In cognitive science, the "nove effect", in which the judgment of someone intentionally doing something is strongly influenced by the moral good and evil of the consequences of that act, has been studied as a "psychological phenomenon".This time, Associate Professor Masaharu Mizumoto of Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology has clarified that the "linguistic aspect" also contributes to this effect.
The Nove effect is a phenomenon first reported by philosopher Professor J. Nove (Yale University) in 2003, and the most famous examples are as follows.
When the vice president of a company told the chairman, "Our new project will increase profits, but it will be harmful to the environment," he said, "I didn't know that it was harmful to the environment. I just want to make a lot of money. Let's start the new project. "When asked to those who heard this story, "Did this chairman intentionally harm the environment?", The majority (about 80%) answered "yes".
However, when the above sentence was changed to "improve the environment" and the environment was actually improved, when asked "Did the chairman intentionally improve the environment?", The majority answered "no". ..
Both are secondary consequences of commercial activity, but the differences in their moral assessments completely reverse the judgment of whether or not they did it intentionally.
Until now, this phenomenon has been assumed to be psychological, but Associate Professor Mizumoto pays attention to the word "intentionally" this time.From a linguistic perspective, we investigated the effects of the three adverbs "intentionally" for Japanese speakers, "intentionally" for everyday languages, and "intentionally" for English speakers. rice field.
The subject was presented with only a sentence such as "He intentionally harmed the environment" excluding the story. They were asked to judge whether the use of each of the three adverbs was "correctly natural," "correct but unnatural," or "wrong."As a result, the proportion of "correctness" gradually decreased in the order of "intentionally," "intentionally," and "intentionally," and the proportion of "unnatural" and "wrong" increased.
From this, the Nove effect is already manifested in the judgment of language use, completely independent of whether the questioned event is a secondary consequence, and to what extent moral good and evil is in the language. It turns out that the judgment depends on the language.Future studies of the Nove effect mean that it would not be possible without linguistic data.
This study was published in the world-renowned Dutch philosophical magazine "Philosophical Studies".
Paper information:[Philosophical Studies] A Simple Linguistic Approach to the Knobe Effect, or the Knobe Effect without any Vignette
