Cited by 261Psychology of Moral and Emotional JudgmentCultural Differences and ValuesExperimental Behavioral Economics Studies

Universals and variations in moral decisions made in 42 countries by 70,000 participants

Open access
Awad, Edmond, Dsouza, Sohan, Shariff, Azim, Rahwan, Iyad, Bonnefon, Jean-François·2020·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Abstract

When do people find it acceptable to sacrifice one life to save many? Cross-cultural studies suggested a complex pattern of universals and variations in the way people approach this question, but data were often based on small samples from a small number of countries outside of the Western world. Here we analyze responses to three sacrificial dilemmas by 70,000 participants in 10 languages and 42 countries. In every country, the three dilemmas displayed the same qualitative ordering of sacrifice acceptability, suggesting that this ordering is best explained by basic cognitive processes rather than cultural norms. The quantitative acceptability of each sacrifice, however, showed substantial country-level variations. We show that low relational mobility (where people are more cautious about not alienating their current social partners) is strongly associated with the rejection of sacrifices for the greater good (especially for Eastern countries), which may be explained by the signaling value of this rejection. We make our dataset fully available as a public resource for researchers studying universals and variations in human morality.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1073/pnas.1911517117

Cites

41 of 41 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

3 of the 44 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Awad, E., Dsouza, S., Shariff, A., Rahwan, I., & Bonnefon, J.-F.
Affiliations
  • University of Exeter (GB)
  • MIT Media Lab (US)
  • University of British Columbia (CA)
  • Max Planck Institute for Human Development (DE)
  • Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
Corresponding author
  • Awad, Edmond
  • Shariff, Azim
  • Rahwan, Iyad
  • Bonnefon, Jean-François
Venue
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Published
2020-01-21
Volume
117
Issue
5
Pages
2332-2337
ISSN
  • 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
  • 1091-6490
OpenAlex
W3000950628
Cited by
261
References
44
Citations by year
2026: 25 · 2025: 36 · 2024: 44 · 2023: 60 · 2022: 41 · 2021: 37 · 2020: 17
FWCI
20.81
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Open Research Exeter (University of Exeter) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • HAL (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • DSpace@MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
  • Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Toulouse 1 Capitole Publications (Université Toulouse I Capitole) (submittedVersion)
  • MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Funders
Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-17-EURE-0010, ANR-19-P3IA-0004)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Cultural Differences and Values
  • Social Sciences › Safety Research › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
Keywords
ethical decision-making, sacrificial dilemmas, trolley problem, moral intuitions, cross-cultural variation, relational mobility, signaling, East-West differences
MeSH terms
Cognition, Cross-Cultural Comparison, Decision Making, Humans, Morals, Surveys and Questionnaires, Social Mobility, Ethical Theory

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review