Think Fast: The effect of time pressure on moral decision-making within an automotive domain

Abstract

Objectives. To determine whether time pressure shapes moral decision-making within an automotive accident domain. A secondary goal is to determine if dual process theories are a good fit or if an alternative theory is a better fit for moral decision-making. Methods. Visual sacrificial moral dilemmas were improved based on criticism of the typical dilemmas used in the field. Participants had to choose whether they would swerve onto the other side of the road or stay in their lane when confronted by pedestrians in the road and roadworks in the other lane. Time pressure of 7 s was applied to participants through a within-participant design. Results. Under time pressure participants were 1.23 times more likely to avoid pedestrians and 1.32 times more likely to stay in their lane. Participants in general displayed a significant preference to avoid pedestrians, having no significant preference for following a utilitarian framework. Participants were more likely to avoid pedestrians as their number increased or when the car was moving faster. However, they were almost 5 times more likely to hit pedestrians if there was a passenger in the car. Conclusions. The dual process theory is too crude to fully encapsulate the nuance of moral decision-making, the conflict theory proposed by Gürçay and Baron better accounts for the findings of this paper. Autonomous vehicles should consider the number of car occupants, speed of the car and number of pedestrians at risk when performing accident avoidance manoeuvres. A continued focus should be on the improvement of the typical dilemmas of this field.