Hadza hunter-gatherers are not deontologists and do not prefer deontologists as social partners

Hadza hunter-gatherers are not deontologists and do not prefer deontologists as social partners. Kristopher M. Smith, Coren L. Apicella. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 101, July 2022, 104314. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2022.104314

Abstract: Researchers hypothesize that social selection resulting from partner choice may have shaped deontological moral reasoning in humans. People in Western societies judge deontologists to be more trustworthy than utilitarians and prefer them as cooperative partners. We test if the preference for deontologists as social partners generalizes to the Hadza, hunter-gatherers residing in Tanzania. We presented 134 Hadza participants with three ecologically-relevant sacrificial dilemmas and asked them to judge whether the actor should sacrifice one person to save five. We then randomly assigned participants to hear that the actor made either a deontological or utilitarian decision and asked them to make partner choice judgments about the actor in the dilemma. Compared to 249 US Mechanical Turk participants, Hadza participants were more likely to think the actor should choose the utilitarian option. Regardless of what option they thought the actor should choose, Hadza participants showed no preference for the deontological or utilitarian decision-maker, whereas Mechanical Turk participants who thought the actor should choose the deontological option had a strong preference for the deontological actor. These results suggest the preference for deontological decision-makers as cooperative partners is culturally variable.

Keywords: Moral dilemmaDeontologyUtilitarianPartner choiceMoral characterPerson perception