2025/12/12 by Brian D. Earp, Killian Lorcan McLoughlin, Mina Caraccio +4 · 1 voice
Neuroscience · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion #Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment #Social and Intergroup Psychology
paper · doi:10.1177/01461672251379518
openalex created_date 2025/12/12 · openalex publication_date 2025/12/12 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/14
The principle of impartial beneficence (IB) holds that we should strive to maximize others’ well-being regardless of their relationship to us. But does endorsement of IB in principle translate to more uniform concern for others irrespective of relationship type? Three pre-registered studies in online samples of U.S. participants (total N =1,716) found IB endorsement predicts greater and more uniform concern for others across social relationships varying in social distance: in care prescriptions (Study 1), as well as blame judgments (Study 2) and guilt expressions (Study 3) when care norms are violated or care is not provided. Heightened concern for others in socially distant relationships was not “offset” by less concern for those in close ones. IB was not associated with a motive to be generally admired, but was linked to a motive to form communal relationships. Across different types of moral judgments, a commitment to IB thus entails caring much more than average about the well-being of socially distant others, while maintaining a high level of concern for socially close ones.