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Are Good Reasoners More Incest-Friendly? Trait Cognitive Reflection Predicts Selective Moralization In A Sample Of American Adults, Edward B. Royzman, Justin F. Landy, Geoffrey P. Goodwin

Faculty Articles

Two studies examined the relationship between individual differences in cognitive reflection (CRT) and the tendency to accord genuinely moral (non-conventional) status to a range of counter-normative acts — that is, to treat such acts as wrong regardless of existing social opinion or norms. We contrasted social violations that are intrinsically harmful to others (e.g., fraud, thievery) with those that are not (e.g., wearing pajamas to work and engaging in consensual acts of sexual intimacy with an adult sibling). Our key hypothesis was that more reflective (higher CRT) individuals would tend to moralize selectively — treating only intrinsically harmful acts as …