Althoughethics（道德）lessons are common around the world, scientists are unsure if -组卷网

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Although ethics（道德）lessons are common around the world, scientists are unsure if the lessons can actually change behavior. But a new study found that a single ethics lesson may have had lasting effects.

The researchers investigated one lesson’s impact on eating meat. They chose this particular behavior for three reasons, according to study co-author Eric, a philosopher at the University of California: students’ attitudes on the topic are variable, behavior is easily measurable, and eating less meat is good because it reduces environmental harm and animal suffering. The researchers studied students in four classes. Half of them read an article on the ethics of factory-farmed meat, watched an 11-minute video on the topic and joined a 50-minute discussion. The other half focused on charitable giving instead. Then, the researchers studied their meal-card purchases for that semester-nearly 14,000 receipts（收据）for almost 500 students. “It’s an awesome data set,” says Nina Strohminger, a psychologist who teaches business ethics and was not involved in the study.

For students who discussed meat ethics, meal purchases containing meat decreased from 52 to 45 percent-and this effect held steady for the study’s duration of several weeks. Purchases from the other group remained at 52 percent.

“That’s actually a pretty large effect for a pretty small intervention,” Eric says. Strohminger agrees, “The thing that still blows my mind is that just one ethics lesson should have such an obvious effect.”

Eric believes the greatest impact came from classmates or teaching assistants leading the discussions. Second, the video may have had an emotional impact. Least influential, he thinks was argument. Now the researchers are investigating the specific effects of teaching style teachers’ eating habits and students’ video exposure.

【小题1】How did the researchers carry out the study?