Effects of perspective switching and utilitarian thinking on moral judgments in a sacrificial dilemma among healthcare and non-healthcare students.

ABSTRACT: During the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare professionals have often faced moral challenges, which required them to choose between endorsing self- or other-sacrifice for the greater good. Drawing on the altruistic rationalization hypothesis and trait-activation theory, this study investigates (a) whether healthcare students' endorsement of utilitarian solutions to sacrificial moral dilemmas varies when they are confronted with the minority group, majority group, or third-person perspective on the given dilemma and (b) whether individual differences in utilitarian thinking, as measured by the Oxford Utilitarianism Scale (both instrumental harm and impartial beneficence), predict endorsement of utilitarian solutions to moral dilemmas. The study population was divided into a group of healthcare

SUBMITTER: Park J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9932409 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature