Toward commensurable psychological research on social distance in everyday moral decision-making : A threefold psychosocial and dynamic investigation

Keywords :

• everyday morality
• decision making
• scoping review
• mouse tracking
• commensurable psychological science

The aim of this dissertation is to study the impact of social distance (i.e., the more or less intimate relationship between individuals) on decision making in everyday moral contexts. To this end, we first provided an integrative inventory of the different terms and operationalizations used in literature as well as a synthetic definition of social distance as a continuum. We then reviewed under a threefold analytical framework—at intraindividual, interindividual, and intergroup levels—the biases inherent to social distance (e.g., self favoritism) in the context of social and moral cognition. In order to map the scope of existing research in a more systematic way, we also undertook a scoping review on this question (applied solely to moral situations). Preliminary results of this work, along with the state-of-the-art review, allowed to highlight two tendencies of findings—one in direction of self or close ones’ favoritism; the other in direction of distant others’ favoritism—and to identify potential moderators of these relations. Throughout this dissertation, we argue that social distance exerts complex and often ambiguous influences on everyday moral decision making. Therefore, we claim that this question should be studied within an integrative multilevel framework and through a dynamic approach. In support of this claim, we first analyzed at all three levels of analysis the influence of social distance when manipulated toward the agent of the moral situation at stake (Exp.1 to 4). We then tackled this same question when social distance is manipulated toward the victim of the situation (Exp.3 to 6), before analyzing the impact of some potentially important moderators of social distance (Exp.1-2-3 & 5-6). Finally, we investigated how dynamic methods (in particular mouse tracking) could be useful to study such a research question (Exp.1 & 7-8). Taken together, these findings enjoin to consider social distance effects under a unified lens and contribute this way to a cumulative and commensurable psychological science.

Zoom : https://univ-grenoble-alpes-fr.zoom.us/j/92920208413pwd=dHzoEDDkHoy2bWexrGHZqnHIhMGP5W.1

President:

Pr. Theodore Alexopoulos (Université de Bordeaux)

Directors:

• Dr. Jean-Charles Quinton (Université Grenoble Alpes )
• Pr. Annique Smeding (Université Savoie Mont Blanc )

Reporters:

• Pr. Theodore Alexopoulos (Université de Bordeaux )
• Pr. Leila Selimbegović (Université de Poitiers )

Examinators:

• Pr. Laurent Bègue-Shankland (Université Grenoble Alpes )
• Dr. Konrad Bocian (WPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities (Sopot / Pologne) )