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The End of Equipotentiality: A Moral Foundations Approach to Ideology-Attitude Links and Cognitive Complexity
... Moral Foundations Theory (Graham, Haidt, & Nosek, 2009;Graham et al., 2011;Haidt, 2008;Haidt & Graham, 2007;Joseph, Graham, & Haidt, 2009) proposes that humans come equipped with certain moral "foundations", a set of "innate but modifiable mechanisms" (Graham et al., , p. 1030) that trigger automatic, emotionally-laden moral responses ("intuitions") to a range of features within our physical/psychological/social environment. ...
... Because the foundations are innate but modifiable, there is room for parental, cultural, and even temperamental influence (Haidt & Graham, 2007;Shweder et al., 1997). Take, for example, the difference in moral foundation responses displayed by liberals and conservatives (Graham et al., , 2011Haidt & Graham, 2007;Joseph et al., 2009). Graham et al. (2009) found that while liberals and conservatives were similarly responsive to considerations of harm and fairness, conservatives responded much more strongly to the binding foundations than did liberals. ...
... Previous research on moral intuitions (Graham et al., , 2011Haidt, 2007;Haidt & Graham, 2007;Joseph et al., 2009) has revealed that while both liberals and conservatives value the individualizing foundations, conservatives also value-while liberals discount-the binding foundations. Our control group displayed this same pattern of responses (Fig. 1). ...
Recent research provides evidence that one important difference between liberals and conservatives is their basic moral intuitions. These studies suggest that while liberals and conservatives respond similarly to considerations of harm/care and fairness (what Graham and Haidt call the “individualizing” foundations), conservatives also respond strongly to considerations of in-group, authority, and purity (the “binding” foundations) while liberals do not. Our study examined two alternative hypotheses for this difference—the first being that liberals cognitively override, and the alternative being that conservatives cognitively enhance, their binding foundation intuitions. Using self-regulation depletion and cognitive load tasks to compromise people's ability to monitor and regulate their automatic moral responses, we found support for the latter hypothesis—when cognitive resources were depleted/distracted, conservatives became more like liberals (de-prioritizing the binding foundations), rather than the other way around. This provides support for the view that conservatism is a form of motivated social cognition.
... This is not without reason. Meta-analyses-covering a vast array of evidence related to dogmatism, uncertainty avoidance, openness to experience, need for closure, and integrative complexity-suggest that liberals are indeed more complex than conservatives (see Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003;Van Hiel, Onraet, & De Pauw, 2010; see also Joseph, Graham, & Haidt, 2009). ...
... Finally, for Study 2 only, we had a measurement of the value pluralism participants felt relevant to the topic they wrote about (constructed in a manner drawn fromTetlock, 1986). While-consistent with theorizing from Moral Foundations Theory (seeGraham, Haidt, & Nosek, 2009;Joseph et al., 2009)-conservatives had more overall value pluralism than did liberals (p 5 .01), conservatism did not interact with topic type to predict value pluralism (interaction p > .89), ...
Prior research suggests that liberals are more complex than conservatives. However, it may be that liberals are not more complex in general, but rather only more complex on certain topic domains (while conservatives are more complex in other domains). Four studies (comprised of over 2,500 participants) evaluated this idea. Study 1 involves the domain specificity of a self-report questionnaire related to complexity (dogmatism). By making only small adjustments to a popularly used dogmatism scale, results show that liberals can be significantly more dogmatic if a liberal domain is made salient. Studies 2–4 involve the domain specificity of integrative complexity. A large number of open-ended responses from college students (Studies 2 and 3) and candidates in the 2004 Presidential election (Study 4) across an array of topic domains reveals little or no main effect of political ideology on integrative complexity, but rather topic domain by ideology interactions. Liberals are higher in complexity on some topics, but conservatives are higher on others. Overall, this large dataset calls into question the typical interpretation that conservatives are less complex than liberals in a domain-general way.
... Research (Graham et al., 2009; Haidt & Graham, 2007) suggests that it depends (at least in part) on people's political orientation. Conservatives (and people who are strongly religious) tend to place relatively equal importance on all five foundations when it comes to their moral decisions, whereas liberals (especially secular liberals) place slightly more emphasis than conservatives on the individualizing foundations and substantially less emphasis on the binding foundations (Haidt, Graham, & Joseph, 2009). One suggested explanation for this de-emphasis of the binding foundations is that socialization and education (especially a secular liberal arts education) results in the 'demoralization' of the binding foundations. ...
... If this view is correct, then we should expect that techniques used to interfere with such cognitive overriding processes (thereby exposing people's underlying implicit responses) would reveal within the liberal population a more conservative implicit moral framework . As Joseph et al. (2009, pp. 174–175) suggest, 'the implicit or automatic moral reactions of liberals could be similar to those of conservatives——at least, more similar than the ideological differences we've found in explicitly endorsed moral values'. ...
Previous research has identified different moral judgments in liberals and conservatives. While both care about harm/fairness (‘individualizing’ foundations), conservatives emphasize in-group/authority/purity (‘binding’ foundations) more than liberals. Thus, some argue that conservatives have a more complex morality. We suggest an alternative view—that consistent with conservatism as ‘motivated social cognition’, binding foundation activation satisfies psychological needs for social structure/security/certainty. Accordingly, we found that students who were dispositionally threat-sensitive showed stronger binding foundation activation, and that conservatives are more dispositionally threat-sensitive than liberals. We also found that in a heightened threat situation liberals (especially social liberals) showed increased binding foundation activation. These results support the view that the binding foundations function differently in our moral cognition than the individualizing foundations.
... Taking these factors together, our data showed quite clear cross-national differences between the three European countries where moral foundation endorsement was concerned. Food-related moral thinking seems to reflect aspects of national food culture and national food habits (e.g., high public interest in particular food products), which supports the idea that a great deal of moral cognition is a function of cultural meaning and social context, as suggested by Joseph et al. (2009). In other words, on the basis of this association data, everyday moral thinking seems to be very social by nature, and is influenced by divergent cultural circumstances and current food trends. ...
... Further, we suggest that more cross-national comparative studies should be conducted in order to better understand how social and cultural construction processes are connected to moral intuitions (cf. Joseph et al. 2009), and how moral foundations in general, or especially regarding food, relate to specific food choices. ...
Food has become a prominent object of everyday moral discussions. This study examines how gender, political orientation, and country of origin are connected to moral foundation endorsement in food-related moral thinking. Respondents were university students (N = 371) from Finland, Denmark, and Italy who completed a word association task, in that given stimulus words were “ethical food” and “unethical food.” Results showed a presence of five moral foundations in the data, and indicated high prevalence of the Purity/Sanctity foundation in food-related moral thinking. As expected, gender differences emerged in the endorsement of the Fairness/Reciprocity and the Purity/Sanctity foundations. Also, between-country differences emerged in four of the five moral foundations, indicating that even within Europe countries may differ from each other in their endorsement of foundations. The results also verified the previously found effect of political orientation in three of the five moral foundations, although the study used a completely new and different type of method compared with previous studies. The study concludes by proposing more cross-national comparative studies where the focus is on the specific objects of moral thinking.
... Originally formulated by Jonathan Haidt, the model accounts for empirical regularities in human moral judgment. Subsequent research by Haidt (Haidt and Graham 2007; Haidt, Graham, and Joseph 2009) and others (Cushman, Young, and Hauser 2006; Joshua Greene and Haidt 2002; Moll et al. 2005; Pessoa 2008) has elaborated on the original theory and shown how innate moral intuitions relate to the complex moral judgment tasks that form the foundation of smooth social interactions. Serious inquiry into the origins and structure of individual predispositions themselves will lead to a richer understanding of the attitudes and behaviors that flow from them. ...
... Hypotheses As I will be employing new measures and a dataset that has not been analyzed previously (at least the moral foundations questions have not yet received scholarly attention), my first task will be to confirm that the same relationship holds between the moral foundations and political identification. Several previous studies using different datasets have shown that liberals tend to have higher scores on the Harm/Care and Fairness/Reciprocity (also called " individualizing " ) foundations while conservatives have relatively higher scores on the Ingroup/Loyalty, Authority/Respect, and Purity/Sanctity (also called " binding " ) foundations (Graham et al. 2011; Haidt and Graham 2007; Haidt, Graham, and Joseph 2009). Psychologists have generally focused only on self-placements on the standard liberal-conservative scale (see Jost [2006] for their justification). ...
In this paper, I lay the groundwork for a new understanding of the origins and consequences of individual political predispositions. Borrowing from recent work in moral psychology, I adopt an intuitionist model. The theory suggests that a diverse set of deep moral intuitions – concerns for care, fairness, loyalty, respect, and purity – structure and constrain cognition in important ways. When individuals are confronted with political stimuli, flashes of positive or negative affect are causally prior to rational considerations. Because it offers a way to open the “black-box” of political predispositions, this new perspective has the potential to structure an integrated theory of individual attitudes and political behavior. I test the claims of the theory with nationally representative survey data collected in 2008. I develop hypotheses that link the intuitions to political orientations and behavior. With estimates of individuals’ moral intuitions derived from a multidimensional item response model, I demonstrate the hypothesized relationships between intuitions and political identification. Individual differences in moral intuitions accounts for differences in partisanship, partisan stability and vote choice in primary and general elections. My results show that the intuitionist model has the potential to greatly increase our understanding of how individuals interact with the political world.
... It is quite possible that the particular domain-specific ideological dimensions that best predict new issue stances vary depending on the content of the new issues. Thus, the findings regarding substantive ideology would appear to support the views that (a) political attitudes are to an important extent influenced by substantive ideological content (e.g., Jost et al., 2003), and (b) it is useful to conceptualize substantive ideology multidimensionally (e.g., Joseph, Graham, & Haidt, 2009; Shafer & Claggett, 1995; Stenner, 2009). Our primary thesis is that conservative–liberal identity in part represents receptivity to political cues indicating what stance one should adopt on a newly politicized issue and why one should adopt it. ...
... In particular, inequality/social welfare ideology did not independently impact future issue stance in Study 1. This finding contributes to a base of evidence that, although distinct ideological dimensions are inter-correlated, there is value in multidimensional conceptualizations of ideology (Duckitt, Wagner, du Plessis, & Birum, 2002; Joseph et al., 2009; Shafer & Claggett, 1995; Stenner, 2005). It is likely that other new issue stances would have been influenced by different ideological dimensions. ...
To many commentators and social scientists, Americans’ stances on political issues are to an important extent driven by an
underlying conservative–liberal ideological dimension. Self-identification as conservative vs. liberal is regarded as a marker
of this dimension. However, past research has not thoroughly distinguished between ideological identity (a self-categorization)
and ideology (an integrated value system). This research evaluates the thesis that conservative–liberal identity functions
as a readiness to adopt beliefs and attitudes about newly politicized issues that one is told are consistent with the socially
prescribed meaning of conservatism–liberalism. In Study 1, conservative–liberal identity, measured in 2000, had an independent
prospective effect on support for invading Iraq in 2002 and support for the Iraq war in 2004, controlling for substantive
ideology, party identity, and demographics. In Study 2, conservative- and liberal-identifiers adopted stances on farm subsidy
policy based on randomly varied cues indicating which ideological group supports which stance. This cue-based influence was
mediated by adoption of attitude-supportive beliefs. Discussion addresses the joint impact of political discourse and identity-based
social influence on the organization of political attitudes.
KeywordsConservatism-Liberalism-Ideology-Political attitudes-Identity-Social influence
... Descriptive multidimensional item response theory; psychometrics; moral psychology; social psychology Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) has, since it was first formulated in Haidt and Joseph (2004), been recognized as a theoretical framework that can map the moral differences between the liberal and the conservative Joseph et al., 2009). Studies using the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ), the measurement tool used to support the theory (Graham et al., 2011), showed that while liberals mostly preferred Care and Fairness, i.e., the Individualizing Foundations; values regarding compassion and equal rights, the conservative extended their moral palette to also include the foundations of Loyalty, Authority and Purity, i.e., the Binding Foundations; values related to group cohesion, disgust avoidance, religiosity, and conformity to a prevailing social order. ...
This paper reports a validation study based on descriptive multidimensional item response theory (DMIRT), implemented in the R package D3mirt by using the ERS-C, an extended version of the Relevance subscale from the Moral Foundations Questionnaire including two new items for collectivism (17 items in total). Two latent models are created and investigated in two large samples (N = 1560 and N = 1380 US citizens). The internal investigation indicates a presence of two unidimensions, Compassion and Conformity, and a third within-multidimension of Collectivism in both samples. The external investigation show that Republicans are the highest on Conformity in the models, followed by Independents, and lastly Democrats. Democratic followers are the highest on compassion, followed by Independents and Republicans. No difference between groups on Collectivism were found. Lastly, the models succeeded in correctly identifying the Republican and Democratic voters but struggled to correctly classify the Independent.
... The data presented in this study are available on foundations in relation to various psychosocial and personality variables, such as political ideology, attitudes toward climate changes, punitive sentencing decisions, dark triad personality traits, and cognitive complexity (Barnett et al., 2018;Dickinson et al., 2016;Hatemi et al., 2019;Joseph et al., 2009;Međedović & Petrović, 2016;Milfont et al., 2019;Smith et al., 2017;Vaughan et al., 2019 ). However, how moral foundations are linked to moral judgment remained unclear. ...
The current study was designed to assess the role of moral foundations in predicting the moral/conventional distinction. A significant amount of empirical evidence shows that moral and conventional rules are used in complex social settings; however, there is a lack of knowledge on how moral foundations contribute to people’s tendencies to judge transgressions as moral or conventional.
In total, 404 participants completed the Moral Foundations Questionnaire followed by 20 scenarios depicting moral and conventional transgression. The findings suggest that moral foundations predict moral/conventional distinction, specifically by proving the positive predictive value of individualizing foundations for moral cases and of binding foundations for conventional cases. In addition, the study demonstrated that Fairness is a superior foundation that not only negatively predicts the appraisal of moral cases but also positively contributes to discrimination between moral and conventional transgression. The present findings advance an understanding of which moral foundations are central for predicting the evaluation of a given event as a moral or conventional transgression. The present findings also advance the current knowledge about determinants involved in moral/conventional distinction and show the unique effect of individualizing and binding moral foundations.
... These various values can in some cases promote conflicting outcomes [15][16][17][18][19] . For example, choosing between spending time with a relative versus volunteering to help strangers 20 could bring the values of harm/care and fairness/reciprocity into conflict with ingroup/loyalty 16 . ...
Donating a kidney to a stranger is a rare act of extraordinary altruism that appears to reflect a moral commitment to helping others. Yet little is known about patterns of moral cognition associated with extraordinary altruism. In this preregistered study, we compared the moral foundations, values, and patterns of utilitarian moral judgments in altruistic kidney donors (n = 61) and demographically matched controls (n = 58). Altruists expressed more concern only about the moral foundation of harm, but no other moral foundations. Consistent with this, altruists endorsed utilitarian concerns related to impartial beneficence, but not instrumental harm. Contrary to our predictions, we did not find group differences between altruists and controls in basic values. Extraordinary altruism generally reflected opposite patterns of moral cognition as those seen in individuals with psychopathy, a personality construct characterized by callousness and insensitivity to harm and suffering. Results link real-world, costly, impartial altruism primarily to moral cognitions related to alleviating harm and suffering in others rather than to basic values, fairness concerns, or strict utilitarian decision-making.
... These various values can in some cases promote conflicting outcomes [15][16][17][18][19] . For example, choosing between spending time with a relative versus volunteering to help strangers 20 could bring the values of harm/care and fairness/reciprocity into conflict with ingroup/loyalty 16 . ...
Donating a kidney to a stranger is a rare act of extraordinary altruism that appears to reflect a moral commitment to helping others. Yet little is known about patterns of moral cognition associated with extraordinary altruism. In this preregistered study, we compared the moral foundations, values, and patterns of utilitarian moral reasoning in altruistic kidney donors ( n =61) and demographically matched controls ( n =58). Altruists expressed more concern only about the moral foundation of harm, but no other moral foundations. Consistent with this, altruists endorsed utilitarian concerns related to impartial beneficence, but not instrumental harm. Contrary to our predictions, we did not find group differences between altruists and controls in global values. Extraordinary altruism generally reflected opposite patterns of moral cognition as those seen in individuals with psychopathy, a personality construct characterized by callousness and insensitivity to harm and suffering. Results link real-world, costly, impartial altruism primarily to moral cognitions related to alleviating harm and suffering in others rather than to global values, fairness concerns, or strict utilitarian reasoning.
... The latter position is more complex in that it incorporates different ideas about the topic (safety vs. freedom). Social and political psychologists and scientists have examined the causes and conse quences of cognitive complexity as they relate to political ideology (e.g., Conway et al., 2015;Joseph, Graham, & Haidt, 2009;Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003A;Tet lock, 1983B;Van Hiel, Onraet, & De Pauw, 2010), political attitudes and behavior (e.g., Conway et al., 2012;Suedfeld, Bluck, Loewen, & Elkins, 1994;Tetlock, Bernzweig, & Gal lant, 1985;Van Hiel & Mervielde, 2003), political peace and conflict (e.g., Conway & Con way, 2011;Suedfeld & Bluck, 1988), and political elites (e.g., Conway, Suedfeld, & Clements, 2003;Suedfeld, 2010;Suedfeld & Rank, 1976;Thoemmes & Conway, 2007), among other political dynamics. ...
... These data overwhelmingly suggest that the conservatism-complexity relationship is different for public political figures versus private citizens. Because so many theories of human psychology intersect with ideology and complexity (Joseph, Graham, & Haidt, 2009;Jost et al., 2003;Jost et al., 2017;Tetlock, 1986;Van Hiel et al., 2010), this is no small gap to fill. Conway et al. (2012) because the Speaker Ns for these studies did not meet minimal sample size requirements to produce CIs, which must be equal to at least 4 (http://vassarstats.net/rho.html). ...
Research on the relationship between political conservatism and integrative complexity has yielded contradictory results, and little effort has been made to place these mixed results in a theoretical context. The present article considers this issue through a strategic model of language that suggests different psychological processes apply to public politicians versus private citizens. We use a methodologically precise meta-analytic test of the relationship between political ideology and integrative complexity to examine the degree that conservative simplicity can be understood as a function of public versus private samples. Across 35 studies, findings revealed that conservatives are significantly less complex than liberals overall; however, while this effect was significant for public politicians, no relationship emerged for private citizens. Consistent with a strategic model,
conservative simplicity was particularly in evidence for elected officials. This theoretical analysis has many consequences for our understanding of psychological theories that help explain the consequences of political ideology.
... (Romar, 2004;Vitell, Paolillo, & Thomas, 2003), our results further testify to the persistent influence of traditional culture values, especially ethical values on business managers' actions and business decisions (Hofstede, 1994;Mudrack, 2007). Importantly, the findings augment our knowledge and enhance our "understanding of ethical practices among different cultures and countries," which is an issue of increasing importance in today's global economy (Vitell & Patwardhan, 2008, p. 196 Joseph, Graham, & Haidt, 2009 Robson, 2015). As part of this effort, cross-cultural dialogues have been initiated (Vermander, 2016;Zsolnai, 2007). ...
A survey study was conducted to look into the effect of Confucian ethics and the psychological foundations of morality on business managers' perspectives on corporate social responsibility (CSR). Using responses from 393 Chinese managers, we first conducted confirmatory factor analysis to assess the reliability and validity of the measurement model and then employed hierarchical regression to explore the relationships among Confucian ethics, moral foundations, and managers' shareholder value perspectives. The results indicate that both Confucian ethics and managers' moral foundations had significant influence on shareholder value perspectives. In fact, moral foundations and Confucian ethics interacted and jointly affected managers' positions on the shareholder value model of corporate responsibility. This study demonstrates the importance of psychological foundations of morality to managers' CSR orientations and substantiates the persistent impact of Confucian ethics/cultural traditions on today's business practices.
... Moral foundations can be viewed as psychological preparedness for detecting and reacting to issues related to harm/care, fairness/reciprocity, in-group/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity (Haidt & Graham, 2007). As such, moral foundations enable us to perceive actions and agents as praiseworthy or blameworthy (Joseph, Graham, & Haidt, 2009). For instance, if a person whose moral foundations are primarily built on the regulatory values of harm, right, and justice is faced with a business situation involving a counterfeit product, he or she is more likely to consider the creation of such products as blameworthy, because it does harm to consumers and thus violates consumers' rights. ...
Despite the extensive research conducted on moral judgment, the role of moral foundations in moral judgment in business has largely been overlooked. Motivated by the increasing concern about the ethical issues observed in China, this study aims to examine the impact of moral foundations on Chinese managers’ moral judgment while simultaneously looking into the role of moral ideology and the level of managers’ moral development. A sample survey was conducted in Shanghai, China, which involved 451 practicing business managers who were pursuing their MBA degree in a nearby university at the time of data collection. Both structural equation modeling (SEM) and hierarchical regression were used in data analyses. The results reveal that individualizing moral foundations and moral idealism have significant positive impacts on moral judgment. Moreover, the findings indicate that moral relativism and levels of mangers’ moral development moderate the relationship between individualizing moral foundations and moral judgment with the impact of individualizing moral foundations being stronger when managers’ relativism is low rather high or when their moral development is high than it is low. The managerial implications of the research and future research direction are discussed.
... Thus far, moral emotions have been considered to be motivators for behavioral consequences (Eisenberg, 2000;Haidt, 2003;Tangney et al., 2007), and as such, decreases to moral emotional responses would seem to negate the potential for video game play to have prosocial outcomes. However, moral emotions are also consistently thought of as being detrimental to moral thought (Eden, Grizzard, & Lewis, 2012 (Joseph, Graham, & Haidt, 2009;. If one wanted to combat issues that are steeped in moral emotions and help individuals override their initial negative response, reducing moral emotions might be a pertinent strategy. ...
... For instance, Wright and Baril assessed political ideology by combining "general" and "economic" (but excluded "social") left-right ideology and collapsed across two qualitatively different experimental conditions (cognitive load and ego depletion). Past theorizing on moral foundations theory (Joseph, Graham, & Haidt, 2009) and recent data (Graham et al., 2013) challenge Wright and Baril. We interpret our findings in the context of both our methods and the other studies reported in this article. ...
Hierarchy and dominance are ubiquitous. Because social hierarchy is early learned and highly rehearsed, the value of hierarchy enjoys relative ease over competing egalitarian values. In six studies, we interfere with deliberate thinking and measure endorsement of hierarchy and egalitarianism. In Study 1, bar patrons' blood alcohol content was correlated with hierarchy preference. In Study 2, cognitive load increased the authority/hierarchy moral foundation. In Study 3, low-effort thought instructions increased hierarchy endorsement and reduced equality endorsement. In Study 4, ego depletion increased hierarchy endorsement and caused a trend toward reduced equality endorsement. In Study 5, low-effort thought instructions increased endorsement of hierarchical attitudes among those with a sense of low personal power. In Study 6, participants' thinking quickly allocated more resources to high-status groups. Across five operationalizations of impaired deliberative thought, hierarchy endorsement increased and egalitarianism receded. These data suggest hierarchy may persist in part because it has a psychological advantage.
© 2015 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.
... When making moral judgments, both liberals and conservatives consider individualizing foundations; conservatives seem to take into account individualizing and binding foundations equally, whereas liberals tend to prioritize the individualizing values over the binding ones (Graham, Haidt, & Nosek, 2009;Graham et al., 2011;Haidt & Graham, 2007). The theory proposes that all five foundations make up the '''first draft' of the moral mind'' (Graham et al., , p. 1031) and ideological differences emerge because of environmental factors, such as culture, parenting, or education, that encourage the suppression of these innate binding intuitions (Haidt & Graham, 2007;Joseph, Graham, & Haidt, 2009;. ...
Moral foundations theory contends that people's morality goes beyond concerns about justice and welfare, and asserts that humans have five innate foundations of morality: harm and fairness (individualizing foundations) and in-group loyalty, deference to authority, and purity (binding foundations). The current research investigates whether people's moral judgments are consistently informed by these five values, or whether individualizing and binding foundations might be differentially endorsed depending on individuals' mind-sets. Results from our study demonstrated that when participants were experimentally manipulated to think abstractly (vs. concretely), which presumably makes their higher level core values salient, they increased in their valuations of the individualizing foundations and decreased in their valuations of the binding foundations. This effect was not moderated by political ideology. Implications and areas for future directions are discussed.
... These authors argue that the individualcentered moralities only refl ect one of three existing ethics, ethics based on different ontological presuppositions : ethic of autonomy, studied in the classic studies of moral psychology, ethic of community and ethic of divinity. In an effort to further develop the 'three ethics approach', Haidt and collaborators proposed the Moral Foundation Theory (MFT; Craig, Graham, & Haidt, 2007;Haidt, Graham, & Joseph, 2007), identifying fi ve psychological systems in the context of which moral intuitions are generated across cultures. The fi ve foundations are: (1) harm/care, (2) fairness/reciprocity, (3) ingroup/loyalty, (4) authority/respect, and (5) purity/sanctity. ...
... These Landinis argue that the individual-centered moralities only reflect one of three existing ethics, ethics based on different ontological presuppositions : ethic of Autonomy (studied in the classic studies of moral psychology), ethic of Community and ethic of Divinity. In an effort to further develop the 'three ethics approach,' Haidt and collaborators proposed the Moral Foundation Theory (MFT) (Craig, Graham & Haidt, 2007;Haidt, Graham & Joseph, 2007), identifying five psychological systems in the context of which moral intuitions are generated across cultures. The five foundations are: (1) Harm/care, (2) Fairness/reciprocity, (3) Ingroup/loyalty, (4) Landiniity/respect, and (5) Purity/sanctity. ...
The peasant economic rationale differs profoundly from that which characterises market capitalism. Amongst the many differences between the two is the peasants’ tendency to interpret economic processes in moral terms and to judge them in the context of communal, hierarchical relationships. This article presents the results of an investigation carried out in Argentina dedicated to understanding peasants’ worldview. Some significant findings are peasants’ tendency to: associate wealth with a moral deficit, interpret the commercialisation processes of their harvest in terms of expropriation and to affirm the right of all people to live in a dignified manner, a view which presupposes that those who have more wealth lend assistance to those in need.
... The neo-Kohlbergian approach clearly sees this prioritization as a developmental/cognitive achievement: a reflection of higher levels of education and/or greater levels of cognitive complexity (Kohlberg, 1984;Rest, Narvaez, Bebeau, & Thoma, 1999). The MFT approach, on the other hand, argues that this prioritization is a ''narrowing'' of our moral psychology (Joseph, Graham, & Haidt, 2009). Indeed, Haidt suggests that ''It is especially important to recognize that conservatives [who typically do not prioritize] have the more complex moral system. . ...
Two measures of moral cognition were compared across three samples: Rest’s neo-Kohlbergian stages of moral developmental (DIT) and Graham and Haidt’s intuition-based Moral Foundations Theory (MFQ). In spite of differences both in theory and in measurement, there was considerable overlap between Stage 2/3 “personal interests” (DIT) and In-group (MFQ), as well as Stage 4 “maintaining norms” (DIT) and Authority (MFQ). Unexpectedly, Stages 5/6 “post-conventional” (DIT) was unrelated to Fairness and Harm (MFQ) in two of the three samples. However, participants’ prioritization of Fair/Harm over Authority/In-group/Purity was positively related to their post-conventional reasoning across all three samples. Also, for conservatives, Stage 4 reasoning decreased in the cognitive load/depletion sample, matching that of liberals. Conceptual, operational, and developmental implications of these findings are discussed.
... In line with the discussion above, we recommend two modifications to this research program. First, we contend that specific predispositions and characteristics are best viewed as organic causes of narrow ranges of attitudes within particular political domains (e.g., cultural, social welfare) rather than as organic causes of global conservative versus liberal political orientation (e.g., Duckitt & Sibley, 2009;Joseph, Graham, & Haidt, 2009;Stenner, 2005Stenner, , 2009Verhulst, Hatemi, & Martin, 2010). Second, we argue that the influences of specific nonpolitical characteristics on specific political attitudes are sometimes best viewed as the net outcomes of multiple influences, including both organic and discursively driven influences. ...
This research examines the hypothesis that religiosity has two competing psychological influences on the social welfare attitudes of contemporary Americans. On the one hand, religiosity promotes a culturally based conservative identity, which in turn promotes opposition to federal social welfare provision. On the other hand, religiosity promotes a prosocial value orientation, which in turn promotes support of federal social welfare provision. Across two national samples (Ns = 1,513 and 320) and one sample of business employees (N = 710), reliable support for this competing pathways model was obtained. We argue that research testing influences of nonpolitical individual differences on political preferences should consider the possibility of competing influences that are rooted in a combination of personality processes and contextual-discursive surroundings.
... In line with the discussion above, we recommend two modifications to this research program. First, we contend that specific predispositions and characteristics are best viewed as organic causes of narrow ranges of attitudes within particular political domains (e.g., cultural, social welfare) rather than as organic causes of global conservative versus liberal political orientation (e.g., Duckitt & Sibley, 2009; Joseph, Graham, & Haidt, 2009; Stenner, 2005 Stenner, , 2009 Verhulst, Hatemi, & Martin, 2010). Second, we argue that the influences of specific nonpolitical characteristics on specific political attitudes are sometimes best viewed as the net outcomes of multiple influences, including both organic and discursively driven influences. ...
This research examines the hypothesis that religiosity has two competing psychological influences on the social welfare attitudes of contemporary Americans. On the one hand religiosity promotes a culturally based conservative identity which in turn promotes opposition to federal social welfare provision. On the other hand religiosity promotes a prosocial value orientation which in turn promotes support of federal social welfare provision. Across two national samples and one sample of business employees reliable support for this competing pathways model was obtained. We argue that research testing influences of non-political individual differences on political preferences should consider the possibility of competing influences that are rooted in a combination of personality processes and contextual-discursive surroundings.
Political polarization is a barrier to enacting policy solutions to global issues. Social psychology has a rich history of studying polarization, and there is an important opportunity to define and refine its contributions to the present political realities. We do so in the context of one of the most pressing modern issues: climate change. We synthesize the literature on political polarization and its applications to climate change, and we propose lines of further research and intervention design. We focus on polarization in the United States, examining other countries when literature was available. The polarization literature emphasizes two types of mechanisms of political polarization: (1) individual-level psychological processes related to political ideology and (2) group-level psychological processes related to partisan identification. Interventions that address group-level processes can be more effective than those that address individual-level processes. Accordingly, we emphasize the promise of interventions leveraging superordinate identities, correcting misperceived norms, and having trusted leaders communicate about climate change. Behavioral interventions like these that are grounded in scientific research are one of our most promising tools to achieve the behavioral wedge that we need to address climate change and to make progress on other policy issues.
Prior research using the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ) has established that political ideology is associated with self-reported reliance on specific moral foundations in moral judgments of acts. MFQ items do not specify the agents involved in the acts, however. By specifying agents in MFQ items we revealed blatant political double standards. Conservatives thought that the same moral foundation was more relevant if victims were agents that they like (i.e., corporations and other conservatives) but less relevant when the same agents were perpetrators. Liberals showed the same pattern for agents that they like (i.e., news media and other liberals). A UK sample showed much weaker political double standards with respect to corporations and news media, consistent with feelings about corporations and news media being much less politicized in the UK than in the US. We discuss the implications for moral foundations theory.
The primary objective of this research is to assess the influence of moral emotions (empathy and anger) on consumer buying decisions of products made in disliked sources in the context of third-country national consumers. The study employs data collected from the UK, France, and Germany consisting of 260, 261, and 244 respondents, respectively. The empirical results provide evidence to the influence of moral emotions on consumers’ attitudes towards buying Israeli goods. Concurrently however, the results show that, while anger towards Israel comprises the main factor that prompts boycotting intention, empathic concerns towards Arabs in the West Bank and Golan Heights (the Territories) have negligible influence on buying decisions. In addition, the results point to differences across the populations studied in the current research, especially with respect to the influence of involvement and subjective norms on behavioral intention. Implications are identified together with consideration of the study limitations.
Ignorance about political related-issues has long been considered a threat to democracy. This paper revolves around the concept of political ignorance, focusing especially on Ilya Somin’s book Democracy and Political Ignorance and going beyond his standpoint in two ways. First of all, it moves away from the notion of factual knowledge by showing that political ignorance cannot be limited to a matter of information quality. On the contrary, it shows that ignorance concerns the formation of opinions about political facts, which are the bricks with which disagreement is built. Then, using the insights of the Moral Foundation Theory by Jonathan Haidt and his colleagues, the paper argues that moral intuitions represent an additional source of bias that current research on the problem of voters’ ignorance should address. While Somin argues that biased moral values are the outcome of ignorance, MFT suggests that moral intuitions are a robust determinant of people’s political views as they make factual knowledge partially irrelevant and also make people with different moral minds unable to understand the basis of reciprocal factual argumentations.
This article ascribes social-interactional strategies of ethnic Chinese toward the local people in developing mutual social relationship after the conflicts or post-conflicts. The context of multicultural ethnic life had distressed Chinese people to mingle with local people in West Kalimantan causing a wide social gap in the society. This research was conducted through an ethnography methodology to reveal the facts utilizing observation, interview, and documentation to collect the data. There were twelve participants participated as the informants of the research included four Chinese and eight local people. The results of the research revealed that ethnic Chinese had been successful to rebuild and develop the social relationship with the local people through social interaction and engagement. The strategy used was to prioritize human values while interacting, as well as to respect the culture diversity that existed in the community. By implementing the strategy, the social—interactional relationship between Chinese and local people after the conflicts became harmonious. This result could also trigger or lead other multicultural communities to implement similar strategies to fix or rebuild their inter-ethnic relationship. Finally, this article contributes to propose problem solutions to solve social conflicts in multicultural community, and as an effort to prevent the inter-ethnic conflicts.
The natural heritage of mankind is currently exposed to numerous threats caused by civilization. Awareness of these dangers is low among many people. The attempt to awaken awareness of threats is entangled in complex moral, ideological and poly-scholarly relationships. These conditions are currently being researched.
This study aims to examine the role of need for closure, moral foundations, and demographic background on hope for peace. The method used was a quantitative survey of 374 students. The measuring instrument consisted of a scale of hope in the context of peace, a scale of need for closure (NFC), and a moral foundation questionnaire (MFQ). The measured demographic background includes age, gender, ethnicity, and affiliation of religious organizations. Data were analyzed using path analysis. Findings from this study indicate that need for closure and moral foundations have a significant direct effect on hopes for peace. There are no differences in hope for peace at different ages, genders, religious organizational affiliations, and ethnicities.
Death of the shame
Summary
Shame and guilt together with pride create a control system - a deference-emotion system - serving to protect social relations. The reasons for shame are to a large extent learned, specific to a given culture and can be regarded as a memetic phenomenon. The causes of shame can often be reduced to deviations from the culturally accepted norm or loss of intimacy. Thus, the loss of shame - the social death of shame - can have undesirable consequences for the functioning of individuals and society.
The neurobiological background of shame is based on the theory of mind as a psychic function proper to man and perhaps a few species of animals. It is expanded by intentionality, understood as the ability to multi-level, recurrent (chain) modelling of the state of mind of subsequent individuals. The basis of these functions are the areas of the large cognitive circuit of the brain including the prefrontal cortex, the cingulum, some areas of the parietal, occipital and temporal cortex and the insula and amygdala. The shame and related guilt reveal themselves in the different activities of these structures.
The reasons for the death of shame in modern society can be seen in four hypothetical areas of social relations, provisionally described as: 1. Ease and cheapness of nonsense; 2. Demystification of elite behavioural patterns; 3. Devaluation of education and culture; 4. Erroneus addressing the message and long maturation of critical wisdom. Examples are commonly observed and discussed phenomena, such as: much greater propagation of false and harmful information but affecting emotion; revealing in social communication the truth about the cultural patterns of the elite in connection with the resignation from intimacy; lowering the standards of requirements in education due to its easy and mass availability; presentation in works of art, mainly in cinema pictures, forms, contents and problems to which some of the recipients have not been matured, which results in changes in sensitivity and ethical attitudes.
Key words
signs of shame, reasons of shame, neurobiology of shame, immodesty, hypothes on reasons of the immodesty
The present study explores people’s willingness to participate in victim–offender mediation and the role played by moral foundations and the retributive and restorative justice orientations in this decision. Participants were exposed to a burglary victimisation hypothetical scenario in order to capture the decision to participate in victim–offender mediation. Based upon our interpretation of the positive association found between the retributive and restorative orientations, our analysis revealed two clear patterns of association between, on the one hand, the fairness/reciprocity moral foundation and the restorative orientation and, on the other hand, the authority/respect moral foundation and the retributive orientation. The ingroup/loyalty moral foundation directly and negatively predicted the decision to participate in mediation, while the fairness/reciprocity moral foundation had an indirect effect on the decision, through the restorative orientation.
Ethical food choice is a concrete everyday action to promote sustainability in term of supporting workers rights, animal welfare and environmental food production, and the local economy. The aim of the dissertation is to enhance understanding of the dimensions of ethical food choice in general, and specifically with regard to climate-friendly choices. It is assumed that at least two theoretical perspectives, namely moral decision-making and food-choice behaviour are necessary for an understanding of the phenomenon. The data for the dissertation was collected in two time phases from two different questionnaires. The participants in both phases were university students. Qualitative and quantitative methods were used. The following research questions were addressed in the sub-studies: What kind of everyday ideas and lay views about ethical and unethical food do young adults from Finland, Denmark and Italy have?; How and to what extent do the five moral foundations emerge in food-related moral thinking?; How is the perceived moral intensity of climate change related to young adults climate-friendly food choices in Finland?; and What barriers to choosing climate-friendly food do young adults in Finland perceive? The findings of Sub-study I indicate that various dimensions are associated with the ethicality of food. Ethical foods were seen, for instance, as natural, healthy and local, produced in ways that support equality and animal welfare, whereas unethical foods were perceived as unnatural, unhealthy and global, produced without attention to equality and animal welfare. The main results of Sub-study II concerned the emergence of five moral foundations in the word association data, which indicates that foundations are also relevant dimensions in food-related moral thinking. Of these, Harm/Care, Purity/Sanctity and Fairness/Reciprocity were the most relevant. The findings of Sub-study III imply that moral intention and perceived moral intensity, namely perceiving climate change as probable and serious, are the most important factors associated with climate-friendly food choice. According to the results of Sub-study IV, the most relevant barriers perceived by the respondents to hinder climate-friendly food choice were a high price, poor supply, lack of knowledge and perceived difficulty in making such choices. As the further analysis revealed, the barriers that had the strongest inhibiting effect were disbelief in any such effects, the desire to maintain the same eating habits, lack of time and difficulty. The current dissertation enhances understanding of ethical-food-choice behaviour in bringing to light new findings, and in presenting new measurements. The main limitations include social-desirability bias, and the use of student samples. See more: http://hdl.handle.net/10138/162078
Originally developed to explain cultural variation in moral judgments, moral foundations theory (MFT) has become widely adopted as a theory of political ideology. MFT posits that political attitudes are rooted in instinctual evaluations generated by innate psychological modules evolved to solve social dilemmas. If this is correct, moral foundations must be relatively stable dispositional traits, changes in moral foundations should systematically predict consequent changes in political orientations, and, at least in part, moral foundations must be heritable. We test these hypotheses and find substantial variability in individual-level moral foundations across time, and little evidence that these changes account for changes in political attitudes. We also find little evidence that moral foundations are heritable. These findings raise questions about the future of MFT as a theory of ideology. Replication Materials: The data, code, and any additional materials required to replicate all analyses in this article are available on the American Journal of Political Science Dataverse within the Harvard Dataverse Network, at: http://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/WTUGFZ.
While prior research has found linguistic complexity to be predictive across multiple domains, little research has examined how people perceive—or misperceive—linguistic complexity when they encounter it. Drawing from a model of the motivated ideological lens through which people view linguistic complexity, two studies examined the hypotheses that (a) participants are more likely to overestimate the complexity of political candidates when they believe they align with their own political views and (b) this complexity overestimation effect will be particularly strong for political liberals. Both studies presented participants with paragraphs from political candidates that varied in their actual integrative complexity levels and asked them to estimate the complexity of the paragraph. Consistent with expectations, Study 1 found that participants were significantly more likely to overestimate complexity levels for political candidates with whom they shared ideological beliefs and that this effect was particularly in evidence for political liberals. Study 2 replicated this basic pattern and further demonstrated that this effect was dependent on participants’ knowledge of their ideological agreement with the paragraph author. Because people misperceive linguistic complexity, researchers should move beyond thinking solely about how complex political rhetoric is; we have to also consider the degree that the intended audience may over- or underestimate complexity when they see it.
In secularized modern Western societies, moral opposition to the liberalization of abortion, gay adoption, euthanasia, and suicide often relies on justifications based on other-oriented motives (mainly, protection of the weak, e.g., children). Moreover, some argue that the truly open-minded people may be those who, against the stream, oppose the established dominant liberal values in modern societies. We investigated whether moral and religious opposition to, vs. the acceptance of, the above four issues, as well as the endorsement of respective con vs. pro arguments reflect (a) “compassionate openness” (prosocial, interpersonal, dispositions and existential flexibility), (b) “compassionate conservatism” (prosocial dispositions and collectivistic moral concerns), or (c) “self-centered moral rigorism” (collectivistic moral concerns, low existential quest, and low humility instead of prosocial dispositions). The results, to some extent, confirmed the third pattern. Thus, compassionate openness does not seem to underline modern moral opposition, possibly in contrast to some rhetoric of the latter.
Where does morality come from? Why are moral judgments often so similar across cultures, yet sometimes so variable? Is morality one thing, or many? Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) was created to answer these questions. In this chapter, we describe the origins, assumptions, and current conceptualization of the theory and detail the empirical findings that MFT has made possible, both within social psychology and beyond. Looking toward the future, we embrace several critiques of the theory and specify five criteria for determining what should be considered a foundation of human morality. Finally, we suggest a variety of future directions for MFT and moral psychology.
Moral Foundations Theory provides a theoretical framework for understanding the universal and societal aspects of morality (MFT, Haidt & Graham, 2007; Haidt & Joseph, 2004). The focus thus far has been on understanding the influence of group categories on moral foundations by controlling for relevant factors and then examining the unique contribution of a single factor (e.g., Graham et al., 2011). Although this type of analysis was critical to demonstrate the efficacy of the Moral Foundations Theory and Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ), the current study examines moral responses from the intersection of culture, ethnic identity and gender group membership in the United States and India. Significant results suggest that moral foundations are better understood through a multiple group identity perspective and that the MFQ is equipped to capture differences in moral foundations within subgroups.
Do liberals and conservatives have qualitatively different moral points of view? Specifically, do liberals and conservatives rely on the same or different sets of moral foundations-care, fairness, loyalty, authority, and purity (Haidt, 2012)-when making moral judgments about influential people? In Study 1, 100 experts evaluated the impact that 40 influential figures had on each moral foundation, yielding stimulus materials for the remaining studies. In Study 2, 177 American liberal and conservative professors rated the moral character of the same figures. Liberals and conservatives relied on the same 3 moral foundations: For both groups, promoting care, fairness, and purity-but not authority or loyalty-predicted moral judgments of the targets. For liberals, promoting authority negatively predicted moral judgments. Political ideology moderated the purity-moral and especially authority-moral relationships, implying that purity and authority are grounds for political disagreement. Study 3 replicated these results with 222 folk raters. Folk liberals and conservatives disagreed even less about the moral standing of the targets than did experts. Together, these findings imply that moral foundation theory may have exaggerated differences between liberals and conservatives. The moral codes of liberals and conservatives do differ systematically; however, their similarities outweigh their differences. Liberals and conservatives alike rely on care, fairness, and purity when making moral judgments about influential people. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved).
Where does morality come from? Why are moral judgments often so similar across cultures, yet sometimes so variable? Is morality one thing, or many? Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) was created to answer these questions. In this chapter we describe the origins, assumptions, and current conceptualization of the theory, and detail the empirical findings that MFT has made possible, both within social psychology and beyond. Looking toward the future, we embrace several critiques of the theory, and specify five criteria for determining what should be considered a foundation of human morality. Finally, we suggest a variety of future directions for MFT and for moral psychology.
Phobias and preparedness. Behavior Ther-apy
- M P Seligman
Seligman, M. P. (1971). Phobias and preparedness. Behavior Ther-apy, 2, 307–320.