Psychotherapist and Classical High Conflict Moral Dilemmas in Turkish Culture: The Relationship between Emotions and Utilitarian/ Deontological Decisions
Filiz Kumova, Hasan Galip BahçekapılıMoral dilemmas, defined as scenarios describing situations where the person has to make a moral choice between a utilitarian and a deontological option are frequently used in the study of the moral judgments of lay people. There are not any national or international studies investigating the moral judgments of psychotherapists in occupational situations based on deontological/ utilitarian classification. In addition, there are only a few moral dilemma studies using Turkish samples. Furthermore, it is a well-known phenomenon that research in the field of psychology would yield different results due to the effects of cultural differences. This points to the possibility that whether a moral dilemma scenario creates high or low conflict is partly dependent on culture. Accordingly, the aim of the present study was to determine both classical and psychotherapist high conflict moral dilemmas in Turkish culture. The relationship between the participants’ mood and their moral judgments was also explored. Forty-two psychotherapists and 108 lay people (undergraduate students and university graduate adults) participated in the current study. While psychotherapists answered the psychotherapist dilemmas, lay people answered the classical dilemmas. Four out of 20 classical moral dilemmas and five out of 10 psychotherapist scenarios were identified as high conflict moral dilemmas. The mood of the participants was measured by the Positive-Negative Affect Scale (PANAS) both before and after reading the related moral dilemmas. The possible mood changes of the participants with respect to the related scenarios were analysed. Regarding the classical moral dilemmas, participants' negative mood increased and positive mood decreased after reading the related scenarios. With respect to the psychotherapist scenarios, the negative mood of the participants increased. The results indicated a positive relationship between negative mood and the deontological judgments in lay people. No significant association between mood and deontological/utilitarian decisions was found in the psychotherapist group. These results and their implications were also disscussed within the framework of the Dual-Process Theory.
Türk Kültüründe Yüksek Ahlaki İkilem Yaratan Psikoterapist Senaryoları ile Klasik Senaryolar: Duyguların Faydacı/Deontolojik Kararlar ile İlişkisi
Filiz Kumova, Hasan Galip BahçekapılıAhlaki yargıların incelenmesinde kişinin faydacı ve deontolojik seçenekleri arasında sıkışıp kaldığı durumlar içeren kısa senaryolar olarak tanımlanabilecek olan ahlaki ikilemler sıklıkla kullanılmaktadır. Ancak, psikoterapistlerin karşılaşabileceği ve alınan kararların faydacı/deontolojik olarak ayrıştırılabileceği yüksek ahlaki ikilemlerin neler olabileceğine ilişkin olarak gerçekleştirilmiş yurt içi ve yurt dışı herhangi bir araştırma bulunmamaktadır. Ahlaki ikilemlerin yer verildiği ve Türk katılımcı grupları ile gerçekleştirilen araştırma sayısı ise oldukça azdır. Bunun yanı sıra, psikoloji alanındaki araştırma sonuçları kültürlerarası farklılıklar gösterebilmektedir. Bu kapsamda, bir ahlaki ikilem senaryosunun düşük veya yüksek ikilem yaratmasının, kısmen kültür ile bağlantılı olma ihtimali vardır. Bu araştırmada Türk kültüründe yüksek ikilem yaratan klasik ahlaki senaryolar ile psikoterapist ahlaki senaryolarının tespit edilmesi amaçlanmıştır. Katılımcıların ruh halleri ile faydacı/deontolojik karar alma eğilimleri arasındaki ilişki de ayrıca incelenmiştir. Araştırmaya 42 psikoterapist ve alan dışı gruptan (ön lisans öğrencileri ve minimum üniversite mezunu yetişkinler) 108 kişi katılmıştır. Alan dışı grup klasik ahlaki ikilem senaryolarını, psikoterapist grubu ise psikoterapist senaryolarını yanıtlamıştır. Alan dışı gruba verilen 20 klasik ahlaki ikilem senaryosundan dördü, psikoterapistlere verilen 10 senaryodan ise beşi yüksek ikilem yaratan senaryolar olarak tespit edilmiştir. Katılımcıların ruh halleri Pozitif ve Negatif Duygu Ölçeği (PNDÖ) üzerinden, senaryoları okumadan önce ve sonra olmak üzere iki kez ölçümlenmiş ve senaryolardan kaynaklanan olası ruh hali değişimleri analiz edilmiştir. Klasik ahlaki ikilemlerde, ilgili senaryoları okuduktan sonra katılımcıların negatif duygu durumları artmış, pozitif duygu durumları ise azalmıştır. Psikoterapist ahlaki ikilem senaryoları ise katılımcıların negatif ruh hallerini arttırmıştır. Klasik ahlaki ikilem senaryolarında alınan deontolojik kararlar katılımcıların negatif duygu durumları ile pozitif ilişki göstermiştir. Psikoterapist grubunda ise ruh hali ve deontolojik/faydacı kararlar arasında anlamlı bir ilişki bulunamamıştır. Çalışmada ayrıca bulgular İkili İşlem Teorisi çerçevesinde alan yazına katkısı açısından tartışılmıştır.
Moral psychology has long been dominated by behaviourist theories, which emphasize the role of reinforcement in the acquisition of morally relevant behaviours, and rationalist theories, which emphasize the role of reasoning in making moral decisions. Only in the last couple of decades has the importance of emotions in morality been widely recognized. One of the most prominent theories of morality where emotional processes play a major role is Greene's (2007) dual-process model where a more primitive cognitive process (System 1) produces an automatic, emotional reaction to a morally relevant situation which may then be overridden by a more complex process (System 2) based on effortful and analytic reasoning.
Two bases on which moral judgments might be made are utilitarianism and deontology. In normative ethics, utilitarianism is the view that morally appropriate action is the one that maximizes the well-being of the maximum number of people, even if it means harming a minority. Deontology, on the other hand, is the view that morally appropriate action is the one that is consistent with universal rules and prohibitions; an action is morally impermissible, even when it maximizes well-being, if it violates a universal rule. In the psychological literature, the interplay of utilitarian and deontological tendencies has been mostly investigated with the use of sacrificial dilemmas where the participants are asked whether it is morally appropriate to sacrifice a small number of people so that a larger number can survive. Condoning such a sacrifice is classified as a utilitarian response to the dilemma whereas refusing to sacrifice is classified as a deontological response. In the dualprocess model, deontological responses are assumed to stem from System 1 (emotional reactions against deliberate harm) whereas utilitarian responses are assumed to stem from System 2 (reasoned judgments towards accepting the small harm in order to avoid the bigger harm).
The present study was a preliminary study for a future experimental investigation of the effect of emotions on moral judgments and had two aims. One was to determine the moral dilemmas that created the highest conflict in Turkish participants. A high-conflict dilemma is one where a similar number of individuals choose the utilitarian and the deontological options. High-conflict dilemmas are intended to be used in a future study where the manipulation of emotions has the potential to either increase or decrease utilitarian response tendencies. A second aim of the study was to identify the emotions that were produced by the moral dilemmas and to test the hypothesis that more deontological responses are associated with more negative emotions. For this purpose, two kinds of dilemmas were used: Classical dilemmas where lay people decide whether to sacrifice one person for the general good, and psychotherapeutic dilemmas where therapists decide whether to violate an ethical rule of psychotherapy for the supposedly higher benefit of the others.
Method
Both the lay group and the psychotherapist group filled the Turkish version of the Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS) both before and after answering the dilemmas. There were 20 classical dilemmas for the lay group and 10 psychotherapy dilemmas for the psychotherapist group. Finally, both groups filled a questionnaire asking demographic questions.
Results
On the basis of the responses given to the moral dilemmas, four classical dilemmas and four psychotherapy dilemmas were identified as high-conflict. In the selected classical dilemmas, the rate of utilitarian responding varied between 32% and 66%. In the selected psychotherapy dilemmas, the rate of utilitarian responding varied between 24% and 64%. Sadness, guilt, anger and hope were the most frequently reported emotions produced by the selected classical dilemmas. Sadness, annoyance and anger were the most frequently reported emotions produced by the selected psychotherapy dilemmas. A comparison of PANAS scores before and after the classical dilemmas revealed that the rating of most of the positive emotions had decreased and the rating of most of the negative emotions had increased after responding to the dilemmas. In addition, pre-dilemma negative affect was positively associated with deontological responding in the classical dilemmas. In the psychotherapist group, the dilemmas increased negative affect but did not influence positive affect. Deontological response tendency in this group was not significantly correlated with negative affect.
Discussion
On the basis of the results, the classical and psychotherapy dilemmas that created the highest conflict were selected to be used in a future study. In line with expectations, the dilemmas increased negative affect in both groups. The finding that negative affect was correlated with deontological responding in the lay group but not in the psychotherapy group may be due to the fact that psychotherapists are better able to resist their emotional state to influence their moral decisions because of their professional training. On the whole, our results are consistent with the dual-process model of moral judgment. One important limitation of the study is the small sample size of the psychotherapy group. Future studies are recommended to use larger samples with more experienced psychotherapists.
