Failure to prevent an outcome such as the disappearance of a species may be bad, but the prohibition against such omissions is not absolute. First, PVs concern actions but not omissions. This proposal implies that PVs have several properties, and Baron and Spranca found evidence for most of these properties. If this theory is correct, then it may be possible to respect these values without also doing everything possible to prevent the bad outcomes in question (e.g., extinctions). By this account, what is absolute is the prohibition against acts that would destroy species of animals or violate human rights. They proposed that the values arise from deontological rules, rules concerning actions rather than consequences. Baron and Spranca (1997) called these protected values (PVs) and proposed a theory of their nature. If one person places an infinite value on the protection This research was supported by NSF Grant SBR Address correspondence and reprint requests to Jonathan Baron, Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, 3815 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA /99 $30.00 Copyright 1999 by Academic Press All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.Ģ 80 RITOV AND BARON of species, a government policy that respects all people s values will do everything possible to prevent extinctions. If these values are accepted, they trump all other values and dictate the decision. These values create problems for cost-effectiveness analysis based on judgments of value. These include values for the natural environment, human or animal life, human rights, sacred objects, and works of art and other human creations. Finally, 1 experiment showed that some people are willing to sacrifice values to prevent losses more than they are willing to sacrifice these values for gains Academic Press INTRODUCTION Most people have some values that they think of as absolute, not to be traded off for anything else. In 2 experiments, we also found a weak tendency for PVs to be associated with lack of concern for the number of acts involved, which is analogous to earlier results showing an association with lack of concern for the quantity of outcomes. We found this correlation between PVs and omission bias in 3 experiments, using stimuli of the sort that we used before to demonstrate omission bias. This proposal implies that PVs should show a particularly large bias against harmful acts that undermine the value in question, as opposed to harmful omissions (omission bias). Baron and Spranca (1997) proposed that such values result from rules concerning actions (as opposed to values for outcomes). 2, August, pp, 1999 Article ID obhd, available online at on Protected Values and Omission Bias Ilana Ritov Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel and Jonathan Baron University of Pennsylvania Protected values (PVs) are those that people think should not be traded off. 1 Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes Vol.
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