Role Of Compassion And In Group Preference In Acceptability Of Lies

The Role of Compassion and In-group Preference in Acceptability of lies
Abstract
In this study, there was focus on the roles of compassion and in-group preference in acceptability of lies between men and women in-groups. Compassion and empathy influence how people respond to in-group and out-group members, with greater preference for in-group members. It was hypothesized that empathy influenced how people to accept lies by women than lies by men. The 2 × 2 factorial independent groups design was used with the gender of the target person and the type of background information in the scenario being the independent variables, while the mean acceptability of lying is the dependent variable. Gender was a significant factor in preference for acceptability of lies with people more likely to accept lies made by women, and consistent with research that women have higher automatic in-group preference. However, contrary to our hypothesis there was no significant difference between the participants’ rating of the acceptability of the lie regardless the type of the background information. There was also there is no statistically significant interaction effect between the two independent variables.
The Role of Compassion and In-group Preference in Acceptability of Deception
Compassion is the capacity to identify with the feelings of another person and respond to them with an appropriate emotion, which is considered to entail the components of cognitive and emotional empathy. While cognitive compassion involves the ability to understand the thinking of another person, its emotional counterpart requires the capability to experience a feeling that is similar to that of other individuals. Gender differences in compassion exist and often arise due to the reluctance of men to report empathy as opposed to a difference in capacity. The present study will investigate the role of empathy in in-group and out-group acceptability with relation to lying. Research will be done to address the question “how does empathy affect the acceptability of a deceitful act committed by a man compared to a woman when observed by a woman?” The study will focus on lying as the deceitful act.
Empathy is believed to be an automatic response that people cannot avoid (Zaki, 2014). As a motivating factor for people, empathy will influence the way people evaluate a person. Lupoli, Jampol, and Oveis (2017) examined how bitterly people graded poorly written papers with the recognition of the passing away of a family member when compared to having information about a shopping trip. The study indicated that people were more empathetic towards writers confronting a loss as opposed to when informed about a shopping trip. Since the study will mainly focus on lying behavior, we also looked at some studies that suggested the patterns of how people evaluate lying. In their study to determine the ethicality raying of deception when the fabricator is judging themselves versus an observer’s opinion, Hildreth and Anderson (2018) concluded that liars tend to rate their deeds as more moral than observers who watch them lie. All these studies established that compassion, as a critical sensation that people cannot ignore due to its associated automatic response, will make people rate a lie as more acceptable.
Besides empathy, in-group preference will also influence people’s judgment of a lie. The study conducted by Fu, Luo, & Heyman (2016) examined participants’ moral evaluation of the lying behavior of others when the liars were lying for the benefit of their own group (either their class, school or country). While this study did not address the in-groups and out-groups of the participants, it showed that people have a preference for in-group behavior when lying is involved.
Several studies also showed that women had a higher automatic in-group preference (Rudman & Goodman, 2004). Women are more likely to believe that a woman lying is doing for a specific, necessary reason, therefore tending to rate lies committed by a woman as more acceptable (Leach, Carraro, Garcia & Kang, 2017).
Some studies assessed both empathy and in-groups/out-groups. For instance, Stürmer, Snyder, Kropp & Siem (2006) studied these two factors and the impact of them the willingness of the participants to help their “partners.” In the study, cultural background served as the group identification. It concluded that people were more likely to help when they felt empathetic towards their “partners” as well as having a similar cultural background (Stürmer, Snyder, Kropp & Siem, 2006). To sum up, the desire to help depended on empathetic feelings towards “partners.”
Although some studies investigated the role of compassion and in-group preference in people’s moral judgements, no studies have examined how empathy and gender differences in in-group preference affect people’s evaluation of a lie. It triggers the team’s interest in using gender as the group identification. It also leads to a question that motivates the study: if women would more likely regard a lie as more acceptable when they felt more empathetic towards female liars. Besides, very few studies has looked at people’s moral judgements of lying behavior when they observe others who are lying. It motivated us to create the present study in a form that participants read a scenario about a lie.
The purpose of this current study is to examine how empathy affects the acceptability of a lie committed by a man compared to a woman when observed by a woman. The two independent variables are the background information given in the scenario and the gender of the target person who committed the lie in the scenario. The dependent variable is the acceptability of the lie. Participants for this study will be selected if they are self-identified as women. The hypothesis is that participants will rate the lie as more acceptable when provided with empathy inducing background information about the target compared to being provided with neutral background information. Because women have higher in-group preference, the second prediction is that women will rate a lie as more acceptable when the target is a woman (participant in-group) compared to when the target is a man (participant’s out-group). The last hypothesis is that women who receive empathy inducing information will rate the lie of the target woman as more acceptable compared to the target man. Women who receive neutral background information will rate the lie of the target woman as more acceptable than the target man. A greater magnitude of difference is expected between the target man and target woman with empathy inducing background information compared to the target man and target woman with neutral background information.
Methods
In this study, researchers will determine the role that empathy plays in the acceptability of a deceiving act committed by a man compared to a woman when observed by a woman. It is essential to understand the methods and procedures that the researchers will utilize in the collection and analysis of data to fully understand and appreciate the overall results of the survey. The researchers will describe the research design, participants, material, and procedure. With the analysis of these sections, the researchers intend to allow readers to replicate the study effectively without any further information from outside literature.
Participants
A hundred participants will be recruited as planned. All participants will be from the Mount Holyoke College community, including students, faculties and staffs. The age will vary from 18 years old to approximately 50 years old. Minors will not be recruited for the ethnic reason. The participants will be enlisted voluntarily. Participants will be requested to volunteer and participate in the online survey. Also, the information about the study will be posted on various online platforms including Facebook and Instagram to seek potential and willing participants. Although both men and women will be allowed to participate in the study, we will only assess the information provided by participants who will identify themselves as women in analyses.
Design
The study is a 2 (type of background information: empathy inducing vs. neutral) × 2 (gender of the target person in the scenario: woman vs. man) factorial independent groups design. The two independent variables, as indicated by our design statement, are the background information given in the scenario and the gender of the target of person who committed the lie in the scenario. Each of two independent variables has two levels. The dependent variable is the acceptability of the lie. The participants will be required rate acceptability of the lie told in the scenario based on seven distinct statements. In order to assess the strength of responses, we created a personal rating scale from one to six to help us measure the acceptability.
Materials
We will utilize online surveys via the SurveyMonkey platform. The online poll will start with the informed consent that requires participants to read and sign. It also will entail a scenario that participants will be requested to read. In the end, participants will have the access to the debriefing form. We created four different survey with relation to the type of background information and the gender pronouns (see Appendix A for complete scenarios). All surveys are precisely the same, except for these two pieces of information integrated into the paragraph. Regarding each survey, there are seven statements asking participants to rate the acceptability of the lying behavior (see Appendix B for statements). The order of seven statements are fixed. We also used our own rating scale from one to six, one being strongly disagree and 6 being strongly agree with each statement (see Appendix B for rating scales). At the end of the survey, each participant will be asked what gender they identify as (see Appendix C for gender identification question).
Procedure
The survey will be conducted online using the SurveyMonkey platform. The researchers will randomly assign the participants a link to the study. By clicking on the provided link, the participants will be able to access the scenario after they sign on the informed consent page. They will then read it and subsequently respond to the seven statements following the situation. Afterward, they will self-identify their gender. Before they end the survey, they will also read the given debriefing form which explained the study.
Data Analysis
An a priori power analysis was conducted to determine the ideal participants sample size based on the effect size (d = .37) determined through the study examined by Lupoli, Jampol & Oveis (2017). According to the power analysis, to find an effect to be detected (80% chance) at the 5% level, a sample of 232 participants would be required.
For the analysis of data, the team intends to utilize a factorial ANOVA to understand the interaction between the independent variables of the nature of bac...