Deficits in specific cognitive and psychomotor capacities, such as attention, reaction time, memory, and hand-eye coordination ability are associated with increased crash risk, especially among older drivers (e.g., Anstey et al., 2005). Higher-order cognitive processes are also closely linked with hazard perception skills (e.g., Groeger, 2000). Employing a large professional driver sample, this...

We propose that the experimental findings informing the recent arguments for a Universal Moral Grammar can be explained through the concept of awareness of culpability of the self in an evolutionary context. We argue that the doctrine of double effect, which is usually invoked to explain such findings as those in trolley experiments, is really a derivative principle. By incorporating the tacit ...

This paper argues that many of Adam Smith’s insights, particularly those in his Theory of moral sentiments, have a relevance to contemporary thought about economics and ethics that is currently underappreciated. In economics, for example, Smith was concerned not only with the sufficiency of self-interest at the moment of exchange but also with the wider moral motivations and institutions requir...

Recent research on moral dynamics (the processes and phenomena –collective or individual– by which moral behavior and moral attitudes emerge, evolve, spread, erode or disappear) shows that an individual’s ethical mind-set (i.e., outcome-based vs. rule-based) moderates the impact of an initial ethical or unethical act regarding the likelihood of behaving ethically on a subsequent occasion. More ...

Moral perfectionism has a long tradition in philosophical inquiry, but so far has been ignored in psychological research. This article presents a first psychological investigation of moral perfectionism exploring its relationships with moral values, virtues, and judgments. In three studies, 539 university students responded to items of the Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (Frost et al...

This paper examines relationships between accountants’ personal values and their moral reasoning. In particular, we hypothesize that there is an inverse relationship between accountants’ ‘‘Conformity’’ values and principled moral reasoning. This investigation is important because the literature suggests that conformity with rule-based standards may be one reason for professional accountants’ re...

Sociology has seen a renewed interest in the study of morality. However, a theory of the self that explains individual variation in moral behavior and emotions is noticeably absent. In this study, we use identity theory to explain this variability. According to identity theory, actors are self-regulating entities whose goal is to verify their identities. An individual’s moral identity—wherever ...