Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Review Article
  • Published:

How inferred motives shape moral judgements

Nature Reviews Psychology volume 1, pages 468–478 (2022)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

When people judge acts of kindness or cruelty, they often look beyond the act itself to infer the agent’s motives. These inferences, in turn, can powerfully influence moral judgements. The mere possibility of self-interested motives can taint otherwise helpful acts, whereas morally principled motives can exonerate those behind harmful acts. In this Review, we survey research showcasing the importance of inferred motives for moral judgements, and show how motive inferences are connected to judgements of actions, intentions and character. This work suggests that the inferences observers draw about peoples’ motives are sufficient for moral judgement (they drive character judgements even without actions) and functional (they effectively aid observers in predicting peoples’ future behaviour). Research that directly probes when and how people infer motives, and how motive properties guide those inferences, can deepen our understanding of the role of inferred motives in moral life.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Typical scenarios in moral psychology for judging actions and character.
Fig. 2: Key targets of moral judgement.
Fig. 3: Motive and action multiplicity.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Liefgreen, A., Yousif, S. R., Keil, F. C. & Lagnado, D. A. Motive on the mind: explanatory preferences at multiple stages of the legal-investigative process. Cognition 217, 104892 (2021).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Nadler, J. & McDonnell, M.-H. Moral character, motive, and the psychology of blame. Cornell Rev. 97, 255 (2011).

    Google Scholar 

  3. Verstein, A. The failure of mixed-motives jurisprudence. Univ. Chicago Law Rev. 86, 725–796 (2019).

    Google Scholar 

  4. Zheng, L. Your rainbow logo doesn’t make you an ally. Harvard Business Review https://hbr.org/2021/06/your-rainbow-logo-doesnt-make-you-an-ally (2021).

  5. Aarts, H., Gollwitzer, P. M. & Hassin, R. R. Goal contagion: perceiving is for pursuing. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 87, 23–37 (2004).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Dik, G. & Aarts, H. Behavioral cues to others’ motivation and goal pursuits: the perception of effort facilitates goal inference and contagion. J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 43, 727–737 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Hassin, R. R., Aarts, H. & Ferguson, M. J. Automatic goal inferences. J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 41, 129–140 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Malle, B. F. & Holbrook, J. Is there a hierarchy of social inferences? The likelihood and speed of inferring intentionality, mind, and personality. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 102, 661 (2012).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Moskowitz, G. B. & Olcaysoy Okten, I. Spontaneous goal inference (SGI). Soc. Personal. Psychol. Compass 10, 64–80 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Baillargeon, R. et al. Psychological and Sociomoral Reasoning in Infancy (American Psychological Association, 2015).

  11. Gergely, G., Nádasdy, Z., Csibra, G. & Bíró, S. Taking the intentional stance at 12 months of age. Cognition 56, 165–193 (1995).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  12. Hamlin, J. K., Wynn, K. & Bloom, P. Social evaluation by preverbal infants. Nature 450, 557–559 (2007).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. Liu, S., Ullman, T. D., Tenenbaum, J. B. & Spelke, E. S. Ten-month-old infants infer the value of goals from the costs of actions. Science 358, 1038–1041 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  14. Davis, M. H. Measuring individual differences in empathy: evidence for a multidimensional approach. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 44, 113–126 (1983).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Buckels, E. E., Jones, D. N. & Paulhus, D. L. Behavioral confirmation of everyday sadism. Psychol. Sci. 24, 2201–2209 (2013).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  16. Batson, C. D. Altruism in Humans (Oxford Univ. Press, 2011).

  17. Deci, E. L. & Ryan, R. M. Self-determination theory: a macrotheory of human motivation, development, and health. Canad. Psychol. 49, 182 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Fiske, S. T., Gilbert, D. T. & Lindzey, G. Handbook of Social Psychology Vol. 2 (Wiley, 2010).

  19. Rai, T. S. & Fiske, A. P. Moral psychology is relationship regulation: moral motives for unity, hierarchy, equality, and proportionality. Psychol. Rev. 118, 57–75 (2011).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  20. Weisz, E., Ong, D. C., Carlson, R. W. & Zaki, J. Building empathy through motivation-based interventions. Emotion 21, 990–999 (2021).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  21. Barasch, A., Levine, E. E., Berman, J. Z. & Small, D. A. Selfish or selfless? On the signal value of emotion in altruistic behavior. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 107, 393–413 (2014).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  22. Berman, J. Z. & Silver, I. Prosocial behavior and reputation: when does doing good lead to looking good? Curr. Opin. Psychol. 43, 102–107 (2022).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  23. Bigman, Y. E. & Tamir, M. The road to heaven is paved with effort: perceived effort amplifies moral judgment. J. Exp. Psychol. Gen. 145, 1654–1669 (2016).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  24. Carlson, R. W. & Zaki, J. Good deeds gone bad: lay theories of altruism and selfishness. J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 75, 36–40 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Raihani, N. J. & Power, E. A. in Evolutionary Human Sciences Vol. 3 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2021).

  26. Woolfolk, R. L., Doris, J. M. & Darley, J. M. Identification, situational constraint, and social cognition: studies in the attribution of moral responsibility. Cognition 100, 283–301 (2006).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  27. Gawronski, B., Armstrong, J., Conway, P., Friesdorf, R. & Hütter, M. Consequences, norms, and generalized inaction in moral dilemmas: the CNI model of moral decision-making. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 113, 343–376 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  28. Greene, J. D., Sommerville, R. B., Nystrom, L. E., Darley, J. M. & Cohen, J. D. An fMRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgment. Science 293, 2105–2108 (2001).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  29. Malle, B. F., Guglielmo, S. & Monroe, A. E. A theory of blame. Psychol. Inq. 25, 147–186 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Crockett, M. J., Everett, J. A., Gill, M. & Siegel, J. Z. in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology Vol. 64, 1–64 (Elsevier, 2021).

  31. Tannenbaum, D., Uhlmann, E. L. & Diermeier, D. Moral signals, public outrage, and immaterial harms. J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 47, 1249–1254 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Uhlmann, E. L., Pizarro, D. A. & Diermeier, D. A person-centered approach to moral judgment. Perspect. Psychol. Sci. 10, 72–81 (2015).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  33. Hartman, R., Blakey, W. & Gray, K. Deconstructing moral character judgments. Curr. Opin. Psychol. 43, 205–212 (2022).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  34. Mill, J. S. Utilitarianism (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1861).

  35. Kant, I. Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (Oxford Univ. Press, 1785).

  36. Kahane, G. et al. Beyond sacrificial harm: a two-dimensional model of utilitarian psychology. Psychol. Rev. 125, 131–164 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  37. Gray, K., Schein, C. & Ward, A. F. The myth of harmless wrongs in moral cognition: automatic dyadic completion from sin to suffering. J. Exp. Psychol. Gen. 143, 1600–1615 (2014).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  38. Djeriouat, H. & Trémolière, B. The dark triad of personality and utilitarian moral judgment: the mediating role of honesty/humility and harm/care. Personal. Individ. Differ. 67, 11–16 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Schein, C. & Gray, K. The theory of dyadic morality: reinventing moral judgment by redefining harm. Personal. Soc. Psychol. Rev. 22, 32–70 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. Cushman, F. Crime and punishment: distinguishing the roles of causal and intentional analyses in moral judgment. Cognition 108, 353–380 (2008).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  41. Cohen, D. J. & Ahn, M. A subjective utilitarian theory of moral judgment. J. Exp. Psychol. Gen. 145, 1359–1381 (2016).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  42. Graham, J., Haidt, J. & Nosek, B. A. Liberals and conservatives rely on different sets of moral foundations. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 96, 1029–1046 (2009).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  43. Mikhail, J. Universal moral grammar: theory, evidence and the future. Trends Cogn. Sci. 11, 143–152 (2007).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  44. Miller, R. M., Hannikainen, I. A. & Cushman, F. A. Bad actions or bad outcomes? Differentiating affective contributions to the moral condemnation of harm. Emotion 14, 573–587 (2014).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  45. Yudkin, D. A., Prosser, A. M. B. & Crockett, M. J. Actions speak louder than outcomes in judgments of prosocial behavior. Emotion 19, 1138–1147 (2019).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  46. Foot, P. The problem of abortion and the doctrine of the double effect. Oxf. Rev. 5, 5–15 (1967).

    Google Scholar 

  47. Thomson, J. J. Killing, letting die, and the trolley problem. Monist 59, 204–217 (1976).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  48. Greene, J. D., Nystrom, L. E., Engell, A. D., Darley, J. M. & Cohen, J. D. The neural bases of cognitive conflict and control in moral judgment. Neuron 44, 389–400 (2004).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  49. Goodwin, G. P., Piazza, J. & Rozin, P. Moral character predominates in person perception and evaluation. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 106, 148–168 (2014).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  50. Wojciszke, B. Morality and competence in person-and self-perception. Eur. Rev. Soc. Psychol. 16, 155–188 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  51. Fiske, S. T., Cuddy, A. J. C. & Glick, P. Universal dimensions of social cognition: warmth and competence. Trends Cogn. Sci. 11, 77–83 (2007).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  52. Abele, A. E. & Wojciszke, B. Agency and communion from the perspective of self versus others. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 93, 751–763 (2007).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  53. Goodwin, G. P. Moral character in person perception. Curr. Dir. Psychol. Sci. 24, 38–44 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  54. Brambilla, M. & Leach, C. W. On the importance of being moral: the distinctive role of morality in social judgment. Soc. Cogn. 32, 397–408 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  55. Buchanan, A. Our Moral Fate: Evolution and the Escape from Tribalism (MIT Press, 2020).

  56. Enke, B. Kinship, cooperation, and the evolution of moral systems. Q. J. Econ. 134, 953–1019 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  57. Hursthouse, R. & Pettigrove, G. Virtue ethics. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (ed. Zalta, E. N.) (Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2018).

  58. Uhlmann, E. L., Zhu, L. & Diermeier, D. When actions speak volumes: the role of inferences about moral character in outrage over racial bigotry. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 44, 23–29 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  59. Uhlmann, E. L., Zhu, L. L. & Tannenbaum, D. When it takes a bad person to do the right thing. Cognition 126, 326–334 (2013).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  60. Epley, N., & Waytz, A. in Handbook of Social Psychology 5th edn (eds. Fiske, S. T., Gilbert, D. T. & Lindzey, G.) 498–541 (Wiley, 2010).

  61. Pizarro, D. A. & Tannenbaum, D. in The Social Psychology of Morality: Exploring the Causes of Good and Evil 91–108 (American Psychological Association, 2012).

  62. Heider, F. The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations (Psychology Press, 1958).

  63. Kelley, H. H. in Nebraska Symposium On Motivation (Univ. Nebraska Press, 1967).

  64. Kelley, H. H. The processes of causal attribution. Am. Psychol. 28, 107–128 (1973).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  65. Skowronski, J. J. & Carlston, D. E. Social judgment and social memory: the role of cue diagnosticity in negativity, positivity, and extremity biases. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 52, 689 (1987).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  66. Cone, J. & Ferguson, M. J. He did what? The role of diagnosticity in revising implicit evaluations. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 108, 37–57 (2015).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  67. Reeder, G. D. & Brewer, M. B. A schematic model of dispositional attribution in interpersonal perception. Psychol. Rev. 86, 61–79 (1979).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  68. Reeder, G. D., Pryor, J. B. & Wojciszke, B. in Language, Interaction And Social Cognition 37–57 (Sage, 1992).

  69. Trafimow, D. & Trafimow, S. Mapping perfect and imperfect duties onto hierarchically and partially restrictive trait dimensions. Pers. Soc. Psychol. Bull. 25, 687–697 (1999).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  70. Ames, D. L. & Fiske, S. T. Intentional harms are worse, even when they’re not. Psychol. Sci. 24, 1755–1762 (2013).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  71. Reeder, G. Mindreading: judgments about intentionality and motives in dispositional inference. Psychol. Inq. 20, 1–18 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  72. Lewin, K. The Conceptual Representation and the Measurement of Psychological Forces (Duke Univ. Press, 1938).

  73. Reeder, G. D. & Trafimow, D. in Other Minds: How Humans Bridge the Divide Between Self and Others 106–123 (Guilford, 2005).

  74. Yuill, N. & Perner, J. Intentionality and knowledge in children’s judgments of actor’s responsibility and recipient’s emotional reaction. Dev. Psychol. 24, 358–365 (1988).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  75. Lewin, K. Defining the ‘field at a given time’. Psychol. Rev. 50, 292–310 (1943).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  76. Baker, C. L., Jara-Ettinger, J., Saxe, R. & Tenenbaum, J. B. Rational quantitative attribution of beliefs, desires and percepts in human mentalizing. Nat. Hum. Behav. 1, 0064 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  77. Carlson, R. W., Adkins, C., Crockett, M. J. & Clark, M. S. Psychological selfishness. Perspect. Psychol. Sci. https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916211045692 (2022).

  78. Dennett, D. C. The Intentional Stance (MIT Press, 1987).

  79. Jara-Ettinger, J., Gweon, H., Schulz, L. E. & Tenenbaum, J. B. The naïve utility calculus: computational principles underlying commonsense psychology. Trends Cogn. Sci. 20, 589–604 (2016).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  80. Kotabe, H. P. & Hofmann, W. On integrating the components of self-control. Perspect. Psychol. Sci. 10, 618–638 (2015).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  81. Berkman, E. T. & Lieberman, M. D. in The Psychology Of Goals 98–126 (Guilford, 2009).

  82. Carlson, R. W. & Crockett, M. J. The lateral prefrontal cortex and moral goal pursuit. Curr. Opin. Psychol. 24, 77–82 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  83. Fishbach, A. & Ferguson, M. J. in Social Psychology: Handbook of Basic Principles 2nd edn (eds. Kruglanski, A. W. & Higgins, E. T.) 490–515 (Guilford, 2007).

  84. Kruglanski, A. W. in The Psychology of Action: Linking Cognition and Motivation io Behavior 599–618 (Guilford, 1996).

  85. Moskowitz, G. B. & Grant, H. The Psychology of Goals (Guilford, 2009).

  86. O’Reilly, R. C. Unraveling the mysteries of motivation. Trends Cogn. Sci. 24, 425–434 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  87. Malle, B. F. in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology Vol. 44 (eds. Olson, J. M. & Zanna, M. P.) Ch. 6, 297–352 (Academic, 2011).

  88. Korman, J. & Malle, B. F. Grasping for traits or reasons? How people grapple with puzzling social behaviors. Pers. Soc. Psychol. Bull. 42, 1451–1465 (2016).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  89. Malle, B. F. & Knobe, J. in Intentions and Intentionality: Foundations of Social Cognition 45–67 (MIT Press, 2001).

  90. Bratman, M. E. Faces of Intention: Selected Essays on Intention and Agency (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1999).

  91. Malle, B. F. & Knobe, J. The folk concept of intentionality. J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 33, 101–121 (1997).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  92. Choshen-Hillel, S., Shaw, A. & Caruso, E. M. Lying to appear honest. J. Exp. Psychol. Gen. 149, 1719–1735 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  93. Critcher, C. R., Helzer, E. G. & Tannenbaum, D. Moral character evaluation: testing another’s moral-cognitive machinery. J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 87, 103906 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  94. Inbar, Y., Pizarro, D. A. & Cushman, F. Benefiting from misfortune: when harmless actions are judged to be morally blameworthy. Pers. Soc. Psychol. Bull. 38, 52–62 (2012).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  95. Pizarro, D., Uhlmann, E. & Salovey, P. Asymmetry in judgments of moral blame and praise: the role of perceived metadesires. Psychol. Sci. 14, 267–272 (2003).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  96. Cushman, F. Deconstructing intent to reconstruct morality. Curr. Opin. Psychol. 6, 97–103 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  97. Baker, C. L., Saxe, R. & Tenenbaum, J. B. Action understanding as inverse planning. Cognition 113, 329–349 (2009).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  98. Malle, B. F. How the Mind Explains Behavior: Folk Explanations, Meaning, and Social Interaction (MIT Press, 2004).

  99. Cialdini, R. B. Altruism or egoism? That is (still) the question. Psychol. Inq. 2, 124–126 (1991).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  100. Charness, G. & Dufwenberg, M. Promises and partnership. Econometrica 74, 1579–1601 (2006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  101. Ariely, D., Bracha, A. & Meier, S. Doing good or doing well? Image motivation and monetary incentives in behaving prosocially. Am. Econ. Rev. 99, 544–555 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  102. Kraft-Todd, G., Kleiman-Weiner, M. & Young, L. Differential discounting of virtue signaling: public virtue is perceived less favorably than private virtue for generosity but not impartiality. Preprint at PsyArXiv https://psyarxiv.com/zqpv7 (2020).

  103. Berman, J. Z., Levine, E. E., Barasch, A. & Small, D. A. The braggart’s dilemma: on the social rewards and penalties of advertising prosocial behavior. J. Mark. Res. 52, 90–104 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  104. Crockett, M. J., Özdemir, Y. & Fehr, E. The value of vengeance and the demand for deterrence. J. Exp. Psychol. Gen. 143, 2279 (2014).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  105. Shalvi, S., Gino, F., Barkan, R. & Ayal, S. Self-serving justifications: doing wrong and feeling moral. Curr. Dir. Psychol. Sci. 24, 125–130 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  106. Marshall, J., Yudkin, D. A. & Crockett, M. J. Children punish third parties to satisfy both consequentialist and retributive motives. Nat. Hum. Behav. 5, 361–368 (2021).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  107. West, S. J., Parton, D. M. & Chester, D. Harming in order to help: an empirical demonstration of prosocial aggression. Preprint at PsyArXiv https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/phsve (2022).

  108. Fehr, E. & Gächter, S. Altruistic punishment in humans. Nature 415, 137–140 (2002).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  109. Levine, E. E. & Schweitzer, M. E. Prosocial lies: when deception breeds trust. Organ. Behav. Hum. Decis. Process. 126, 88–106 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  110. Erat, S. & Gneezy, U. White lies. Manag. Sci. 58, 723–733 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  111. Carlson, R. W. & Zaki, J. Belief in altruistic motives predicts prosocial actions and inferences. Psychol. Rep. https://doi.org/10.1177/00332941211013529 (2021).

  112. Dhaliwal, N. A., Skarlicki, D. P., Hoegg, J. & Daniels, M. A. Consequentialist motives for punishment signal trustworthiness. J. Bus. Ethics 176, 451–466 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  113. Everett, J. A. C., Faber, N. S., Savulescu, J. & Crockett, M. J. The costs of being consequentialist: social inference from instrumental harm and impartial beneficence. J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 79, 200–216 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  114. Gorsira, M., Denkers, A. & Huisman, W. Both sides of the coin: motives for corruption among public officials and business employees. J. Bus. Ethics 151, 179–194 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  115. Newman, G. E. & Cain, D. M. Tainted altruism: when doing some good is evaluated as worse than doing no good at all. Psychol. Sci. 25, 648–655 (2014).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  116. Tyler, J. M., Feldman, R. S. & Reichert, A. The price of deceptive behavior: disliking and lying to people who lie to us. J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 42, 69–77 (2006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  117. Levine, E. E. & Schweitzer, M. E. Are liars ethical? On the tension between benevolence and honesty. J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 53, 107–117 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  118. Reeder, G. D., Kumar, S., Hesson-McInnis, M. S. & Trafimow, D. Inferences about the morality of an aggressor: the role of perceived motive. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 83, 789–803 (2002).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  119. Levine, E. E., Barasch, A., Rand, D., Berman, J. Z. & Small, D. A. Signaling emotion and reason in cooperation. J. Exp. Psychol. Gen. 147, 702–719 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  120. Alcala, V. et al. The tainted altruism effect: a successful pre-registered replication. R. Soc. Open. Sci. 9, 211152 (2022).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  121. Kruglanski, A. W. et al. in Advances In Experimental Social Psychology Vol. 34 (ed. Zanna, M. P.) 331–378 (Academic, 2002).

  122. Kruglanski, A. W., Chernikova, M., Babush, M., Dugas, M. & Schumpe, B. M. in Advances in Motivation Science Vol. 2 (ed. Elliot, A. J.) Ch. 3, 69–98 (Elsevier, 2015).

  123. Olcaysoy Okten, I. & Moskowitz, G. B. Goal versus trait explanations: causal attributions beyond the trait-situation dichotomy. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 114, 211–229 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  124. Batson, C. D., Ahmad, N. & Tsang, J.-A. Four motives for community involvement. J. Soc. Issues 58, 429–445 (2002).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  125. Jones, E. E. & Davis, K. E. in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology Vol. 2 (ed. Berkowitz, L.) 219–266 (Academic, 1965).

  126. Ong, D. C., Zaki, J. & Goodman, N. D. Affective cognition: exploring lay theories of emotion. Cognition 143, 141–162 (2015).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  127. Wu, Y., Baker, C. L., Tenenbaum, J. B. & Schulz, L. E. Rational inference of beliefs and desires from emotional expressions. Cogn. Sci. 42, 850–884 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  128. Jara-Ettinger, J., Gweon, H., Tenenbaum, J. B. & Schulz, L. E. Children’s understanding of the costs and rewards underlying rational action. Cognition 140, 14–23 (2015).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  129. Davis, I., Carlson, R. W., Dunham, Y. & Jara-Ettinger, J. Reasoning about social preferences with uncertain beliefs. Preprint at PsyArXiv https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/au5gc (2021).

  130. Lin-Healy, F. & Small, D. A. Nice guys finish last and guys in last are nice: the clash between doing well and doing good. Soc. Psychol. Personal. Sci. 4, 692–698 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  131. Johnson, S. Dimensions of altruism: do evaluations of prosocial behavior track social good or personal sacrifice? Preprint at SSRN https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3277444 (2018).

  132. Siegel, J. Z., Mathys, C., Rutledge, R. B. & Crockett, M. J. Beliefs about bad people are volatile. Nat. Hum. Behav. 2, 750–756 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  133. Klein, N. & Epley, N. The topography of generosity: asymmetric evaluations of prosocial actions. J. Exp. Psychol. Gen. 143, 2366–2379 (2014).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  134. Bostyn, D. H. & Roets, A. Trust, trolleys and social dilemmas: a replication study. J. Exp. Psychol. Gen. 146, e1–e7 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  135. Kneer, M. & Machery, E. No luck for moral luck. Cognition 182, 331–348 (2019).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  136. Guglielmo, S. & Malle, B. F. Can unintended side effects be intentional? Resolving a controversy over intentionality and morality. Pers. Soc. Psychol. Bull. 36, 1635–1647 (2010).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  137. Dai, X. & Fishbach, A. When waiting to choose increases patience. Organ. Behav. Hum. Decis. Process. 121, 256–266 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  138. Kruglanski, A. W. et al. The rocky road from attitudes to behaviors: charting the goal systemic course of actions. Psychol. Rev. 122, 598–620 (2015).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  139. Luce, M. F. Choosing to avoid: coping with negatively emotion-laden consumer decisions. J. Consum. Res. 24, 409–433 (1998).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  140. Berman, J. Z. & Small, D. A. Discipline and desire: on the relative importance of willpower and purity in signaling virtue. J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 76, 220–230 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  141. Diederich, A. Decision making under conflict: decision time as a measure of conflict strength. Psychon. Bull. Rev. 10, 167–176 (2003).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  142. Kleiman, T. & Hassin, R. R. Non-conscious goal conflicts. J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 47, 521–532 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  143. Konovalov, A., Hu, J. & Ruff, C. C. Neurocomputational approaches to social behavior. Curr. Opin. Psychol. 24, 41–47 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  144. Stillman, P. E., Krajbich, I. & Ferguson, M. J. Using dynamic monitoring of choices to predict and understand risk preferences. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 117, 31738–31747 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  145. Critcher, C. R., Inbar, Y. & Pizarro, D. A. How quick decisions illuminate moral character. Soc. Psychol. Personal. Sci. 4, 308–315 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  146. Evans, A. M. & van de Calseyde, P. P. F. M. The effects of observed decision time on expectations of extremity and cooperation. J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 68, 50–59 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  147. Starmans, C. & Bloom, P. When the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak: developmental differences in judgments about inner moral conflict. Psychol. Sci. 27, 1498–1506 (2016).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  148. Jordan, J. J., Hoffman, M., Nowak, M. A. & Rand, D. G. Uncalculating cooperation is used to signal trustworthiness. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 113, 8658–8663 (2016).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  149. Walker, A. C., Turpin, M. H., Fugelsang, J. A. & Bialek, M. Better the two devils you know, than the one you don’t: predictability influences moral judgments of immoral actors. J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 97, 104220 (2021).

  150. Turpin, M. H. et al. The search for predictable moral partners: predictability and moral (character) preferences. J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 97, 104196 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  151. Everett, J. A. C., Pizarro, D. A. & Crockett, M. J. Inference of trustworthiness from intuitive moral judgments. J. Exp. Psychol. Gen. 145, 772–787 (2016).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  152. Sacco, D. F., Brown, M., Lustgraaf, C. J. & Hugenberg, K. The adaptive utility of deontology: deontological moral decision-making fosters perceptions of trust and likeability. Evol. Psychol. Sci. 3, 125–132 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  153. Heath, C. On the social psychology of agency relationships: lay theories of motivation overemphasize extrinsic incentives. Organ. Behav. Hum. Decis. Process. 78, 25–62 (1999).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  154. Miller, D. T. The norm of self-interest. Am. Psychol. 54, 1053–1060 (1999).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  155. Miller, D. T. & Ratner, R. K. The disparity between the actual and assumed power of self-interest. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 74, 53–62 (1998).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  156. Kirgios, E. L., Chang, E. H., Levine, E. E., Milkman, K. L. & Kessler, J. B. Forgoing earned incentives to signal pure motives. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 117, 16891–16897 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  157. Olivola, C. Y. & Shafir, E. The martyrdom effect: when pain and effort increase prosocial contributions. J. Behav. Decis. Mak. 26, 91–105 (2013).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  158. van Baar, J. M., Nassar, M. R., Deng, W. & FeldmanHall, O. Latent motives guide structure learning during adaptive social choice. Nat. Hum. Behav. 6, 404–414 (2021).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  159. Read, S. J., Vanman, E. J. & Miller, L. C. Connectionism, parallel constraint satisfaction processes, and gestalt principles: (re)introducing cognitive dynamics to social psychology. Personal. Soc. Psychol. Rev. 1, 26–53 (1997).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  160. Gershman, S. J. & Cikara, M. Social-structure learning. Curr. Dir. Psychol. Sci. 29, 460–466 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  161. Shin, Y. S. & Niv, Y. Biased evaluations emerge from inferring hidden causes. Nat. Hum. Behav. 5, 1180–1189 (2021).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  162. Waytz, A., Young, L. L. & Ginges, J. Motive attribution asymmetry for love vs. hate drives intractable conflict. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 111, 15687–15692 (2014).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  163. Cohen, A. B. & Rozin, P. Religion and the morality of mentality. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 81, 697–710 (2001).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  164. Kawamura, Y., Sasaki, S. & Kusumi, T. Cultural similarities and differences in lay theories of altruism: replication of Carlson and Zaki (2018) in a Japanese sample. Asian J. Soc. Psychol. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajsp.12502 (2021).

  165. Cushman, F. Action, outcome, and value: a dual-system framework for morality. Personal. Soc. Psychol. Rev. 17, 273–292 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  166. Jara-Ettinger, J., Schulz, L. E. & Tenenbaum, J. B. The naïve utility calculus as a unified, quantitative framework for action understanding. Cogn. Psychol. 123, 101334 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  167. Knobe, J. Intentional action and side effects in ordinary language. Analysis 63, 190–194 (2003).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  168. Young, L. & Saxe, R. Innocent intentions: a correlation between forgiveness for accidental harm and neural activity. Neuropsychologia 47, 2065–2072 (2009).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  169. Bostrom, N. Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (Oxford Univ. Press, 2014).

  170. Gray, H. M., Gray, K. & Wegner, D. M. Dimensions of mind perception. Science 315, 619 (2007).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  171. Bigman, Y. E. & Gray, K. Life and death decisions of autonomous vehicles. Nature 579, E1–E2 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  172. Obermeyer, Z., Powers, B., Vogeli, C. & Mullainathan, S. Dissecting racial bias in an algorithm used to manage the health of populations. Science 366, 447–453 (2019).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  173. Angwin, J. A., Larson, J., Kirchner, L. & Mattu, S. Machine bias. ProPublica https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessments-in-criminal-sentencing (2016).

  174. Awad, E. et al. The moral machine experiment. Nature 563, 59–64 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  175. Bigman, Y. E. & Gray, K. People are averse to machines making moral decisions. Cognition 181, 21–34 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  176. Young, A. D. & Monroe, A. E. Autonomous morals: inferences of mind predict acceptance of AI behavior in sacrificial moral dilemmas. J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 85, 103870 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  177. Jago, A. S. & Laurin, K. Assumptions about algorithms’ capacity for discrimination. Pers. Soc. Psychol. Bull. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672211016187 (2021).

  178. Bigman, Y. E., Gray, K., Waytz, A., Arnestad, M. & Wilson, D. Algorithmic discrimination causes less moral outrage than human discrimination. J. Exp. Psychol. Gen. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001250 (2022).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  179. Lees, J. & Cikara, M. Inaccurate group meta-perceptions drive negative out-group attributions in competitive contexts. Nat. Hum. Behav. 4, 279–286 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  180. Reeder, G. D., Pryor, J. B., Wohl, M. J. & Griswell, M. L. On attributing negative motives to others who disagree with our opinions. Pers. Soc. Psychol. Bull. 31, 1498–1510 (2005).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  181. Brady, W. J., Crockett, M. J. & Van Bavel, J. J. The MAD model of moral contagion: the role of motivation, attention, and design in the spread of moralized content online. Perspect. Psychol. Sci. 15, 978–1010 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  182. Brady, W. J., McLoughlin, K., Doan, T. N. & Crockett, M. J. How social learning amplifies moral outrage expression in online social networks. Sci. Adv. 7, eabe5641 (2021).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  183. Levy, R. Social media, news consumption, and polarization: evidence from a field experiment. Am. Econ. Rev. 111, 831–870 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  184. Santos, F. P., Lelkes, Y. & Levin, S. A. Link recommendation algorithms and dynamics of polarization in online social networks. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 118, e2102141118 (2021).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  185. Van Bavel, J. J., Rathje, S., Harris, E., Robertson, C. & Sternisko, A. How social media shapes polarization. Trends Cogn. Sci. 25, 913–916 (2021).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  186. Kubin, E., Puryear, C., Schein, C. & Gray, K. Personal experiences bridge moral and political divides better than facts. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 118, e2008389118 (2021).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors thank A. Morris, V. Chituc and C. Kealoha for helpful comments on prior drafts of this manuscript.

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Ryan W. Carlson, Yochanan E. Bigman

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    Ryan W. Carlson, Yochanan E. Bigman, Melissa J. Ferguson & M. J. Crockett

  2. Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Kurt Gray

Authors
  1. Ryan W. Carlson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Yochanan E. Bigman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Kurt Gray
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Melissa J. Ferguson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. M. J. Crockett
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

M.J.C., R.W.C. and Y.E.B. researched data for the article. All authors contributed substantially to discussion of the content. R.W.C. and Y.E.B. wrote the article. All authors reviewed and/or edited the manuscript before submission.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Ryan W. Carlson or M. J. Crockett.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Peer review

Peer review information

Nature Reviews Psychology thanks Michał Białek, Emma Levine, and the other, anonymous, reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Additional information

Publisher’s note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Carlson, R.W., Bigman, Y.E., Gray, K. et al. How inferred motives shape moral judgements. Nat Rev Psychol 1, 468–478 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-022-00071-x

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-022-00071-x

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing