People change moral position without even realising it

In a ‘trick’ survey, participants switched their opinion on ethical issues without being aware of it. This has been shown in a study by cognitive science researchers at Lund University, Sweden, that was published recently in the open access journal PLOS ONE. In the study, led by Lars Hall, Petter Johansson and Thomas Strandberg, participants were presented with a questionnaire about either fundamental ethical principles or current hot topics with moral implications, such as illegal immigration or the legalisation of prostitution. What was different about this questionnaire was that the researchers used a magic trick to change the participants' answers, so that they were suddenly claiming the opposite of what they had originally declared (see a video demonstration of the experiment, http://www.lucs.lu.se/cbq/). The researchers then asked the participants to explain their answers and found that many participants supported their reported answers, even though the responses were the opposite of what they had originally intended to express. Lars Hall observes that "participants often constructed coherent and unequivocal arguments supporting the opposite of their original position", suggesting "a dramatic potential for flexibility in our moral attitudes". "We want to stress that this is not about how to trick people, or 'expose' how well thought out their opinions are", says Thomas Strandberg, co-author of the study.