Those who thought about donation decisions by either deliberating about the cost-effectiveness of charities we judged of less positive moral character than those deciding based on empathy

Montealegre, Andres, Lance Bush, David Moss, David Pizarro, and William Jimenez-Leal. 2020. “Does Maximizing Good Make People Look Bad?.” PsyArXiv. April 11. doi:10.31234/osf.io/2zbax

Abstract: People make inferences about others depending on the way they arrive at their moral decisions. Here, we examine evaluations of people who make moral decisions through deliberation compared to those who decide based on empathy. To do so, we turn to charitable donations. People often fail to prioritize the cost-effectiveness of charities when donating (Berman, Barasch, Levine, & Small, 2018). We argue that this pattern exists in part because donors who make charitable decisions by deliberating about the cost-effectiveness of charities are perceived as less moral and less desirable as social partners than those who decide based on empathizing with the recipients of the donation. Across six pre-registered studies using two different scenarios (N = 1,961), we presented participants with descriptions of people who thought about donation decisions by either deliberating about the cost-effectiveness of charities, or by deciding based on empathy. Reliably, participants judged “deliberators” to have less positive moral character and to be less desirable as social partners than “empathizers.” We found these results across different designs (between-subjects and within-subjects), when evaluating respondents of different genders (male and female), and for donations of different stakes (low and high). The negative reputational effects of deliberating were reduced if “deliberators” expressed empathy first. These results suggest that there may be disincentives for selecting charities based on their impact, since people are not socially rewarded for prioritizing charitable impact but are rewarded for signaling the right kinds of moral traits. We end by discussing implications and limitations of these findings.