A Behavioral Disinhibition Hypothesis of Interventions in Moral Dilemmas

The present article puts forward a behavioral disinhibition hypothesis stating that, often, at least some levels of behavioral disinhibition are needed to overcome people's inhibition to intervene in dilemmatic situations in which they have to choose between different actions with good reasons for each of the actions involved. Results reported indeed show that people to whom disinhibited behaviors were salient or people with stronger predispositions toward behavioral disinhibition were more likely to intervene in trolley and footbridge dilemmas.