Psychology The Trolley Problem Moral Philosophy Ethics

We were talking about Kohlberg and morality and one of my students asked me about "trolley" problems. That was my inspiration!

If you are not aware of "trolley problems" they go something like this...

"A trolley has lost its brakes and is headed down a track and will kill 5 people. You can flip the switch and only one person will be killed. What do you do?"

Of course, there are a million variations of these kinds of problems too.

While not strictly psychology I think these problems are interesting and that my students would have fun with them. Ethics or philosophy teachers would probably have a field day with these.

Here are a couple versions of trolley problems. The students survey their peers and graph the data.

9/19/23 Fixed some typos in the graphs

1/25/23 Added a version where the students go to a website and answer a variety of Trolley questions, then we analyze whether men or women are more likely to kill organisms.

Try the link if you really need the online version…

https://neal.fun/absurd-trolley-problems/

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