USING PERSONAL ATTITUDES TO JUDGE OTHERS - THE ROLES OF OUTCOMES AND CONSENSUS

The relative preference effect refers to the tendency for people with incompatible ethical views to differ in their evaluations of targets w hose ethical decisions agree versus disagree with their own. For examp le, people who say they would keep a lost wallet ascribe less blame to a target who does the same than do people who say they would return t he wallet. The relative preference effect does not require that people consider their ethical choices to be morally superior to the alternat ives: The effect occurs even when people who endorse less ethically de sirable alternatives (such as keeping a lost wallet) admit that the op posite alternative (such as returning the wallet) is more admirable or desirable, and also when they admit that they would teach their child ren to do the opposite. The two studies in this paper examined differe nt explanations for the pervasiveness of the relative preference effec t. Study 1 assessed the possibility that people evaluate targets who a gree with them more favorably because they assume the targets' decisio ns will produce positive outcomes. Study 1 provided evidence against t his interpretation by showing that the relative preference effect occu rred when the target's decision produced negative as well as positive outcomes. Study 2 assessed the possibility that people evaluate agreei ng others more favorably because they assume most people share their e thical preferences. This explanation was supported by a significant in teraction between consensus information and agreement-disagreement inf ormation on blame attributions: The relative preference effect occurre d when participants were provided with information indicating most of their peers agreed with their ethical decision, but not when they beli eved a majority of their peers disagreed. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc .