How utilitarian are you, and what does this predict about your personality? What would you do when faced with the following dilemma…

You and three other people are trapped in a mine. One of the other three is bleeding and will die within the hour without medical attention. The rescue team says it will take 36 hours to reach you, and also that given the size of the space you are trapped in there is only enough oxygen for three people to survive for 36 hours, but definitely not four. Is it morally appropriate for you to withdraw medical attention and allow the bleeding crew member to die, in order to save yourself and the rest of the crew?

(a) No way

(b) Probably not

(c) Probably

(d) Definitely

If you said (d), you are highly utilitarian. You believe that an action is morally right if it benefits the majority. What does this say about you? Well, according to a recent study, on average, utilitarians show a preference for deliberation (as opposed to jumping straight in), enjoy activities that require lots of mental effort (eg puzzles), have a high short-term memory capacity and are more likely to have an angry personality. If you said (c), you are somewhat utilitarian, so these generalisations apply – on average – to a lesser extent.

If you said (a) or (b), then you are not at all, or just very slightly, utilitarian. Rather, you believe that certain actions (or inactions, such as allowing someone to bleed to death) are intrinsically morally wrong. As well as scoring lower for the traits above, anti-utilitarians are, on average, better at taking other people’s perspectives, more empathic and more religious, too.

Are You Smarter Than a Chimpanzee? by Ben Ambridge is published by Profile Books, £12.99. To order a copy for £11.04, go to bookshop.theguardian.com