Assistant Professor of Marketing at University of Southern California.
I study spaces where morality, politics, and marketing collide.
Ike Silver
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Direction of comparison matters because scaling down condemnation (saying B is less bad than A) leaves ambiguity as to whether one is “downplaying.” Does scaling down mean I am not taking this seriously enough? This moral character threat is not present when scaling up (saying A is worse than B).
What makes people feel entitled to rewards?
Check out Corey’s paper for a provocative new take…
Sam is one of the most thoughtful scholars of dishonesty around. His latest on the topic - disentangling cheating from lying - is required reading!👇
While people readily say that bad act A is worse and deserves more punishment than bad act B, they are reluctant to say that B is less bad and deserves less punishment than A. When asked which of two acts is less bad, many opt to say both are equally bad (even when one is quite transparently worse!)
The paper contains a number of cool extensions that explore conditions under which people become more or less sensitive to harm and severity when making moral comparisons. Check it out (open access) here:
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Really proud of this new work out @psychscience.bsky.social. Led by the amazing but bluesky-less Amanda Geiser and with @deborahsmall.bsky.social.
We show that when comparing moral wrongs, people are (much) more willing to “scale up” than to “scale down” condemnation and punishment…
