Figure S1 - Lifting the Veil of Morality: Choice Blindness and Attitude Reversals on a Self-Transforming Survey

Sample verbal reports from undetected manipulated trials in relation to the principle of harming the innocent, and the issue of governmental surveillance of e-mail and Internet traffic (all reports have been translated from Swedish, and transcription notation has been removed for ease of reading). Participants were presented with either an abstract principle or concrete moral issue, and then asked to indicate their attitude towards these on a scale from 1 (completely disagrees) to 9 (completely agrees). The figure in each cell of the table (a-h) shows the original rating of the participants as a filled red hexagon on the scale. In a manipulation trial, participants then face a negated principle or issue, which is the equivalent of moving their original rating to the mirror side of the scale. This dynamic is shown as a dotted red line ending in a X-marked hexagon in the figure. The verbal report the participants give at this point is shown in a speech bubble originating below the X-mark. Looking at the verbal reports it is evident that they present a much better fit to the manipulated side of the scale (the red X), than the original position (the red filling). This is further confirmed by the blue dot, which represents the attitude position the independent raters deemed most appropriate for the same report, when evaluated with no knowledge of the original position. Here, it can be seen that the blue dot consistently is placed on the same side of the scale as the red X, and much closer to it than to the original red filling. (PDF)