This is the manuscript that was published, with only minor copy-editing alterations, as: Haidt, J. (2001). The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. Psychological Review. 108, 814-834 Copyright 2001, American Psychological Association To obtain a reprint of the final type-set article, please go through your library’s journal services, or contact the author directly Research on moral judgment has been dominated by rationalist models, in which moral judgment is thought to be caused by moral reasoning. Four reasons are given for considering the hypothesis that moral reasoning does not cause moral judgment; rather, moral reasoning is usually a post-hoc construction, generated after a judgment has been reached. The social intuitionist model is presented as an alternative to rationalist models. The model is a social model in that it de-emphasizes the private reasoning done by individuals, emphasizing instead the importance of social and cultural influences. The model is an intuitionist model in that it states that moral judgment is generally the result of quick, automatic evaluations (intuitions). The model is more consistent than rationalist models with recent findings in social, cultural, evolutionary, and biological psychology, as well as anthropology and primatology. Author notes

Construal level theory proposes that temporal distance changes people’s responses to future events by changing the way people mentally represent those events. The greater the temporal distance, the more likely are events to be represented in terms of a few abstract features that convey the perceived essence of the events (high-level construals) rather than in terms of more concrete and incidental details of the events (low-level construals). The informational and evaluative implications of high-level construals, compared with those of low-level construals, should therefore have more impact on responses to distant-future events than near-future events. This article explores the implications of construal level theory for temporal changes in evaluation, prediction, and choice. The authors suggest that construal level underlies a broad range of evaluative and behavioral consequences of psychological distance from events.

Who knows what I want to do? Who knows what anyone wants to do? How can you be sure about something like that? Isn't it all a question of brain chemistry, signals going back and forth, electrical energy in the cortex? How do you know whether something is really what you want to do or just some kind of nerve impulse in the brain. Some minor little activity takes place somewhere in this unimportant place in one of the brain hemispheres and suddenly I want to go to Montana or I don't want to go to Montana. (White Noise, Don DeLillo)

How do anticipated short-term costs affect the likelihood of engaging in an activity that has long-term benefits. Five studies investigated the factors that determine (a) how anticipated short-term costs elicit self-control efforts and (b) how self-control efforts eventually diminish the influence of short-term costs on behavior. The studies manipulated short-term costs (e.g., painful medical procedures) and assessed a variety of self-control strategies (e.g., self-imposed penalties for failure to undergo a test). The results show that short-term costs elicit self-control strategies for self rather than others, before rather than after behavior, when long-term benefits are important rather than unimportant and when the costs are moderate rather than extremely small or large. The results also show that the self-control efforts help people act according to their long-term interests. People sometimes know what they prefer but feel uncertain that this is what they will actually do. This uncertainty often reflects feasibility constraints such as lack of opportunity, freedom of choice, or prerequisite skills. In some cases, however, people may know that what they prefer is entirely feasible but may nevertheless suspect that when faced with the actual choice they will be tempted to do something else. A considerable amount of basic and applied research on self-control has investigated how immediate temptations prevent people from acting according to their preferences and has suggested techniques that may help people resist the

The present research explored the nature of automatic associations formed between short-term motives (temptations) and the overriding goals with which they interfere. Five experimental studies, encompassing several self-regulatory domains, found that temptations tend to activate such higher priority goals, whereas the latter tend to inhibit the temptations. These activation patterns occurred outside of participants’ conscious awareness and did not appear to tax their mental resources. Moreover, they varied as a function of subjective goal importance and were more pronounced for successful versus unsuccessful self-regulators in a given domain. Finally, priming by temptation stimuli was found not only to influence the activation of overriding goals but also to affect goal-congruent behavioral choices. A delicious chocolate cake in the storefront of a bakery may remind individuals of the unfortunate fact that they should go on a diet. A thought of an exotic place, ideal for a relaxing vacation, may conjure up approaching deadlines at work. Momentarily alluring yet morally questionable activities may spontaneously bring to mind the image of a stern parent or a religious leader. On these and similar occasions, elaborating on a seemingly desirable course

Five studies tested the predictions of temporal construal theory and time-discounting theories regarding evaluation of near future and distant future options (outcomes, activities, products). The options had abstract or goal-relevant features (called high-level construal features) as well as more concrete or goal-irrelevant features (called low-level construal features). The studies varied the valence (positive vs. negative) and the type of valence (affective vs. cognitive) of the low-level and high-level construal features. The results show that the weight of high-level construal features, compared to the weight of low-construal features, is greater in determining distant future preferences than near future preferences. The implications of the results for extant theories of time-dependent changes in preference are discussed.

The self-regulation process often involves breaking an ongoing goal (e.g., keeping in shape) into many individual, constituent subgoals that monitor actual actions (e.g., eating healthy meals, going to the gym). The article examines how pursuing each of these subgoals may influence subsequent goal pursuit. The authors show that when people consider success on a single subgoal, additional actions toward achieving a superordinate goal are seen as substitutes and are less likely to be pursued. In contrast, when people consider their commitment to a superordinate goal on the basis of initial success on a subgoal, additional actions toward achieving that goal may seem to be complementary and more likely to be pursued. These predictions were tested in four studies that explored the conditions under which subgoals attainment have a counterproductive versus favorable effect on further pursuit of similar actions.

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These studies investigated self-regulation and subjective experience of time from the perspective of the regulatory resource model. Studies 1–2 showed that participants who were instructed to regulate their emotions while viewing a film clip perceived that the film lasted longer than participants who did not regulate their emotions. In Study 3, participants provided time estimates during a resource-depleting or nondepleting task. Subsequent task persistence was measured. Time perceptions mediated the effect of initial self-regulation on subsequent self-regulated performance. In Study 4, participants performed either a resource-depleting or a nondepleting thought-listing task and then performed a different regulatory task. Compared with nondepleted participants, depleted participants persisted less on the 2nd task but estimated that they had persisted longer. Subjective time estimates statistically accounted for reduced persistence after depletion. Together, results indicate people believe that self-regulatory endeavors last overly long, a belief that may result in abandonment of further self-control. Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT’S relativity. —Albert Einstein

The economic conception of human behavior assumes that a person has a single set of well-defined goals, and that the person’s behavior is chosen to best achieve those goals. We develop a model in which a person’s behavior is the outcome of an interaction between two systems: a deliberative system that assesses options with a broad, goal-based perspective, and an affective system that encompasses emotions and motivational drives. Our model provides a framework for understanding many departures from full rationality discussed in the behavioral-economics literature, and captures the familiar feeling of being “of two minds. ” And by focusing on factors that moderate the relative influence of the two systems, our model also generates a variety of novel testable predictions.