Pilot study

ORCID: 0000-0002-6523-5471

As part of the preparation for the upcoming project, I conducted a pilot study during a research stay at McGill. The experimental procedure and the Data Management Plan can be found here and here. The study was conducted with 360 participants from various nationalities. They were presented with different scenarios of moral, political, and religious disagreements. Pilot data in CSV format is available here.

Does the sociocultural distance effect go beyond morality?

Participants were presented with vignettes depicting situations of moral, political, and religious disagreements. The perceived objectivity of the disagreement varied based on sociocultural distance, but less so when the cultural context aligned with the participant’s own. This pattern was not exclusive to morality; we observed similar trends within both political and religious domains. Overall, the results reveal that participants consistently displayed higher objectivist attitudes in the same-culture condition than in the other-culture condition across all domains (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Each violin plot depicts the distribution of the perceived objectivity of the disagreement (from 1 to 11) across sociocultural distances (same-culture vs. other-culture) within moral, political, and religious domains, with colors distinguishing domains. The inner box plot highlights median scores and variability, while individual points show specific data entries.

Does the sociocultural distance effect affect cooperation?

To further test the feasibility of the project, I also introduced participants to an n-person collective goods game in the same pilot study. The results reveal a preference to cooperate with same-culture partners. However, when participants were sensitive to the ‘sociocultural distance effect’, they became more open to collaborating with those outside their own culture. This suggests that the sociocultural distance effect can be a bridge, fostering cooperation across different cultures (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Frequency of cooperative behaviors, across varying levels of sociocultural distance effect. Sociocultural distance effect levels were calculated by subtracting a participant’s mean perception of objectivity in the same-culture condition from that participant’s mean perception of objectivity in the other-culture condition. Each bar’s color indicates the type of behavior (cooperate or defect), offering insights into how group dynamics and perceived distance influence cooperative decision-making.

Sociocultural distance led participants to display more non-objectivist relativist attitudes and cooperate more with individuals from different cultural backgrounds in the other-culture condition. This indicates that individuals with a higher sensitivity to the sociocultural distance effect, as measured in the metaethical task, are likelier to cooperate with partners from different cultures than participants less sensitive to such an effect.

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