2010 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Individual vs.group decision making to withdraw from a business

Research Project

Project/Area Number	20530349
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Section	一般
Research Field	Business administration
Research Institution	Tokyo Metropolitan University
Principal Investigator	NAGASE Katsuhiko Tokyo Metropolitan University, 社会科学研究科, 教授 (70237519)
Project Period (FY)	2008 – 2010
Keywords	経営管理 / 意思決定 / 実験
Research Abstract	The trolley problem describes a kind of moral dilemma. Participants are asked if it is morally permissible to divert the trolley away from five people but towards one person. A utilitarian view asserts that it is obligatory to divert the trolley, but some participants cannot accept it on a gut level. It is not clear yet what kinds of factors are related with the gut feeling. Participants' attitudes toward the trolley problem have little variation across differences in gender, age, educational level, ethnicity, religion or national affiliation (Hauser et al., 2007). Neuroscience research demonstrates that focal bilateral damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC) increases utilitarian moral judgments (Koenigs et al., 2007). This study investigated the relationship between participants' attitudes toward the problem and their personality. It is suggested that the levels of locus of control, self-enclosure/human distrust, and cognitive reflection have weak positive correlations with the level of utilitarianism.