The psychology of the unthinkable: Taboo trade-offs, forbidden base rates, and heretical counterfactuals.
Abstract
Five studies explored cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses to proscribed forms of social cognition. Experiments 1 and 2 revealed that people responded to taboo trade-offs that monetized sacred values with moral outrage and cleansing. Experiments 3 and 4 revealed that racial egalitarians were least likely to use, and angriest at those who did use, race-tainted base rates and that egalitarians who inadvertently used such base rates tried to reaffirm their fair-mindedness. Experiment 5 revealed that Christian fundamentalists were most likely to reject heretical counterfactuals that applied everyday causal schemata to Biblical narratives and to engage in moral cleansing after merely contemplating such possibilities. Although the results fit the sacred-value-protection model (SVPM) better than rival formulations, the SVPM must draw on cross-cultural taxonomies of relational schemata to specify normative boundaries on thought.
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People often react with moral outrage when a material valuation is placed on sacred items or events.
“As it turns out, people often react with moral outrage when a material valuation is placed on sacred items or events [44].”
From The Importance of Moral Construal: Moral versus Non-Moral Construal Elicits Faster, More Extreme, Universal Evaluations of the Same Actions (2012) · cites this paper as [44]
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- Authors
- Tetlock, P. E., Kristel, O. V., Elson, S. B., Green, M. C., & Lerner, J. S.
- Affiliations
- The Ohio State University (US)
- Venue
- Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
- Published
- 2000
- Volume
- 78
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 853-870
- ISSN
- 0022-3514 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-1315
- OpenAlex
- W4238447780
- Cited by
- 1,400
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 47 · 2025: 76 · 2024: 74 · 2023: 59 · 2022: 81 · 2021: 97 · 2020: 103 · 2019: 83 · 2018: 57 · 2017: 54 · 2016: 53 · 2015: 61 · 2014: 59 · 2013: 49 · 2012: 79
- FWCI
- 15.50
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
- Keywords
- counterfactual reasoning, taboo violation, base rate neglect
- MeSH terms
- Affect, Cognition, Decision Making, Humans, Random Allocation, Social Perception, Social Values, Taboo
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