DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS MACQUARIE ECONOMICS RESEARCH PAPERS Taboo Trade-offs, Moral Outrage and the Moral Limits of Markets

Tetlock’s sacred value protection model (SVPM) proposed that taboo trade-offs evoke a strong moral reaction in people who resist secular encroachments on their sacred values. This strong moral reaction can be thought of as setting a moral limit on the extent of markets in society. In addition, Tetlock (2000) also suggested that a substantial minority of participants are susceptible to trading off their sacred values when exposed to reframing strategies which convert taboo trade-offs into routine or tragic trade-offs. Thus, suggesting that the sacred-secular barrier is quite permeable and the moral limit on the extent of markets is not rigid. However, Tetlock (2000) is not clear about the relative effectiveness of the different reframing strategies. The present study examined these key issues using a sample of one hundred university students. Participants evaluated both routine and taboo trade-offs and it was found that taboo trade-offs do elicit strong moral reactions in participants. In particular, participants expressed significantly greater moral outrage when contemplating taboo trade-offs compared to when thinking about routine trade-offs. The study also found that reframing taboo trade-offs as routine trade-offs was not effective in subverting sacred values. Specifically, taboo trade-offs were reframed using policy revision information that was designed to alleviate concerns about the possible extreme consequences that result from allowing taboo trade-offs to occur. Following exposure to the policy revision information, participants were asked to re-evaluate the permissibility of taboo trade-offs and no significant reduction in moral outrage was found. Furthermore, the study also considered the role of the need for cognitive closure in accounting for breaches of the sacred-secular barrier. However, because routine reframing was not found to be effective, the role of the need for cognitive closure could not be adequately examined. Finally, the limitations of the study and the implications of the study’s findings for the future direction of research on the SVPM are also examined. JEL Classification: A13, D03