Recent studies indicate that emotional processes, mediated by the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC), are of great importance for moral judgment. Neurological patients with VMPC dysfunction have been shown to generate increased utilitarian moral judgments, i.e. are more likely to endorse emotionally aversive actions in order to maximize aggregate welfare, when faced with emotionally salient ...

Article history: Received 2 March 2015 Accepted 2 March 2015 Available online 25 March 2015 Accepted by X-P Chen This paper integrates social norm constructs from different disciplines into an integrated model. Norms exist in the objective social environment in the form of behavioral regularities, patterns of sanctioning, and institutionalized practices and rules. They exist subjectively in per...

How can we change social norms, the standards describing typical or desirable behavior? Because individuals’ perceptions of norms guide their personal behavior, influencing these perceptions is one way to create social change. And yet individuals do not form perceptions of typical or desirable behavior in an unbiased manner. Individuals attend to select sources of normative information, and the...

OBJECTIVES Body-weight norms may explain why personal evaluations of weight status are often inaccurate. Here, we tested a 'norm comparison' explanation of weight status perceptions, whereby personal evaluations of weight status are biased by perceived body-weight norms. METHODS Study 1 examined whether perceptions of how one's own body weight compares to an average person predict personal ev...

Taxpayers' willingness to cooperate with the state and its institutions in general, and their willingness to pay taxes in particular, depend on a variety of variables. While economists stress the relevance of external variables such as tax rate, income and probability of audits and severity of fines, psychological research shows that internal variables are of similar importance. We present a co...

Abstract We expand the rational choice theory of crime, as applied to cartels, with three psychological factors—personal norms, social norms and ties—and knowledge competition law. Through a survey Dutch businesses, we find that adding factors substantially increases explanatory power model: All predict attitudes toward future cartel behavior, personal strongest (negative) predictor. Better law...