23. March 2020 : New publication on the informative value of measurements in virtual reality vs. self assessments

Sütfeld LR, Ehinger BV, König P and Pipa G (2019). How does the method change what we measure? Comparing virtual reality and text-based surveys for the assessment of moral decisions in traffic dilemmas. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0223108. PLoS One 14:e0223108

„The question of how self-driving cars should behave in dilemma situations has recently attracted a lot of attention in science, media and society. A growing number of publications amass insight into the factors underlying the choices we make in such situations. The methodology used to address these questions, however, varies widely between studies.

In this paper we compare virtual reality and text-based assessments, analyzing the effect that different factors in the methodology have on decisions and emotional response of participants.

Our results show that the moral decisions made in this context are not strongly influenced by the type of assessment, and the compared methods ultimately appear to measure very similar constructs. Furthermore, we add to the pool of evidence on the underlying factors of moral judgment in traffic dilemmas, both in terms of general preferences as well as in terms of individual differences between participants.“