Date on Master's Thesis/Doctoral Dissertation

5-2025

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph. D.

Department

Psychological and Brain Sciences

Degree Program

Experimental Psychology, PhD

Committee Chair

Decaro, Daniel

Committee Member

DeCaro, Marci

Committee Member

Mekawi, Yara

Committee Member

Paliewicz, Nicholas

Author's Keywords

Democratic deliberation; procedural justice; moral convictions; emotion regulation

Abstract

Societal disputes often stem from polarized moral dilemmas. Procedural justice and self-determination (PJSD) afforded by societal decision-making processes may influence cooperation and acceptance in these dilemmas. However, moral conviction can sometimes overshadow PJSD, causing morally-opposed individuals to avoid deliberation, become uncooperative, or reject decision outcomes. I conducted two experiments to explore the role emotions (emotion regulation) and procedural safeguards for democratic deliberation (e.g., equal discussion time, rules for civility) play in these situations. I examined the topic of abortion in the U.S. after the Supreme Court’s June 2022 reversal of Roe v. Wade. Undergraduates at a large, urban Midwestern university participated in online vignette studies. In Experiment 1 (N = 481), participants responded to one of four scenarios created by crossing democratic safeguards (structure: unstructured, structured) with hostility of an opposing person’s argument (nonhostile, hostile). Structured scenarios had discussion guidelines enforced by the experimenter. Unstructured scenarios lacked guidelines. Nonhostile statements consisted of stereotypical pro-life/pro-choice arguments. Hostile statements included several additional phrases identified to increase perceived hostility and provoke stronger emotions. Structure had beneficial effects for individuals with both Low (LMC) and High (HMC) moral conviction, reducing negative effects of argument hostility. These effects included higher perceived PJSD, decision and outcome satisfaction, and willingness to deliberate, among other psychosocial outcomes. Structure also mitigated emotion (e.g., anger, anxiety) and improved some emotion regulation strategies. Hence, structured deliberation reassured individuals of fair/autonomy-supportive decision processes, reducing negative emotions and increasing anticipated cooperation. In Experiment 2 (N = 505), presentation order was reversed to assess the potential influence of order effects (i.e., hostile statements were shown before structure information). Findings for HMC individuals generally replicated Experiment 1, exhibiting protective effects of deliberative structure. However, LMC individuals showed mixed effects, such as less perceived PJSD in structured formats. Comparisons of HMC v. LMC individuals suggest that HMC individuals have more resilience and experience, leading to different perceptions in some cases. Overall, findings suggest that democratic safeguards facilitate cooperation during deliberation of moral dilemmas for HMC, but more research is needed to better understand resilience and LMC individuals’ potentially different responses.

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