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Autonomous vehicles: How perspective-taking accessibility alters moral judgments and consumer purchasing behavior
Rose Martin1, Petko Kusev2, Paul van Schaik3
1The Behavioural Research Centre, Huddersfield Business School, The University of Huddersfield, United Kingdom; Department of People and Organisations, Surrey Business School, University of Surrey, United Kingdom.
Cognition
|April 30, 2021
Summary
People avoid buying self-driving cars programmed for utilitarian ethics, even if morally right. Perspective-taking accessibility in crash scenarios resolves this dilemma, aligning purchasing behavior with ethical judgments.
Area of Science:
- Behavioral Economics
- Autonomous Vehicle Ethics
- Psychology
Background:
- Autonomous vehicles (AVs) may require utilitarian ethical algorithms to maximize lives saved in unavoidable collisions.
- Research shows a public willingness-to-pay gap: people deem utilitarian AVs morally appropriate but won't buy them, indicating a social dilemma.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the psychological underpinnings of the AV ethical dilemma.
- To test the novel theoretical proposal of perspective-taking accessibility (PT accessibility) as a solution.
Main Methods:
- Developed and tested the PT accessibility framework in hypothetical AV crash scenarios.
- Manipulated participants' access to situational perspectives (passenger vs. pedestrian).
- Assessed moral judgments, purchasing behavior, and willingness to buy/ride AVs.
Main Results:
- Providing access to both passenger and pedestrian perspectives (full PT accessibility) eliminated the behavioral inconsistency.
- Full PT accessibility induced utilitarian prosocial judgments and purchasing behavior.
- Participants' utilitarian purchasing decisions were consistently informed by their moral judgments under full PT accessibility.
Conclusions:
- Perspective-taking accessibility, particularly with impartial 50/50 odds of being a passenger or pedestrian, can resolve the AV ethical dilemma.
- This approach aligns consumer behavior with utilitarian ethical principles for AVs.
- PT accessibility offers a novel 'veil of ignorance' mechanism for measuring utilitarian preferences in AV ethics.
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