Melbourne Moral Psychology Lab

Taken together, these findings suggest that people do pay forward behaviour in anonymous interactions, and that generosity is paid forward less than both greed and equality. Although we may like to think that being generous to someone else will subsequently increase their prosocial behaviour towards others, these findings sadly suggest that generosity does not automatically create a ripple effect of goodwill. As the article concludes, “to create chains of positive behaviour, people should focus less on performing random acts of generosity and more on treating others equally – while refraining from random acts of greed.” Read more about Paying it Forward

By Elise Margetts

This week in the MMPL journal discussion group we talked about ethicists' ethics. Schwitzgebel and Rust (2013) conducted a series of studies to investigate whether philosophy professors who specialise in ethics behave morally better than other professors, or whether they at least behave more consistently with their expressed values. They surveyed 198 ethicists, 208 non-ethicist philosophers and 167 non-philosophy professors from five US universities. It was predicted that, because ethicists spend more time engaging in philosophical moral reflection, they would behave more ethically, and show greater attitude-behaviour consistency. Read more about Do people practice what they preach? What about what they teach?

By Ain Simpson

Is it enough to simply see the wrongdoer suffer roughly to an equal degree? Or does real satisfaction come only when perpetrators suffer as a result of their past transgressions? Imagine, for example, three housemates, Fred, Bill, and Jane. Suppose that Fred selfishly ate a cake that Bill had baked for an upcoming party. Now further suppose that, on a later date, Fred had baked a cake of his own, but opened the fridge to find it eaten. Under what circumstance would Bill feel most satisfied: If Jane had selfishly eaten Fred’s cake, unaware of Fred’s earlier transgression against Bill; or if Bill had eaten Fred’s cake as a form of revenge, making sure Fred knew exactly why his cake had been eaten? In a nutshell, is it enough to see your wrongdoer suffer, or do we need to know that the wrongdoer knows he or she is suffering because of a previous transgression? Read more about Satisfaction and Revenge for Victims

May We Be Forgiven by A. M. Homes

This is a book about a family that is probably more dysfunctional than your own...hopefully. It's filled with tales of infidelity, fatal car accidents, illegal arms dealers, non-traditional penal systems - and that's really just skimming the surface. But I've caught your interest right? No one can avoid looking at a train wreck. So, I encourage you to pick up this book and enjoy the disaster. Read more about Moral of the Story: Morality and Literature: May We Be Forgiven