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Date

2016-05-07

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Journal ISSN

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Creative Commons
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States

One develops a moral self, according to Adam Smith, by examining one’s feelings and behavior from a spectators’ point of view. Our first study examines this claim by asking participants to split $10 between themselves and a confederate in any way they deem fit. Prior to deciding, participants were randomly assigned to reflect on their decision from a self-immersed, 1st person perspective or a self-distanced, observer perspective. Contrary to our predictions, analyses performed on the data collected thus far (n = 77) suggest that participants in the self-distanced group keep significantly more money (on average, $1) for themselves, U = 933, z = 2.35. p = .019, r = .27. Although, preliminary (data collection remains ongoing) these results are both fascinating and perplexing. We are currently revisiting our original theory and developing two follow-up experiments to help us explain this interesting and counterintuitive finding.

Description

This presentation was delivered on May 6, 2016 by Dr. Warren Herold and Dr. Walter Sowden at the 2016 Self, Motivation, and Virtue Conference, held at the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana.

Keywords

Philosophy, Psychology

Citation

DOI

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https://youtu.be/lE02Vndd7LM

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