ArticleNature human behaviour2021
Moral dilemmas and trust in leaders during a global health crisis.
Article in Nature human behaviour, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
What it found
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The trial behind it
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 78 citations in OpenAlex.
- Contract incentives and behaviours of medical consultants in Ireland.Nature human behaviour · 2026Article
- Understanding crisis dynamics during public health emergencies: an integrated framework of social consequences, trust, and behavioral responses.Frontiers in public health · 2026Review
- The Effect of Moral Judgment on Bystander Cooperation Behavior: The Role of Personal Force.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Article
- The German translation of the Oxford utilitarianism scale: Validation and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the observations.PloS one · 2025Article
- Review
- Evidence from 43 countries that disease leaves cultures unchanged in the short-term.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- The impact of moral judgment on bystanders' interpersonal trust: the mediating role of trustworthiness.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Deontologists are not always trusted over utilitarians: revisiting inferences of trustworthiness from moral judgments.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- The evolvement of trust in response to the COVID-19 pandemic among migrants in Norway.International journal for equity in health · 2022Article
- The boundary conditions of the liking bias in moral character judgments.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Differences in moral judgment predict behavior in a Covid triage game scenario.Personality and individual differences · 2022Article
- Social Determinants in Self-Protective Behavior Related to COVID-19: Association Rule-Mining Study.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2022Article
- Trust in Institutions, Not in Political Leaders, Determines Compliance in COVID-19 Prevention Measures within Societies across the Globe.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Critical care leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic.Journal of critical care · 2022Article
- Video-based messages to reduce COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and nudge vaccination intentions.PloS one · 2022Article
- Differences in military personnel's hardiness depending on their leadership levels and combat experience: An exploratory pilot study.Military psychology : the official journal of the Division of Military Psychology, American Psychological AssociationArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
37 authors at 19 institutions in 13 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Trust in leaders is central to citizen compliance with public policies. One potential determinant of trust is how leaders resolve conflicts between utilitarian and non-utilitarian ethical principles in moral dilemmas. Past research suggests that utilitarian responses to dilemmas can both erode and enhance trust in leaders: sacrificing some people to save many others ('instrumental harm') reduces trust, while maximizing the welfare of everyone equally ('impartial beneficence') may increase trust. In a multi-site experiment spanning 22 countries on six continents, participants (N = 23,929) completed self-report (N = 17,591) and behavioural (N = 12,638) measures of trust in leaders who endorsed utilitarian or non-utilitarian principles in dilemmas concerning the COVID-19 pandemic. Across both the self-report and behavioural measures, endorsement of instrumental harm decreased trust, while endorsement of impartial beneficence increased trust. These results show how support for different ethical principles can impact trust in leaders, and inform effective public communication during times of global crisis. PROTOCOL REGISTRATION STATEMENT: The Stage 1 protocol for this Registered Report was accepted in principle on 13 November 2020. The protocol, as accepted by the journal, can be found at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13247315.v1 .
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.