University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2022 Jun;48(6):954-967. doi: 10.1177/01461672211023648. Epub 2021 Jun 24.
Researchers have tended to focus on mind perception as integral to judgments of moral standing, yet a smaller body of evidence suggests that beauty may also be an important factor (for some people and animals). Across six studies ( = 1,662), we investigated whether beauty increases moral standing attributions to a wide range of targets, including non-sentient entities, and explored the psychological mechanism through which beauty assigns moral standing to targets. We found that people attribute greater moral standing to beautiful (vs. ugly) animals (Study 1 and Study 5a, preregistered) and humans (Study 2). This effect also extended to non-sentient targets, that is, people perceive beautiful (vs. ugly) landscapes (Study 3) and buildings (Study 4 and Study 5b, preregistered) as possessing greater moral standing. Across all studies, perceptions of purity mediated the effect of beauty on moral standing, suggesting that beauty increases the moral standing individuals place on targets through evoking moral intuitions of purity.
研究人员倾向于将心理感知作为判断道德地位的重要组成部分，但有少量证据表明，美也可能是一个重要因素（对某些人和动物而言）。在六项研究中（=1662），我们调查了美是否会增加对广泛目标的道德地位归因，包括无生命的实体，并探讨了美将道德地位赋予目标的心理机制。我们发现，人们将更大的道德地位归因于美丽（而不是丑陋）的动物（研究 1 和研究 5a，预先注册）和人类（研究 2）。这种效应也扩展到无生命的目标，即人们认为美丽（而不是丑陋）的风景（研究 3）和建筑物（研究 4 和研究 5b，预先注册）具有更大的道德地位。在所有研究中，纯洁的感知中介了美对道德地位的影响，这表明美通过唤起纯洁的道德直觉，增加了个体对目标的道德地位的赋予。
