Decision Under Uncertainty and Moral Emotions

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of moral emotions (guilt/innocence) on decisions under risk. We hypothesize that participants ’ aversion to risky choices and preference for risky choices vary as a function of their moral role (guilty/innocent), and thus of moral assumptions, rather than only in view of the gain–loss formulation effects (Tversky & Kahneman, 1981). The effect of moral values on individuals ’ choices leads to both people who evaluate themselves as guilty and those who feel of being a victim tending to make a choice (risky or riskless) that allows them to satisfy a moral goal: To re-establish justice. In two different experiments, we demonstrated that moral emotions appear to be the main determinant of individuals ’ preferences (risk-seeking or risk-aversion). Our participants make the risky or riskless choice prevailing over the formulation effect proposed by Tversky and Kahneman, in order to restore justice, either because they were guilty of a wrong-doing or because victims of a wrong-doing. Moral emotions lead us to prefer a risky or a riskless choice, regardless of whether they are generated by the task to be solved or by other situations unrelated to the task