In their study, Yudkin et al. They compiled a dataset of approximately 370,000 AITA posts and over 11 million comments posted between 2018 and 2021. They used machine learning to analyze the language used to classify all these posts into different categories. They relied on an existing taxonomy that identifies six basic areas of moral concern: fairness/proportionality, emotion, harm/offense, honesty, relational obligations, and social norms.
Yudkin et al. We identified the 29 most common dilemmas in the AITA dataset and grouped them according to moral themes. The two most common are relational transgression and relational inaction (not doing what is expected), followed by behavioral overreaction and unintended harm. Cheating and intentional misrepresentation/cheating were the most negatively rated moral dilemmas in the dataset, even more severe than intentional harm. Being critical was often perceived as self-righteous or hypocritical and was evaluated very negatively. The dilemma with the least negative ratings was relational omission.
Regarding the relational context, cheating and promise-breaking dilemmas usually involved a romantic partner, such as a boyfriend, rather than the mother, whereas mother-related dilemmas more often corresponded to relational inaction. . Essentially, the authors write, “People tend to be disappointed in their boyfriends, but not their mothers.” In contrast, less intimate relationships tend to be governed by “norms of civility and procedural fairness.” Therefore, Yudkin et al. They prefer to think of morality “not as a set of abstract principles, but as a ‘toolkit of relationships’ that guides and constrains behavior according to the demands of the social situation.”
DOI: PsyArXiv, 2024. 10.31234/osf.io/5pcew (About DOI).
Fractal scaling of trees in art
De Gritze Boom (Gray Tree) Piet Mondrian, 1911.
Credit: Public Domain
Leonardo da Vinci is famous for inventing the so-called .law of trees“As a guide for realistically drawing trees in artistic expression according to geometric proportions”. Essentially, if you take all the branches of a particular tree and fold and compress them into something resembling a trunk, that trunk will be the same thickness. This rule implies a fractal branching pattern with a scaling exponent of approximately 2 representing the ratio between the diameter of nearby branches and the number of branches with a given diameter.
