Moral perceptions of harm and fairness are instrumental in guiding how an individual navigates moral challenges. Classic research documents that the gender of a target can affect how people deploy these perceptions of harm and fairness. Across multiple studies, we explore the effect of an individual’s moral orientations (their considerations of harm and justice) and a target’s gender on altruistic behavior. Results reveal that a target’s gender can bias one’s readiness to engage in harmful actions and that a decider’s considerations of harm—but not fairness concerns—modulate costly altruism. Together, these data illustrate that moral choices are conditional on the social nature of the moral dyad: Even under the same moral constraints, a target’s gender and a decider’s gender can shift an individual’s choice to be more or less altruistic, suggesting that gender bias and harm considerations play a significant role in moral cognition.

In Study 1A, 88% of participants reported that they would push the man off the footbridge (Pearson’s w 2 1⁄4 28.88, 1 df, p < .001, Z 2 1⁄4 .57; Figure 1A), illustrating that participants significantly endorsed the preservation of a female over a male bystander’s welfare

Participants in Study 1B were randomly selected to read one of the three versions of the dilemma, where each vignette described a man, woman, or gender-neutral bystander on the bridge. The participant was then asked how willing they were to ‘‘push the [man/woman/person] onto the path of the oncoming trolley,’’ indicating on a 10-point analogue scale willingness to push (WTP). The aim was to determine whether there are observable gender biases during philosophical moral dilemmas, with the key variable being how readily a male or female bystander is pushed onto the tracks (i.e., harmed).

Results revealed a main effect of the bystander’s gender, F(2,146) 1⁄4 3.8, p 1⁄4 .02, Z 2 1⁄4 .05 (Figure 1B), such that participants were overall more willing to push a man (mean WTP 1⁄4 3.3, SD + 2.4, 10 1⁄4 very willing) or a bystander with an unspecified gender (mean WTP 1⁄4 4.3, SD + 3.1) than a woman (mean WTP 1⁄4 3.0, SD + 2.4).

Together, this reveals that participants were less willing to push a woman than a man off the footbridge, suggesting that even within the hypothetical domain where the tensions are not as easily simulated (FeldmanHall et al., 2012), individuals take a target’s gender into account when contemplating harmful actions.

On each trial, £1 was at stake, and the choice was how much, if any, of the £1 to give up in order to prevent a painful but harmless electric shock from reaching the target on that trial. The more money paid out on a given trial, the lower the shock level inflicted on the target

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Paying the full £1 would remove the shock altogether, while paying nothing would mean the target experienced the highest shock level on that trial. The key behavioral variable was how much money (£0–£20) deciders retained across the 20 trials, with larger amounts indicating that personal gain was prioritized over the target’s pain. Effectively, the more money the decider paid, the lower the shock level the target received on a given trial.

Deciders were also required to view the administration of the shocks. This allowed us to manipulate the target’s gender by broadcasting a video of either a male target (Condition 1) or female target (Condition 2) responding to the shock

deciders interacting with a female target kept significantly less money and thus gave significantly lower shocks (n 1⁄4 34; £8.76/£20, SD + 5.0) than deciders interacting with a male target, n 1⁄4 23; £12.54/£20, SD + 3.9; independent samples t-test: t(55) 1⁄4 3.16, p 1⁄4 .003, Cohen’s d 1⁄4 .82; Figure 2B. This replicates the findings from Studies 1A and 1B in the real domain and under a different class of moral challenge, illustrating that harm endorsement is attenuated for female targets. Together, this suggests that a target’s gender can powerfully shift the perception of harm and lead to an increase in costly altruism

On average motorists left considerably more space when passing the rider when he gave the impression of being female. A two-tailed independent-samplest-test confirmed that the effect was significant (t279= 3.71,p< .001,d= 0.44). The difference in means is over 14 cm … drivers left more space for what they thought was a woman [2]

The means of the effect sizes deviated from 0.00 in the direction of greater helping received by women than men … all of the mean differences were in the female direction (negative numbers) and, as shown by their confidence intervals, differed significantly from 0.00, thus indicating a significant difference.

Consistent with these significant effects, the tendency for women to be helped more than men was stronger (a) in off-campus settings versus campus settings (field and laboratory); (b) with surveillance versus unclear surveillance, x2(2) = 221.18, p < .001, and unclear surveillance versus no surveillance, xz(2) = 39.28, p <.001

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The tendency for women to be helped more than men was larger if the helper was under surveillance by persons other than the victim or requester.

Surveillance by onlookers emerged as by far the strongest predictor of the sex-of-victim/requester effects

only one participant reported that men should be saved first (Pearson’s w 2 1⁄4 78.3, 2 df, p < .001, Z 2 1⁄4 .52), and the rest of participants responded that there should either be no order or that women should be saved first (Figure 3A)

participants in Study 3A reported most volunteers would keep significantly less money when engaging with a female than a male or gender-neutral target … harming females was perceived as significantly more unfair than harming either a man or a gender-neutral person

we observed that according to social norms, it is significantly (1) more morally unacceptable to harm a female for money, paired samples t-test: t(49) 1⁄4 2.6, p 1⁄4 .01, Cohen’s d 1⁄4 .37: Figure 3B; (2) more unfair to harm a female, paired samples t-test: t(49) 1⁄4 5.03, p < .001, Cohen’s d 1⁄4 .34: Figure 3C; and men have a significantly greater tolerance to pain, paired samples t-test: t(49) 1⁄4 4.1, p < .001, Cohen’s d 1⁄4 .98: Figure 3D

The findings suggest that social norms regarding gender and harm considerations likely account for greater harming behavior toward a male than a female target. Moreover, there are widely held societal perceptions that females are less tolerant to pain, that it is unacceptable to harm females for personal gain, and that society endorses chivalrous behavior. … that society perceives harming women as more morally unacceptable, suggests that gender bias and harm considerations play a large role in shaping moral action.

participants overwhelming responded that they would push a man— rather than a woman—in front of an oncoming trolley. When we tested this effect in a different class of moral challenge where self-benefit and another’s welfare are juxtaposed, we found that even under the same moral constraints where all components of the moral task were held constant, a target’s gender can shift an individual’s choice to be more or less altruistic, providing converging evidence that gender bias plays a significant role in moral behavior.

The task consists of eight short scenarios in which sacrificing one person can save a number of others. In each scenario, the gender of the protagonist is manipulated: In four scenarios, participants are asked to sacrifice a man to save several others (of unspecified gender), and in four other scenarios they are asked to sacrifice a woman. The scenarios in which men and women appeared were counterbalanced across participants.

In each scenario, participants indicate whether they would sacrifice the protagonist by answering the Yes/No question, “Would you sacrifice this man [woman] to save the others?” Willingness to sacrifice was computed by summing the number of scenarios in which participants sacrificed the target individual. As such, the willingness to sacrifice in the MCD task can show evidence for in-group favoritism and/or out-group derogation.

For instance, increased tendencies to sacrifice out-group members (men) would be indicative of out-group derogation (Brewer, 1999).

We believe that the use of the MCD task as a measure of in-group bias has several benefits. First, the MCD task is an indirect measure, in which participants are not made aware of the role played by gender. In the context of the current study, we consider this to be an important benefit, as it ensures that the gender component is not referred to explicitly until the very end of the procedure and any effects of the subliminal manipulation are not altered by explicit reference to gender. Second, avoiding explicit reference to gender means that participants’ responses are less likely to be affected by conscious correction of gender bias.

van Breen said her team’s research is the first to show that feminists are more willing to sacrifice men, though previous studies have found similar results with other marginalized groups, such as racial minorities.

“If a person wanted to counteract that and ‘level the playing field’, that can be done either by boosting women or by downgrading men” van Breen told Campus Reform. “So I think that this effect on evaluations of men arises because our participants are trying to achieve an underlying aim: counteracting gender stereotypes.”

“Moms actually think that girls expressing anger is more pleasant or more acceptable than boys expressing anger,” Prof. Thomassin said.