INVESTIGATING JUDGMENTS OF MORAL TRANSGRESSIONS IN THE PRESENCE OF MORTALITY SALIENCE

Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between mortality salience and one’s judgments of punishments towards moral transgressions. Given that mortality salience has been found to lead to less utilitarian outcomes due to the cognitive impairment that results from death anxiety, this paper seeks to investigate whether mortality salience would still lead to an alignment with either retributive or utilitarian punishment justifications in the absence of cognitive overload. The punishment orientation of participants was also explored to assess the effects of mortality salience, and the punishment justification of the story as a prime. The study was conducted on 186 adults aged between 19 to 51 (Mage = 21.61, SDage = 3.72), who were randomly assigned to receive reminders of their own death and to receive either a utilitarian or retributive punishment justification. Participants then responded to some questions that assessed their alignment towards a particular punishment justification. There were no significant main or interaction effects found in the study.