Would You Sacrifice One to Save Many: A Psychopath Would
New research shows that people would sacrifice one person to save a larger group of people – and in addition, the force with which they carry out these actions could be predicted by psychopathic traits.
The study, led by the University of Plymouth, compared what people ‘said’ they would do with what they actually ‘did’ by comparing a questionnaire with actions in immersive moral dilemmas created using virtual-haptic technologies (i.e. using a robotic device which measures force, resistance, and speed, whilst simulating the action of harming a human).
In several dilemmas, participants had to decide whether to sacrifice a person by performing a harmful action against them, in order to save a larger group of people.
An illustration of the trolley problem. You have two options: Do nothing, and the trolley kills the five people on the main track.Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person.Which is the most ethical choice?
Psychopathy is generally characterised by antisocial behaviour and impaired empathy. As such, it is thought that individuals with strong psychopathic traits find it less emotionally challenging to sanction utilitarian actions.
In the present research, this resilience to performing actively harmful acts appears to enable these individuals to act for the ‘greater good’ (i.e. to save the many). This result therefore indicates that, in certain circumstances, psychopathic traits could be considered beneficial, since they can lead to a more vigorous response.
This study is a result of an interdisciplinary collaboration between Dr Kathryn Francis, Dr Sylvia Terbeck, Raluca Briazu, Dr Michaela Gummerum, and Dr Giorgio Ganis in the University’s School of Psychology, Agi Haines, a designer based in the University’s Transtechnology research group, and Dr Ian Howard of the Centre for Robotics and Neural Systems.
Dr Francis, now a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Philosophy and Psychology at the University of Reading, said: “This research highlights our proneness to moral inconsistency; what we say and what we do can be very different. For the first time, we demonstrate how personality traits can influence the physical power of our moral actions. Importantly, the multidisciplinary approaches that we have used here, combining virtual reality, robotics, and interactive sculpture, places further emphasis on the need to unite the sciences and the arts when investigating complex phenomena such as morality.”
Dr Ian Howard, Associate Professor in the Centre for Robotics and Neural Systems, said: “This work shows how techniques developed to study human movement can play a value role in psychological assessment and thereby lead to new insights into human social behaviour.”
Contacts and sources:
The full study, which was supported by CogNovo, is entitled Simulating Moral Actions: An Investigation of Personal Force in Virtual Moral Dilemmas and is available to view in the journal, Scientific Reports doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-13909-9
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Actually they will sacrifice many for the sake of the few..
A captains role is to give orders sacrificing a few to serve the many all the time, it is no longer a valid role in the services for a commander whos position depends upon merit rather than social position. Psychopaths tend to head into the medical profession and corporations under malpractice(Dr Shipman AKA Dr Death) or the local line manager with mental health problems who dedicates his life to bottom kissing his peers and superiors while kicking yours i.e. that special person who sends you out on a truck you had safety impounded with faults after certifying it safe by deleting the ticket.
I say the study was extremely flawed and flavored with BS. Tough decisions are what men used to make on a routine basis. Who the hell wouldn’t rather one person die than many? I would say those who would not sacrifice one to save many are the sickos.