ArticlePNAS nexus2025
A large-scale investigation of everyday moral dilemmas.
Article in PNAS nexus, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Dimensionality, cross-validation and reliability of Help-Seeking Dilemma Scale.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- Everyday norms have become more permissive over time and vary across cultures.Communications psychology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Questions of right and wrong are central to daily life, yet scientific understanding of everyday moral dilemmas is limited. We conducted a data-driven analysis of these phenomena by combining state-of-the-art tools in machine learning with survey-based methods. We extracted and analyzed 369,161 descriptions ("posts") and 11 M evaluations ("comments") of dilemmas from the largest known online repository of everyday moral dilemmas: Reddit's "Am I the Asshole?" Users described a wide variety of everyday dilemmas on topics ranging from broken promises to privately held emotions. Dilemmas involving relational obligations were the most frequently reported, while those pertaining to honesty were the most frequently condemned. The types of dilemmas people experienced depended on the interpersonal closeness of the interactants, with some dilemmas (e.g. politeness) more prominent in distant-other interactions and others (e.g. relational transgressions) more prominent in close-other interactions. A preregistered follow-up investigation showed that similar dilemmas are reported in a census-stratified representative sample of the US population (
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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.