Dries H Bostyn
Biographic Data
| ID | 4235734 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Dries H Bostyn |
| GIVEN NAMES | Dries H |
| FAMILY NAME | Bostyn |
| SIGNATURE | BOSTYN D H |
| AFFILIATIONS | Ghent University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9994-4615 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 8 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 20 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
The roots of omission bias
The omission bias refers to the tendency to judge harmful omissions as less immoral than equally harmful commissions. Rooted in the philosophical doctrine of doing and allowing, omission bias has often been treated as a principle in moral decision-making. Although extensively replicated among Western samples, little research has directly examined whether omission bias and its underlying processes generalise across cultures. The present study empl…
In Similarity We Trust
Trust plays a central role in social interactions. Recent research has highlighted the importance of others’ moral decisions in shaping trust inference: individuals who reject sacrificial harm in moral dilemmas (which aligns with deontological ethics) are generally perceived as more trustworthy than those who condone sacrificial harm (which aligns with utilitarian ethics). Across five studies ( N = 1,234), we investigated trust inferences in the …
People Use Norms, Values, Codification, and Enforceability to Determine if a Rule Was Broken
Rules are essential for the successful coordination of large-scale societies, with official, codified rules (e.g., laws) proscribing behaviors for everyone in their jurisdiction. These rules ostensibly provide a clear signal about what is permitted or prohibited, making it straightforward to identify when they have been broken. However, signals from descriptive norms, moral prohibition, and (lack of) legitimacy of enforcement can sometimes provid…
The Development of a Moral Compass
INTRODUCTION: The Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) identifies innate moral foundations that drive moral judgment, and are assumed to mature at different phases throughout development. However, core developmental aspects of moral foundations, such as normative age and gender differences from an MFT perspective, remain relatively unexplored, particularly in pre-adulthood. Therefore, the present study investigates age and gender differences in moral f…
An Eastern Look at a Western Dilemma
Moral judgment has been extensively studied utilizing traditional trolley-like sacrificial dilemmas. However, by building on Western philosophies and relying on WEIRD samples, this approach has potentially introduced a Western-centric bias to our understanding of the morality of sacrificial harm, by (a) assuming an inherent opposition between utilitarian and deontological morality and (b) underestimating cultural differences on the moral value of…
Beyond hypothetical trolleys
Sacrificial moral dilemmas require individuals to choose between allowing harm to several people or preventing this by actively causing harm to a smaller number of people. These dilemmas have been foundational in studying how people resolve conflicts between competing moral principles, with responses traditionally interpreted as reflecting either "utilitarian" concern for the greater good or "deontological" refusal to enact harm. Existing researc…
The Shape of Blame
For many types of behaviors, whether a specific instance of that behavior is blame‐ or praiseworthy depends on how much of the behavior is done or how people go about doing it. For instance, for a behavior such as “replying to an email in x days,” whether a specific reply is perceived as blameworthy or praiseworthy will depend on how many days have elapsed before the reply. Such behaviors lie on a continuum in which part of the continuum is prais…
Power to Detect What? Considerations for Planning and Evaluating Sample Size
ACADEMIC ABSTRACT: In the wake of the replication crisis, social and personality psychologists have increased attention to power analysis and the adequacy of sample sizes. In this article, we analyze current controversies in this area, including choosing effect sizes, why and whether power analyses should be conducted on already-collected data, how to mitigate the negative effects of sample size criteria on specific kinds of research, and which p…
Online Moral Conformity
People make moral decisions every day. When making such decisions, they may be influenced by their companions (a so-called moral conformity effect). Increasingly, people make decisions in online environments, like video meetings. In the current preregistered experiment, we studied the moral conformity effect in an online context. We applied an Asch conformity paradigm by asking participants ( N = 120) to reply to sacrificial moral dilemmas throug…
Sensitivity to Moral Principles Predicts Both Deontological and Utilitarian Response Tendencies in Sacrificial Dilemmas
When facing sacrificial dilemmas in which harm maximizes outcomes, people appear sensitive to three moral principles: They are more averse to actively causing harm than passively allowing it ( action principle), causing harm directly than indirectly ( contact principle), and causing harm as a means than as a by-product of helping others ( intention principle). Across five studies and a meta-analysis ( N = 1,218), we examined whether individual di…
Disliked but Free to Speak
Freedom of speech for all citizens is often considered as a cornerstone of democratic societies. In three studies, we examined the relationship between cognitive ability and support for freedom of speech for a variety of social groups across the ideological spectrum ( N 1 varies between 1,373 and 18,719, N 2 = 298, N 3 = 395). Corroborating our theoretical expectations, although cognitive ability was related to more affective prejudice toward rel…
Sequential decision-making impacts moral judgment
Bright mind, moral mind? Intelligence is unrelated to consequentialist moral judgment in sacrificial moral dilemmas
Can Psychological Interventions Improve Intergroup Attitudes Post Terror Attacks
This research concurrently investigated the effectiveness of three established bias-reducing interventions (i.e., positive affirmation, secure attachment, and cognitive dissonance) in the wake of the Paris and Brussels terror attacks. Using frequentist and Bayesian analyses, Study 1 ( N = 1,676), launched within days of the attacks, found that compared to a control condition, the interventions did not significantly improve intergroup attitudes. I…
A meta-analytic integration of research on the relationship between right-wing ideological attitudes and aggressive tendencies
Many studies have investigated the relationship between ideological attitudes and aggressive tendencies. The present meta-analytic integration of research on this relationship included data of 177 samples (total N = 47,933 participants). The results revealed that this relationship was substantial, r =.31, 95% CI [.27 to.35], p <.001. Such a relationship emerged for both attitudes towards violence and behavioural indicators, although the former re…
Of Mice, Men, and Trolleys
Scholars have been using hypothetical dilemmas to investigate moral decision making for decades. However, whether people’s responses to these dilemmas truly reflect the decisions they would make in real life is unclear. In the current study, participants had to make the real-life decision to administer an electroshock (that they did not know was bogus) to a single mouse or allow five other mice to receive the shock. Our results indicate that resp…
Toward an Integrated Cognition Perspective on Ethnic Prejudice
Both ability and motivation aspects of cognition have been shown to relate to ethnic prejudice. In line with recent theorizing, the present study advances an integrated cognition perspective on ethnic prejudice by examining the interplay between cognitive ability (measured with the Kaufman Adolescent and Adult Intelligence Test) and cognitive motivation (measured with the Need for Cognitive Closure [NFC] Scale) in a Belgian, heterogeneous adult s…
Decision making in the prisoner's dilemma game
The prisoner's dilemma game is a mixed‐motive game that offers two players the simultaneous choice between a cooperative and a defective alternative. An often neglected aspect of such a binary‐choice game, however, is that in many real‐life encounters, people can choose not only to cooperate or defect, but they also have a third option: to exit the social dilemma. Although in the literature a consensus has emerged that the addition of an exit opp…
An Asymmetric Moral Conformity Effect
The present study investigated whether and to what extent people’s judgments on trolley-type moral dilemmas are subject to conformity pressures. Trolley dilemmas contrast deontological (principled) moral concerns with consequentialist (outcome based) moral reasoning. Subjects were asked to respond to trolley dilemmas in a forced choice format and either simultaneously received bogus information about the base rate of consequentialist and deontolo…
The morality of action
The morality of action
An Asymmetric Moral Conformity Effect
The present study investigated whether and to what extent people’s judgments on trolley-type moral dilemmas are subject to conformity pressures. Trolley dilemmas contrast deontological (principled) moral concerns with consequentialist (outcome based) moral reasoning. Subjects were asked to respond to trolley dilemmas in a forced choice format and either simultaneously received bogus information about the base rate of consequentialist and deontolo…
Of Mice, Men, and Trolleys
Scholars have been using hypothetical dilemmas to investigate moral decision making for decades. However, whether people’s responses to these dilemmas truly reflect the decisions they would make in real life is unclear. In the current study, participants had to make the real-life decision to administer an electroshock (that they did not know was bogus) to a single mouse or allow five other mice to receive the shock. Our results indicate that resp…
Toward an Integrated Cognition Perspective on Ethnic Prejudice
Both ability and motivation aspects of cognition have been shown to relate to ethnic prejudice. In line with recent theorizing, the present study advances an integrated cognition perspective on ethnic prejudice by examining the interplay between cognitive ability (measured with the Kaufman Adolescent and Adult Intelligence Test) and cognitive motivation (measured with the Need for Cognitive Closure [NFC] Scale) in a Belgian, heterogeneous adult s…
Decision making in the prisoner's dilemma game
The prisoner's dilemma game is a mixed‐motive game that offers two players the simultaneous choice between a cooperative and a defective alternative. An often neglected aspect of such a binary‐choice game, however, is that in many real‐life encounters, people can choose not only to cooperate or defect, but they also have a third option: to exit the social dilemma. Although in the literature a consensus has emerged that the addition of an exit opp…
Bright mind, moral mind? Intelligence is unrelated to consequentialist moral judgment in sacrificial moral dilemmas
Can Psychological Interventions Improve Intergroup Attitudes Post Terror Attacks
This research concurrently investigated the effectiveness of three established bias-reducing interventions (i.e., positive affirmation, secure attachment, and cognitive dissonance) in the wake of the Paris and Brussels terror attacks. Using frequentist and Bayesian analyses, Study 1 ( N = 1,676), launched within days of the attacks, found that compared to a control condition, the interventions did not significantly improve intergroup attitudes. I…
A meta-analytic integration of research on the relationship between right-wing ideological attitudes and aggressive tendencies
Many studies have investigated the relationship between ideological attitudes and aggressive tendencies. The present meta-analytic integration of research on this relationship included data of 177 samples (total N = 47,933 participants). The results revealed that this relationship was substantial, r =.31, 95% CI [.27 to.35], p <.001. Such a relationship emerged for both attitudes towards violence and behavioural indicators, although the former re…
Disliked but Free to Speak
Freedom of speech for all citizens is often considered as a cornerstone of democratic societies. In three studies, we examined the relationship between cognitive ability and support for freedom of speech for a variety of social groups across the ideological spectrum ( N 1 varies between 1,373 and 18,719, N 2 = 298, N 3 = 395). Corroborating our theoretical expectations, although cognitive ability was related to more affective prejudice toward rel…
Sequential decision-making impacts moral judgment
Sensitivity to Moral Principles Predicts Both Deontological and Utilitarian Response Tendencies in Sacrificial Dilemmas
When facing sacrificial dilemmas in which harm maximizes outcomes, people appear sensitive to three moral principles: They are more averse to actively causing harm than passively allowing it ( action principle), causing harm directly than indirectly ( contact principle), and causing harm as a means than as a by-product of helping others ( intention principle). Across five studies and a meta-analysis ( N = 1,218), we examined whether individual di…
Power to Detect What? Considerations for Planning and Evaluating Sample Size
ACADEMIC ABSTRACT: In the wake of the replication crisis, social and personality psychologists have increased attention to power analysis and the adequacy of sample sizes. In this article, we analyze current controversies in this area, including choosing effect sizes, why and whether power analyses should be conducted on already-collected data, how to mitigate the negative effects of sample size criteria on specific kinds of research, and which p…
Online Moral Conformity
People make moral decisions every day. When making such decisions, they may be influenced by their companions (a so-called moral conformity effect). Increasingly, people make decisions in online environments, like video meetings. In the current preregistered experiment, we studied the moral conformity effect in an online context. We applied an Asch conformity paradigm by asking participants ( N = 120) to reply to sacrificial moral dilemmas throug…
People Use Norms, Values, Codification, and Enforceability to Determine if a Rule Was Broken
Rules are essential for the successful coordination of large-scale societies, with official, codified rules (e.g., laws) proscribing behaviors for everyone in their jurisdiction. These rules ostensibly provide a clear signal about what is permitted or prohibited, making it straightforward to identify when they have been broken. However, signals from descriptive norms, moral prohibition, and (lack of) legitimacy of enforcement can sometimes provid…
The Development of a Moral Compass
INTRODUCTION: The Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) identifies innate moral foundations that drive moral judgment, and are assumed to mature at different phases throughout development. However, core developmental aspects of moral foundations, such as normative age and gender differences from an MFT perspective, remain relatively unexplored, particularly in pre-adulthood. Therefore, the present study investigates age and gender differences in moral f…
An Eastern Look at a Western Dilemma
Moral judgment has been extensively studied utilizing traditional trolley-like sacrificial dilemmas. However, by building on Western philosophies and relying on WEIRD samples, this approach has potentially introduced a Western-centric bias to our understanding of the morality of sacrificial harm, by (a) assuming an inherent opposition between utilitarian and deontological morality and (b) underestimating cultural differences on the moral value of…
Beyond hypothetical trolleys
Sacrificial moral dilemmas require individuals to choose between allowing harm to several people or preventing this by actively causing harm to a smaller number of people. These dilemmas have been foundational in studying how people resolve conflicts between competing moral principles, with responses traditionally interpreted as reflecting either "utilitarian" concern for the greater good or "deontological" refusal to enact harm. Existing researc…
The Shape of Blame
For many types of behaviors, whether a specific instance of that behavior is blame‐ or praiseworthy depends on how much of the behavior is done or how people go about doing it. For instance, for a behavior such as “replying to an email in x days,” whether a specific reply is perceived as blameworthy or praiseworthy will depend on how many days have elapsed before the reply. Such behaviors lie on a continuum in which part of the continuum is prais…
The roots of omission bias
The omission bias refers to the tendency to judge harmful omissions as less immoral than equally harmful commissions. Rooted in the philosophical doctrine of doing and allowing, omission bias has often been treated as a principle in moral decision-making. Although extensively replicated among Western samples, little research has directly examined whether omission bias and its underlying processes generalise across cultures. The present study empl…
In Similarity We Trust
Trust plays a central role in social interactions. Recent research has highlighted the importance of others’ moral decisions in shaping trust inference: individuals who reject sacrificial harm in moral dilemmas (which aligns with deontological ethics) are generally perceived as more trustworthy than those who condone sacrificial harm (which aligns with utilitarian ethics). Across five studies ( N = 1,234), we investigated trust inferences in the …
Psychology (17 works) · Social Psychology (16 works) · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment (13 works) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (10 works) · Epistemology (8 works) · Ethics in Business and Education (8 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (6 works) · Dilemma (6 works) · Emotions and Moral Behavior (6 works) · Moral dilemma (6 works)