Situational factors shape moral judgements in the trolley dilemma in Eastern, Southern and Western countries in a culturally diverse sample.

The study of moral judgements often centres on moral dilemmas in which options consistent with deontological perspectives (that is, emphasizing rules, individual rights and duties) are in conflict with options consistent with utilitarian judgements (that is, following the greater good based on consequences). Greene et al. (2009) showed that psychological and situational factors (for example, the intent of the agent or the presence of physical contact between the agent and the victim) can play an important role in moral dilemma judgements (for example, the trolley problem). Our knowledge is limited concerning both the universality of these effects outside the United States and the impact of culture on the situational and psychological factors affecting moral judgements. Thus, we empirically tested the universality of the effects of intent and personal force on moral dilemma judgements by replicating the experiments of Greene et al. in 45 countries from all inhabited continents. We found that personal force and its interaction with intention exert influence on moral judgements in the US and Western cultural clusters, replicating and expanding the original findings. Moreover, the personal force effect was present in all cultural clusters, suggesting it is culturally universal. The evidence for the cultural universality of the interaction effect was inconclusive in the Eastern and Southern cultural clusters (depending on exclusion criteria). We found no strong association between collectivism/individualism and moral dilemma judgements.

On the way to systematize habituation: a protocol to minimize the effects of observer presence on wild groups of Leontocebus lagonotus.

Habituation is used in most field research with primates to minimize observer effects on their behavior. Despite its importance, there is little published on the methods used to habituate different taxa of primates or how these methods vary in different habitat types. We assessed changes in behavior and space use of two groups of Leontocebus lagonotus in the Ecuadorian Amazon in order to document this process. Although the subjects had not been studied before, visitors and researchers were more frequently in the home range of Group 1 than of Group 2. We followed both groups for 2 months, collecting behavioral data through scan sampling and recording the use of space (ground, understory, subcanopy, and canopy) and the routes along which we followed the groups. We then divided our data into two equivalent stages, randomized the data for each stage and looked for significant differences using Wilcoxon tests. Our results show a significant decrease in submissive behaviors toward the observer for both groups and a significant increase in resting and foraging for Group 1. In addition, Group 2 used the subcanopy significantly less and the understory more during the second stage. The routes the animals used were significantly longer in the second stage for Group 1, but not for Group 2. We conclude that our methodology is adequate to advance in the habituation of L. lagonotus in less than 2 months and that a group will habituate more quickly if it has had some previous neutral exposure to humans.

Self-perceived social status: its relation to aggression and personality traits in two Spanish speaking samples / Estatus social auto-percibido: su relación con la agresión y rasgos de personalidad en dos muestras hispano-hablantes

Abstract Dominance and prestige are two strategies to achieve status in humans. Dominance is the use of threat and aggression, and prestige is the pursuit of cultural achievement. This research presents a study carried out through self-report measures with two native Spanish speaking samples from Madrid (Spain) and San José (Costa Rica). Self-perceived dominance and prestige were correlated with dimensions of aggression and the big five personality traits. Results showed that a component that grouped different aggression subscales and agreeableness was the best predictor of dominance in samples of men and women of both countries. Prestige was mainly predicted by conscientiousness and extraversion in both samples and by low hostility and neuroticism but only in Spanish men.

Resumen Dominancia y prestigio se han propuesto como estrategias para alcanzar estatus en humanos. La dominancia es el uso de amenazas y agresión, y el prestigio es la búsqueda de logros culturales. Esta investigación fue llevada a cabo utilizando cuestionarios en muestras de habla hispana: Madrid (España) y San José (Costa Rica). La dominancia y el prestigio auto-percibidos fueron correlacionados con dimensiones de la agresión y los cinco grandes rasgos de personalidad. Un componente que agrupó las subescalas de agresión y la afabilidad fue el mejor predictor de la dominancia en ambos sexos de ambos países. El prestigio fue predicho por la escrupulosidad y la extroversión en sendas muestras y por bajas puntuaciones en hostilidad y neuroticismo en hombres españoles.