Cognitive Enhancement in the Facially Different: Leveling the Playing Field or Playing a Dangerous Game?
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2020
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Haverford College. Department of Psychology
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Award
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eng
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Haverford users only
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Abstract
Public attitudes towards cognitive enhancement (CE)––e.g., using stimulants like Adderall and Ritalin to improve mental functioning––are mixed, vary by context, and prompt ethical concerns such as fairness, coercion, and authenticity/character. While people are known to hold strong views about the morality of CE, it is unknown how these perceptions are affected by the physical characteristics of the CE user. It has previously been shown that the presence of visible facial anomalies (e.g. scars, warts, facial palsies) modulates perceptions of moral character. The present study tested whether this bias extends to moral beliefs surrounding CE. We obtained survey-data from 941 participants in the United States using Amazon's Mechanical Turk. Participants judged the fairness of hypothetical CE use in a vignette that was accompanied by a photograph of a face––ostensibly the potential CE user––that either did or did not have visible anomalies. Participants then learned whether the person ultimately used CEs (counter-balanced assignment). Next, participants played a modified Trust Game, ostensibly with the person in the photograph. Participants judged CE use less fair and users less authentic if they had facial anomalies, while effects on behavior were not detected. These findings coalesce with burgeoning evidence that people experience an "anomalous-is-bad" stereotype, whereby facial anomalies are seen to indicate moral deficiencies. Interestingly, although anomalous faces were subjected to harsher moral judgments, this did not appear to affect the behavioral measures used here. In what follows, these results are discussed in relation to the literatures on discrimination and CE policy.