Would you exchange your soul for immortality?-existential meaning and afterlife beliefs predict mind upload approval.

Mind upload, or the digital copying of an individual brain and mind, could theoretically allow one to "live forever." If such a technology became available, who would be most likely to approve of it or condemn it? Research has shown that fear of death positively predicts the moral approval of hypothetical mind upload technology, while religiosity may have the opposite effect. We build on these findings, drawing also from work on religiosity and existential mattering as predictors of perceived meaning in one's life. In a cross-sectional study (N = 1,007), we show that existential mattering and afterlife beliefs are negatively associated with moral approval of mind upload technology: people who believe there is a soul or some form of afterlife and who also report a high level of existential mattering, are least likely to morally approve of mind upload technology. Indeed, mind uploading-if it ever becomes feasible-is a form of technology that would fundamentally redraw the existential boundaries of what it means to be human.

Coordination and expertise foster legal textualism.

A cross-cultural survey experiment revealed a dominant tendency to rely on a rule's letter over its spirit when deciding which behaviors violate the rule. This tendency varied markedly across (k = 15) countries, owing to variation in the impact of moral appraisals on judgments of rule violation. Compared with laypeople, legal experts were more inclined to disregard their moral evaluations of the acts altogether and consequently exhibited stronger textualist tendencies. Finally, we evaluated a plausible mechanism for the emergence of textualism: in a two-player coordination game, incentives to coordinate in the absence of communication reinforced participants' adherence to rules' literal meaning. Together, these studies (total n = 5,794) help clarify the origins and allure of textualism, especially in the law. Within heterogeneous communities in which members diverge in their moral appraisals involving a rule's purpose, the rule's literal meaning provides a clear focal point-an identifiable point of agreement enabling coordinated interpretation among citizens, lawmakers, and judges.

Breaking the bonds of reinforcement: Effects of trial outcome, rule consistency and rule complexity against exploitable and unexploitable opponents.

In two experiments, we used the simple zero-sum game Rock, Paper and Scissors to study the common reinforcement-based rules of repeating choices after winning (win-stay) and shifting from previous choice options after losing (lose-shift). Participants played the game against both computer opponents who could not be exploited and computer opponents who could be exploited by making choices that would at times conflict with reinforcement. Against unexploitable opponents, participants achieved an approximation of random behavior, contrary to previous research commonly finding reinforcement biases. Against exploitable opponents, the participants learned to exploit the opponent regardless of whether optimal choices conflicted with reinforcement or not. The data suggest that learning a rule that allows one to exploit was largely determined by the outcome of the previous trial.

Challenges in Process Dissociation Measures for Moral Cognition.

The process dissociation procedure (PDP) for moral cognition was created to separately measure two dispositions of moral judgment based on the dual-process theory of moral reasoning: deontological and utilitarian inclinations. In this paper we raise some concerns from a psychometrics perspective regarding the structure, reliability, and validity of the moral PDP as a measure of individual differences. Using two simulation studies as well as a real sample of N = 1,010, we investigate the psychometric properties of the moral PDP. We present novel evidence showing that (1) some correlations between PDP parameters are mathematical artifacts, and as such cannot be taken as evidence in support of a theory, (2) there are severe response inconsistencies within dilemma batteries, and (3) reliability estimates for these scores seem to be far below the accepted standards. We discuss some potential theoretical and content-related reasons for these statistical issues and their implications. We conclude that in their current form, PDP measures of utilitarian and deontological tendencies are sub-optimal for assessing individual differences.

Failure generates impulsivity only when outcomes cannot be controlled.

Verbruggen, Chambers, Lawrence, and McLaren (2017) recently challenged the view that individuals act with greater caution following the experience of a negative outcome by showing that a gambled loss resulted in faster reaction time (RT) on the next trial. Over three experiments, we replicate and establish the boundary conditions of this effect in the context of a simple game (rock, paper, scissors [RPS]). Choice responding against unexploitable opponents replicated the link between failure and faster responding. However, individuals with high win-rates against exploitable opponents initiated slower rather than faster responding following loss. The data suggest that the link between failure and impulsivity is limited to contexts where participants cannot exert control over outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Does the Brain's Reward Response Occur Even Without Actual Reward? A Response to Fielding et al. (2017).

A recent paper by Fielding et al. (J Gamb Stud, 2017) argued that the brain's reward response could occur without the presentation of actual reward. We suggest that since (a) the event-related potentials reported in this paper are atypical of the previous literature, and, (b) a simpler account of the data in terms of sensitivity to outcome frequency cannot be ruled out, the extent to which the brain's reward response can occur without the presentation of actual reward should remain an open question.

Individual Differences in Moral Disgust Do Not Predict Utilitarian Judgments, Sexual and Pathogen Disgust Do.

The role of emotional disgust and disgust sensitivity in moral judgment and decision-making has been debated intensively for over 20 years. Until very recently, there were two main evolutionary narratives for this rather puzzling association. One of the models suggest that it was developed through some form of group selection mechanism, where the internal norms of the groups were acting as pathogen safety mechanisms. Another model suggested that these mechanisms were developed through hygiene norms, which were piggybacking on pathogen disgust mechanisms. In this study we present another alternative, namely that this mechanism might have evolved through sexual disgust sensitivity. We note that though the role of disgust in moral judgment has been questioned recently, few studies have taken disgust sensitivity to account. We present data from a large sample (N = 1300) where we analyzed the associations between The Three Domain Disgust Scale and the most commonly used 12 moral dilemmas measuring utilitarian/deontological preferences with Structural Equation Modeling. Our results indicate that of the three domains of disgust, only sexual disgust is associated with more deontological moral preferences. We also found that pathogen disgust was associated with more utilitarian preferences. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Are Utilitarian/Deontological Preferences Unidimensional?

Utilitarian versus deontological inclinations have been studied extensively in the field of moral psychology. However, the field has been lacking a thorough psychometric evaluation of the most commonly used measures. In this paper, we examine the factorial structure of an often used set of 12 moral dilemmas purportedly measuring utilitarian/deontological moral inclinations. We ran three different studies (and a pilot) to investigate the issue. In Study 1, we used standard Exploratory Factor Analysis and Schmid-Leimann (g factor) analysis; results of which informed the a priori single-factor model for our second study. Results of Confirmatory Factor Analysis in Study 2 were replicated in Study 3. Finally, we ran a weak invariance analysis between the models of Study 2 and 3, concluding that there is no significant difference between factor loading in these studies. We find reason to support a single-factor model of utilitarian/deontological inclinations. In addition, certain dilemmas have consistent error covariance, suggesting that this should be taken into consideration in future studies. In conclusion, three studies, pilot and an invariance analysis, systematically suggest the following. (1) No item needs to be dropped from the scale. (2) There is a unidimensional structure for utilitarian/deontological preferences behind the most often used dilemmas in moral psychology, suggesting a single latent cognitive mechanism. (3) The most common set of dilemmas in moral psychology can be successfully used as a unidimensional measure of utilitarian/deontological moral inclinations, but would benefit from using weighted averages over simple averages. (4) Consideration should be given to dilemmas describing infants.