
dc.subjectCognitive biasen
dc.subjectMotivesen
dc.subjectAttributionen
dc.subjectMeta-ethicsen
dc.subjectExperimental philosophyen
dc.subjectMoral intuitionsen
dc.subjectMoral judgmenten
dc.subjectOpen dataen
dc.subjectOpen materialsen
dc.subjectPreregistereden
dc.titleThe worst-motive fallacy: A negativity bias in motive attributionen
dc.typeArticle (peer-reviewed)en
Files
Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Walmsley__O'Madagain_-_Worst_Motive_Fallacy_(Full_Final).pdf
Size:
361.22 KB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Accepted Version
Download
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
license.txt
Size:
2.71 KB
Format:
Item-specific license agreed upon to submission
Description:
Download
Collections
Philosophy - Journal Articles