Loneliness and Moral Judgment Does Loneliness Make Moral Judgment More Permissible?

Despite the fact that social connections are central facets of daily social life, and loneliness influences most people’s quality of life, relatively little empirical attention has been devoted to the understanding of how feeling lonely impacts people’s moral judgment. Some people judge it morally acceptable to sacrifice one person’s life in order to save several other lives. Some people think whether or not someone suffers emotionally has nothing to do with their judgments of right and wrong. What explains the differences in moral judgment? Will lonely people make moral judgment more permissible? In consumer research, it has been shown that socially excluded people are more likely to sacrifice their financial well-being for the sake of social inclusion, and more willing to try an illegal drug (Baumeister et al. 2008). From an evolutionary perspective, lonely people feel unsafe and tend to be more defensive and sensitive to threats and rejection (Cacioppo et al. 2006; Cacioppo and Patrick 2008; Ernst and Cacioppo 2000; Hawkley and Cacioppo 2010). However, it is still unclear how loneliness influences moral judgment. The purpose of this study is to advance our understanding on loneliness and moral judgment, where we refer loneliness as the subjective feeling of social isolation (Hawkley and Cacioppo 2010) Louise C. and John T. Cacioppo, Loneliness matters: a theoretical and empirical review of consequences and mechanisms, Annals of Behavioral Medicine, Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 218-227, 40 (2), 2010, 0883-6612. Because lonely people are more sensitive to threats and attacks, see the world as a more threatening place, expect more negative consequences from social interaction, have less trust in social interaction, and remember more negative events and feeling than non-lonely people. It becomes more interesting to test whether or not lonely people have the similar moral judgments as non-lonely people. Do lonely people see moral judgment differently than normal people? Do they have different dimensions of moral judgment? We addressed those questions in four studies, and the result showed that feeling lonely makes moral judgment more permissible.