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Foundations of morality in Iran
Abstract
Most moral psychology research has been conducted in Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies. As such, moral judgment, as a psychological phenomenon, might be known to researchers only by its WEIRD manifestations. Here, we start with evaluating Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) using the Moral Foundations Questionnaire, and follow up by building a bottom-up model of moral values, in Iran, a non-WEIRD, Muslim-majority, understudied cultural setting. In six studies (N = 1945) we examine the structural validity of the Persian translation of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire, compare moral foundations between Iran and the US, conduct qualitative interviews regarding moral values, expand the nomological network of “Qeirat” as a culture-specific set of moral values, and investigate the pragmatic validity of “Qeirat” in the Iranian culture. Our findings suggest an additional moral foundation in Iran, above and beyond the five foundations identified by MFT. Specifically, qualitative studies highlighted the role of “Qeirat” values in the Iranian culture, which are comprised of guarding and protectiveness of female kin, romantic partners, broader family, and country. Significant cultural differences in moral values are argued in this work to follow from the psychological systems that, when brought to interact with particular socio-ecological environments, produce different moral structures. This evolutionarily-informed, cross-cultural, mixed-methods research sheds light on moral concerns and their cultural, demographic, and individual-difference correlates in Iran.
Supplementary resources (2)
... Mate preferences are a key dimension of mate selection with profound implications for personal and social well-being (Atari, Chaudhary, & Al-Shawaf, 2020;Atari, Graham, & Dehghani, 2020;Buss, 2019;Conroy-Beam & Buss, 2021). Research indicates that mate preferences are ultimately associated with satisfaction in marriage and similar-type relationships (Botwin et al., 1997;Valentine et al., 2020). ...
... Research indicates that mate preferences are ultimately associated with satisfaction in marriage and similar-type relationships (Botwin et al., 1997;Valentine et al., 2020). Despite its importance, the psychological processes and characteristics underlying human mate preferences are not fully understood (Atari, Graham, & Dehghani, 2020;Conroy-Beam & Buss, 2021). Various theoretical perspectives-especially evolutionary psychology-have pointed toward certain psychological predispositions and selfperceptions that appear to help explain mate preferences, including personality and attachment styles. ...
... Sex-based differences in mate preferences have also been explored and identified (Bech-Sørensen & Pollet, 2016;Buss, 1989Buss, , 1995Chang et al., 2011;Eastwick & Finkel, 2008). However, a predominance of related research has centered around Western populations, limiting efforts to identify universalistic mate preference tendencies (Atari, Graham, & Dehghani, 2020). The current study builds upon mate preference research by simultaneously considering different types of psychological predictors of mate preferences while also attending to the potential relevance of biological sex, all within a non-Western context. ...
Various psychological predictors of mate preference have been identified in prior research that when accounted for simultaneously could reveal the unique contributions of each. This study aimed to explore the extent to which perceived attractiveness, personality characteristics, and attachment styles are associated with young Iranian adults' mate preferences, attending to group differences based on biological sex. A total of 644 Iranian young adults completed a questionnaire that included items related to one's perceived intelligence and physical attractiveness, HEXACO personality traits, and KASER mate preferences (kindness/dependability, attractiveness/sexuality, status/resources, education/intelligence, and religiosity/chastity). Several differences based on biological sex were apparent in the personality, attachment, and mate preferences measures, as well as with their intercorrelations. Analyses using multiple linear regression indicated that each of the KASER variables had some unique combinations of the three types of psychological characteristics, and some variance by biological sex. For example, kindness/dependability was predicted for males by the two perceived attractiveness variables and by two personality variables (emotionality and conscientiousness), but only by the agreeableness personality trait for females. Attachment styles were only relevant for education/intelligence and religiosity/chastity, with little evidence of sex‐based differences.
... There is another cultural variable named Qeirat, which could be considered as a specific Iranian mating characteristic. Qeirat is a technique for keeping a female partner or wife (Atari et al., 2020), so it is similar to mate retention tactics introduced by Buss . On the other hand, showed that Qeirat (a male-specific attribute) is correlated with benefit-provisioning and costinflicting mate retention behaviors in men. ...
... In their study, men reported self-perceived Qeirat ("how Qeirati do you think you are?" and "how jealous do you think your partner is?"). Recently, Atari et al. (2020) studied Qeirat as a moral value and showed that this adjective is similar to the culture of honor in the US, in terms of utilization in protecting family members. ...
... Furthermore, the interpretation of this research should be considered with the limitation of low coefficient alpha in the measurement of attachment styles. Fourth, Qeirat could consist of a wide range of behaviors, from kindness to violence, to maintain a relationship (Atari et al., 2020). So it is worth noting for future studies to examine the relationship between this cultural variable and two domains of mate retention tactics (benefit-provisioning and cost-inflicting) as well as other mate-related variables like romantic jealousy. ...
This study examined the mediating role of romantic jealousy (cognitive, behavioral, and emotional jealousies) in the
relationship between romantic attachment styles and both types of mate retention domains (cost-inflicting and benefit-
provisioning mate retention behaviors) in married individuals in Iran. Our sample consisted of 209 married adults. The
results showed that: (1) there was a positive correlation between anxious attachment style and both cost-inflicting and
benefit-provisioning mate retention behaviors; (2) avoidance attachment style had a negative association with benefit-
provisioning mate retention behaviors; (3) three types of romantic jealousy positively mediated the association between
anxious attachment style and cost-inflicting mate retention behaviors; (4) the relationship between avoidance attachment
style and the cost-inflicting domain was negatively mediated by emotional jealousy.
... Only recently has it become common and easy to examine morality beyond typical Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD; Henrich et al., 2010) samples in psychological research. For example, Atari, Graham, and Dehghani (2020) evaluated the MFQ-1 in Iranian culture, an understudied less-WEIRD context, and followed up by building a bottom-up model of moral values. These authors also compared moral foundations between Iran and the United States, finding that Iranians' raw scores on the MFQ-1 cannot be directly compared with their American counterparts as the two populations differ in the pattern of responding to questionnaire items, again pointing to the lack of invariance in the MFQ-1 scores. ...
... Recently, Doğruyol et al. (2019) showed that the five-factor model of moral foundations, operationalized by the short version of the MFQ-1 (20 items), is stable and invariant across WEIRD and non-WEIRD societies; however, these authors used the problematic dichotomy of WEIRD versus non-WEIRD rather than treating societies on a continuum of WEIRDness (Muthukrishna et al., 2020). Atari, Graham, and Dehghani (2020) reported noninvariance of MFQ-1 scores between a less-WEIRD society (Iran) and the United States at configural (i.e., the overall factor structure stipulated by the five-factor model did not hold across populations), metric (i.e., item-factor loadings were not equivalent across populations), and scalar models (i.e., the item intercepts were not equivalent across populations). These authors also had some difficulty in translating some items into local languages (e.g., the item "I would call some acts wrong on the grounds that they are unnatural"), arguing that while MFT is a useful theoretical framework in less-WEIRD societies, MFQ-1 scores may not be reliable and predictive of social behaviors. ...
... These authors also had some difficulty in translating some items into local languages (e.g., the item "I would call some acts wrong on the grounds that they are unnatural"), arguing that while MFT is a useful theoretical framework in less-WEIRD societies, MFQ-1 scores may not be reliable and predictive of social behaviors. In addition, Atari, Graham, and Dehghani (2020) used network psychometric methods and found that regardless of mean endorsement of moral foundations, the network of items and foundations are substantially different between the two countries, with Iran having a denser interconnected network of moral foundations, compared with the more segregated network of moral concerns in the United States, wherein care-fairness and loyalty-authority-purity are two disconnected "islands" (or subnetworks). Another study in the United Kingdom also failed to replicate the five-factor model originally proposed by Graham et al. (2011) and suggested that "compassion" and "traditionalism" may account for the structure of the MFQ-1 in the United Kingdom (Harper & Rhodes, 2021). ...
Moral Foundations Theory has been a generative framework in moral psychology in the last two decades. Here, we revisit the theory and develop a new measurement tool, the Moral Foundations Questionnaire-2 (MFQ-2), based on data from 25 populations. We demonstrate empirically that Equality and Proportionality are distinct moral foundations while retaining the other four existing foundations of Care, Loyalty, Authority, and Purity. Three studies were conducted to develop the MFQ-2 and to examine how the nomological network of moral foundations varies across 25 populations. Study 1 (N = 3,360, five nations) specified a refined top-down approach for measurement of moral foundations. Study 2 (N = 3,902, 19 populations) used a variety of methods (e.g., factor analysis, exploratory structural equations model, network psychometrics, alignment measurement equivalence) to provide evidence that the MFQ-2 fares well in terms of reliability and validity across cultural contexts. We also examined population-level, religious, ideological, and gender differences using the new measure. Study 3 (N = 1,410, three populations) provided evidence for convergent validity of the MFQ-2 scores, expanded the nomological network of the six moral foundations, and demonstrated the improved predictive power of the measure compared with the original MFQ. Importantly, our results showed how the nomological network of moral foundations varied across cultural contexts: consistent with a pluralistic view on morality, different foundations were influential in the network of moral foundations depending on cultural context. These studies sharpen the theoretical and methodological resolution of Moral Foundations Theory and provide the field of moral psychology a more accurate instrument for investigating the many ways that moral conflicts and divisions are shaping the modern world.
... Despite previous studies in industrialized and WIERD countries, this field's literature in developing, non-WEIRD countries are lacking and inadequate. Studies showed that Iran is neither a WIERD nor a non-WIERD country; instead, it is more of a "WEIRD" non-WIERD country (Atari et al., 2020). For example, although Iran is historically, culturally, and religiously similar to the other Middle East and North Africa countries, it is more developed and has a higher education level (UN, 2018). ...
... For example, there are no official statistics on the rate and the incidents of rapes in Iran, which can be a sign of lack of support and attention to rape victims (Aghtaie, 2017;Shahali et al., 2016). In addition, cultural-specific values such as Qeirat, Haya, and Namous play essential role in Iranian society, and individuals emphasize on these concepts in their moral decisions (Atari et al., 2020;Baboli & Karimi-Malekabadi, 2020). Qeirat is a culture-specific term that cannot be accurately translated into English (but the closest equivalent is probably "Honor") and is usually used to describe a range of emotions that are triggered in response to threats to Namous (Razavi et al., 2020). ...
... Namous refers to female members of a family as a symbol of honor that men must protect (FIS, 2015). To sum up, Gheirat is a cultural-specific moral value that involves protecting female kins and romantic partners (and on a larger scale country and ideals) (Atari et al., 2020;Tabatabai, 1996). Although this concept is more common among men and can be considered a masculine concept, it seems that Iranian women consider Gheirat as a sign of attractiveness in mate selection and mate retention (Atari & Jamali, 2016). ...
According to Moral Foundation Theory, people rely on five intuitive-based foundations in their moral judgments. These foundations are divided into two clusters: Individualizing foundations (Care and Fairness) and Binding foundations (Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity). In this study, the authors investigated the relationship between moral foundations and AMMSA with victim-blaming and the moderating role of social desirability in Iranian Culture. Consistent with previous findings, victim-blaming was best predicted by AMMSA. Regarding moral foundations, victim-blaming was positively predicted by Authority and Sanctity and negatively predicted by Fairness. Although the best predictor of victim-blaming was AMMSA, Authority and Sanctity had a marginal difference with AMMSA in predicting victim-blaming. Analyses also showed that higher levels of Social Desirability moderated the Care foundation. Moreover, while there was no difference in victim-blaming among men and women, men were more accepting of AMMSA. With attention to previous literature, findings are discussed to gain a better understanding of the interaction between moral foundations and victim-blaming in various cultural contexts.
... Nine variables, Utilitarianism in moral dilemmas , Moral Development (Rest et al., 1999), Moral Competence (Lind, 1999), Moral Disengagement (Bandura, 2016), Moral Identity (as an average value between the Internalization and Symbolization subscales, Aquino & Reed, 2002), endorsement of Iranian Qeirat Values (Atari et al., 2020), and the three variables of the CAD model , Community, Autonomy and Divinity, were included in the review. .00979 ...
... Moral Development, available in 2 studies (k = 3; N = 406) was measured with the Defining Issues Test (DIT, Rest 1993;Rest, 1999;Thoma & Dong, 2014). Moral competence, available in 3 studies (k = 4; N = 835) was measured mainly with the Moral Competence Test (MCT; Lind, 1999;2004) Atari et al., 2020). The Community, Autonomy and Divinity scales from the CAD model ...
Moral Foundations Theory, or MFT, is probably the most successful Moral Psychology theory in recent decades. Empirical research on MFT, however, has been mainly focused on studying intergroup relationships, and despite its potential interest and relevance, the study of individual differences in moral foundations, as well as the study of interpersonal relationships, has been much scarcer. Thus, this systematic review aims to study the relationship between moral foundations and a large number of psychological and psychosocial variables. After a wide web search, a set of 100 articles (k = 133; N = 113,560), with 2067 estimates of 285 effect sizes (ES) measuring the correlations between the five moral foundations and other 57 variables, were selected for this review. Pooled correlations showed a stronger correlation of the five moral foundations with emotion than with cognition, and differences between the individualizing foundations and the binding foundations that altogether support some of the man MFT assumptions. The main limitation of this review is the scarcity of available data for many variables which makes some of the results be only valid form a purely exploratory perspective.
... The assumption that disengaging emotions form a signal of interdependence in Arabic and adjacent regions has been reinforced by another recent study (Atari et al., 2020). This study sought to validate the moral foundation theory (MFT, Graham et al., 2013) in Iran, a country presumed to share similarities with other countries in this region in terms of its emphasis on honor. ...
... Converging evidence shows that two of the components (putatively "individuating," fairness and care) are higher in liberals (versus conservatives), whereas the remaining three (putatively "binding," authority, loyalty, and purity) are higher in conservatives (Graham et al., 2013). Atari et al. (2020) used a standard questionnaire assessing the five proposed foundations of morality (Graham et al., 2011) and examined network structures of the five morality components in the U.S. and Iran, using a computational procedure called adaptive LASSO algorithm (Borsboom et al., 2021). The procedure enabled them to identify the most parsimonious network among the five components. ...
Research in cultural psychology over the last three decades has revealed the profound influence of culture on cognitive, emotional, and motivational processes shaping individuals into active agents. This article aims to show cultural psychology's promise in three key steps. First, we review four notable cultural dimensions believed to underlie cultural variations: independent versus interdependent self, individualism versus collectivism, tightness versus looseness of social norms, and relational mobility. Second, we examine how ecology and geography shape human activities and give rise to organized systems of cultural practices and meanings, called eco-cultural complexes. In turn, the eco-cultural complex of each zone is instrumental in shaping a wide range of psychological processes, revealing a psychological diversity that extends beyond the scope of the current East–West literature. Finally, we examine some of the non-Western cultural zones present today, including Arab, East Asian, Latin American, and South Asian zones, and discuss how they may have played a significant role in shaping the contemporary Western cultural zone.
Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Psychology, Volume 75 is January 2024. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
... For example, gheirat-prone men are more likely to engage in mate retention tactics such as intrasexual threats and concealment of mate from rivals (Atari et al., 2017), themes that are commonly associated with protection of honor (Atari, 2018;Hupka, 1991). Furthermore, Atari et al. (2020) found a cluster of gheirat-related attitudes (such as vigilance about a romantic partner's clothing or social interactions) to be moderately correlated with, but distinct from honor values (Novin & Oyserman, 2016). ...
... gheirat-proneness is sometimes admired as a virtue and sometimes perceived as an undesirable trait akin to proneness to jealousy or malicious envy. This ambivalence is consistent with Atari et al.'s (2020) findings that people who endorse gheirat-related values tend to engage in both socially desirable (i.e., benefit provisioning) and socially undesirable (i.e., cost inflicting) mate retention strategies (Atari et al, 2020). Accordingly, we predicted that a person who expresses gheirat will be perceived positively in some domains (e.g., as brave) and negatively in others (e.g., as stubborn). ...
People from different cultural backgrounds vary in how they define, perceive, and react to violations of relational boundaries. Muslim cultures are diverse and include nearly one in four people in the world, yet research on their relational and moral norms is scarce. We contribute to narrowing this gap by studying gheirat, a moral-emotional experience ubiquitous in Muslim Middle Eastern cultures. In four mixed-methods studies, we study how gheirat is experienced, what situations elicit it, and its social functions among Iranian adults (N = 1,107) using qualitative interviews, scenario- and prototype-based surveys, and an experiment. The prototypical experience of gheirat consisted of diverse appraisals (including sense of responsibility, insecurity, and low self-worth) and emotional components (including hostility, social fears, and low empowerment). We identified three types of relational violations that elicit gheirat: harm or insult to namoos (people and self-relevant entities one is obliged to protect), romantic betrayal by namoos, and intrusions by a third person. Each violation type led to a distinct variant of the prototype. Contrary to folk theories of gheirat, we did not find support for the idea that gheirat is a predominantly male experience. However, an experiment on the signaling effects of gheirat revealed that gheirat expressors are ascribed both positive and negative traits, but positive traits prevail for men and negative traits prevail for women. We discuss how the results contribute to a better understanding of Iranian social life and intercultural contact, as well as the implications for theories of emotion and the cultural logic of honor.
... The study was conducted with students at Iranian universities, creating an opportunity for attempting to replicate and extend previous results with a non-WEIRD sample (Henrich et al., 2010). Atari et al. (2020) thoroughly discuss the non-WEIRDness of the Iranian population. In brief, although Iran's population is educated and relatively industrialized, it is less western, rich, and democratic compared to WEIRD population (Atari et al., 2020;Thalmayer et al., 2020). ...
... Atari et al. (2020) thoroughly discuss the non-WEIRDness of the Iranian population. In brief, although Iran's population is educated and relatively industrialized, it is less western, rich, and democratic compared to WEIRD population (Atari et al., 2020;Thalmayer et al., 2020). ...
Evolutionary definitions of altruism are only concerned with reproductive consequences and not motives or other psychological mechanisms, making them ideal for generalization to all forms of organisms. Hamilton's inclusive fitness theory explains altruistic behavior toward genetic relatives and has generated extensive empirical support. Trivers' theory of reciprocal altruism helps explain patterns of helping among non-kin, and other research has demonstrated that human helping intentions follow fitness consequences from age-based reproductive value on altruism. The current study examines a novel psychological factor, belief in the afterlife, which may influence altruistic helping intentions. Belief in the afterlife was incorporated into a previous study design assessing the effects of a target's genetic relatedness and age-based reproductive value. The influences of inclusive fitness and target age were reproduced in a non-Western sample of participants (N = 300) in Iran. Belief in the afterlife predicted the overall confidence of risking one's life to save another across all targets, and also moderated the effects of genetic relatedness and target age. Rather than promoting altruism equitably or advantaging those favored by adaptive tendencies, higher belief in an afterlife aligned with these tendencies in promoting further favoritism toward close kin and younger targets with higher reproductive value.
... In both countries, the COVID-19 pandemic increased stress and anxiety about health and well-being and undermined public trust in government (in the U.S., Deslatte, 2020;in Iran, Harris, 2020). At the same time, the structure of government and political tenor of the U.S. and Iran are considerably different and their societies organize moral values differently (Atari et al., 2020). In Iran, international sanctions imposed by the U.S. have led to a deep economic recession (Murphy et al., 2020), a steep increase in the cost of basic goods (Kokabisaghi, 2018), and blocked access to COVID-19 vaccines (Reuters Staff, 2020). ...
... We found both of these outcomes in our studies. In contrast, Iran may not share these values of self-reliance, evidenced by a substantially lower endorsement of self-reliance in Study 2. Iranian honor is strongly oriented toward kin (Atari et al., 2020) and Iranian culture is substantially less individualistic (Hofstede et al., 2010). Without a shared sense that self-reliance is admirable, Iranians with honor concerns will show no preference for self-reliance, which was what we found in Study 2. Thus, a preference for self-reliance is not inherent to honor. ...
During the COVID-19 pandemic, people differed in the extent to which they took matters into their own hands rather than follow COVID-19-related public health guidelines. In the current paper, we take a culture-as-situated cognition perspective to suggest that one reason for this variability may be that the pandemic triggered honor concerns. Honor is a cultural mindset focused on protecting oneself and one’s family by maintaining reputation. People who endorse honor values may take matters into their own hands in contexts in which this is possible. Indeed, during the pandemic, Americans (Studies 1, 2) who valued honor acted independently of governmental measures because they preferred relying on themselves (N = 1,179). This was not the case for Iranians (Study 2), for whom higher honor values increased adherence to public health guidelines. Our results imply that how honor values translate to action depends on contextual features that affect how people construe self-reliance.
... Jonathan Haidt, in his work, popularised the moral foundations theory, originally proposed in the work of Haidt and Joseph (2004), according to which there are culturally diverse foundations of moral judgments and moral actions that combine emotional (intuitive) and rational (cultural) components (more on them below). Today, this theory constitutes an autonomous field of psychological research on morality and is widely discussed and developed (including expanding the list of foundations; see Atari et al., 2020). It also has a number of applications, providing explanations for both cultural and gender differences in morality, political differences (e.g., between political right and left), and ideological differences (e.g., on issues such as abortion or vaccination). ...
... An important cultural concept in Iran is "honor" (Mohammadi, 2013;Atari et al., 2020). ...
Prevention and control of family violence require an accurate understanding of its causes and effects. Iranian filmmakers try to fulfil their mission to raise awareness about family violence by showing hidden and unpleasant social issues in the family and presenting an accurate picture of family violence. However, to do so is taboo and goes against the Islamization policy of the Iranian regime against portraying family violence. Breaking the taboo leads to the seizure and censorship of films that show negative perspectives of family relationships. This article analyzes the Iranian regime’s approach to film productions based on Islamization policies and investigates the films that have been censored and seized. An interpretive analysis takes a critical look at Iran’s politicized cinema with a focus on paternalism. The article looks at the banned films Friday Evening, The Paternal House, and Girl’s House. The filmmakers’ goal is to remove the barriers to raising awareness in the area of victimization of girls. The depoliticization of Iranian cinema will support the process of breaking cultural taboos and thus support women’s protection from family violence.
... A final important question is how these findings might generalize to other populations and older children. Loyalty to the group appears to be a common feature of human psychology (Dunham, 2018), yet values around in-group loyalty have been found to vary across societies (Atari et al., 2020;Graham et al., 2011), as has in-group bias in the context of minimal groups (Falk et al., 2014). It stands to reason that although children show in-group bias in a minimal group context in several societies outside of Western Europe and North America (Benozio & Diesendruck, 2015;Keshvari et al., 2022;Xiao et al., 2019), the relative importance of interpersonal and group affiliation may vary across societies. ...
Collaboration is an early emerging component of successful cooperative relations that produces a cascade of positive social preferences between collaborators. Concurrently, robust preferences for affiliated others may restrict these benefits to in-group peers. We investigated how in-group affiliation (based on minimal group markers) and interpersonal affiliation (based on shared preferences) influence children’s collaborative partner choice. We asked whether children prefer to collaborate with affiliated peers and if highlighting interpersonal affiliation with out-group members reduce in-group bias in partner choice. In Study 1, we assigned children (4–9 years, N = 124, 62 female, two nonbinary) to either a group or interpersonal affiliation condition and gave them a choice of collaborating with either an affiliated (in-group or same preference) or unaffiliated (out-group or different preference) peer. While children preferred affiliated peers in both conditions, interpersonal affiliation had a greater influence than group affiliation on collaborative partner choice among younger participants. With age, the difference between children’s preference for affiliated peers in the interpersonal and group affiliation condition declined until they were similar in middle childhood. In Study 2, we assessed whether shared preferences would override in-group bias when these factors were directly contrasted. Children (4–9 years, N = 62, 33 female) chose between an in-group/different preference or out-group/same preferences peer. Younger children preferred the out-group/same preference peer, a preference that diminished with age to chance levels in middle childhood. These findings suggest that affiliation is an important determinant of collaborative partner choice and that shared preferences can override in-group bias in children’s collaborative partner choice.
... For example, while there is some cultural and individual variation in identifying colors, and people do sometimes revise their identification of colors, everyday experience shows that disagreement about this and other secondary qualities is much less widespread than moral disagreement(Ivanhoe 2011). 9 See, for example,Abdollahimohammad, Jaafar, and Abul Rahim 2014;Aghababaei et al. 2016;Atari, Graham, and Dehghani 2020;Atari et al. 2022; Jabbari, Oanaghi, and Mazaheri 2019;Park and Peterson 2005, 2006a, 2006bShahidi, Furnham, Grover, and Movahedi 2023;Tong et al. 2016. ...
Classical Confucian philosopher Mengzi 孟子 offers resources that can help shed light on the metaphysical status of moral qualities and answer the question of how we come to perceive them. I argue that Mengzi puts forward an account of virtue as sensitivity similar to that offered by John McDowell. Both thinkers endorse a particular kind of motivationally internalist naturalistic moral realism, and both explain virtue as analogous to perception of secondary qualities. I offer an original contribution to existing literature by further arguing that Mengzi’s view includes an understanding of moral perception as including perception of uniquely human roles and the moral obligations they generate. This essay thus offers a novel textual interpretation of the Mengzi. Based on this interpretation, it then puts forth the argument that Mengzi’s version of virtue as sensitivity allows the Confucian thinker to avoid criticisms of McDowell’s “Sensitivity Account” of virtue. In particular, I argue that Mengzi’s account of sensitivity—as one that includes sensitivity to human roles and relationships—is better able to explain variation in perceived moral qualities both over time and across cultures. This is because Mengzi’s view recognizes that what is called for morally shifts with the agent’s social roles. Thus, a Mengzian-influenced Sensitivity Account of virtue can better account for differences in moral judgment by emphasizing that moral facts are a feature of human relationships, which likewise vary between cultures and individuals and change over time.
... It would be rewarding to explore how these divided Loyalty foundations relate to foundations that have already been proposed. That is, to relate our data-driven division to existing and novel theoretically motivated foundations, for instance Honour (Atari, Graham, & Dehghani, 2020) and Liberty (Iyer et al., 2012). This new model of the MFQ-2 has several implications for moral foundations theory and suggests additional directions for research. ...
Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) and its accompanying Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ-1) stimulated a
large body of research. A revised version (MFQ-2) was recently released, aimed at improving validity. We report
three studies testing this new instrument. Study 1 (N =809) validated the six-foundation structure of the MFQ in
U.K. subjects. Study 2 verified this model in independent U.S. data (N =835). The MFQ-2 was also validated
against eighteen external criteria (such as religiosity and left- and right-wing authoritarianism). Finally, in Study
3, subjects were recontacted after seven months to test the reliability of the MFQ-2. All foundations demonstrated
acceptable reliability (ω-t =0.79 to 0.92). Studies 1 and 2 broadly support the six-foundation structure, with
well-fitting item-level models closely matching the proposed structure of the MFQ-2. Group factors of individualizing
and group were needed. A nuance is that the Loyalty foundation was split into separate factors for
Loyalty to a group and a nation. The MFQ-2 demonstrated good reliability and high validity, predicting 17 out of
18 external-validity scales at statistically significant and substantive levels. The MFQ-2 reliably and validly assesses
moral foundations, with improved properties over its predecessor.
... For example, people in WEIRD societies tend to place individual rights at the center of their moral worldview, whereas non-WEIRD societies generally ascribe higher value to the collective and endorse group-oriented morality to a greater extent (AlSheddi, Russell, and Heggarty 2020; Graham et al. 2011;Vauclair, Wilson, and Fischer 2014). Although research on moral psychology still relies disproportionately on WEIRD samples, recent studies have explored differences in moral foundations across cultures, including for example Iran (Atari, Graham and Dehghani 2020), Turkey (Alper et al. 2020;Yilmaz et al. 2016) and Saudi Arabia (AlSheddi, Russell, and Heggarty 2020). Exploring the cultural variability of moral foundations on a broader scale, Atari et al. (2023) compared the nomological network of morality across 25 societies, finding that the way in which moral foundations relate to each other, and the centrality of each foundation within those networks, differs across cultural contexts. ...
The Battle of Mosul (2016-2017) was one of the most grueling urban warfare campaigns in recent memory. The fighting quickly concentrated in West Mosul, where civilians prevented by the Islamic State from leaving their homes experienced airstrikes and indiscriminate shelling by government forces. Utilizing the as-if-randomness of severe damage or destruction of people's homes, this paper examines the impact of war exposure on the endorsement of moral foundations among a large and diverse sample of Mosul residents (N = 1027). Home damage increased binding morality but had a larger impact on individualizing morality, heightening concerns about fairness and protection from harm. A survey experiment in which the sectarian identity of the target was randomly assigned further revealed a strong association between individualizing morality and parochial altruism. Challenging conventional wisdom, both individualizing and binding morality reinforce group cohesion in ways that are functionally adaptive and responsive to the damage wrought by war.
... This study compared Britons and Iranians. There has been over the past few years a number of studies that have compared Iranians and "westerners" from a number of countries (Atari, 2017;Atari et al., 2019Atari et al., , 2020Atari et al., , 2022 to explore the role of culture on beliefs and behaviour. Whilst there have been a number of British studies in this area of strengths (Linley, 2008;Linley & Harrington, 2006; there have been few in other non-English speaking countries. ...
... Examining the three datasets using the Persian version of the MFQ in Iran, Nejat and Hatami (2019) reported that the Cronbach (1951) alphas were relatively low for care, fairness, and loyalty, and that exploratory factor analysis generated a two-factor solution on two datasets and a three-factor solution on the third. Examining a new Persian translation of the MFQ in Iran, Atari et al. (2020a) reported that exploratory factor analysis generated a five-factor solution different from the one originally proposed by Graham et al. (2011), and that the extracted factors were not readily interpretable. Confirmatory factor analysis suggested that neither the original structure nor the new structure reached satisfaction fit indices. ...
This paper examines the psychometric properties of the 30-item Moral Foundations Questionnaire among a sample of 370 young adults between the ages of 18 and 26 years who were born in Punjab and who had lived there since their birth. Initial analyses did not support the internal consistency reliability of the five scales of moral predispositions proposed by this measure. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis identified two factors that distinguished not between areas of moral predisposition, but between the two styles of items (relevance and judgement), each of which included all five predispositions. Correlations with personal religiosity suggested that the scale comprising 12 judgement items (α = .88) was susceptible to religious sentiment, but that the scale comprising 12 relevance items (α = .89) was not. The scale of 12 relevance items is commended for further testing and application within Muslim societies.
... First, despite the extensive investigation of human social preferences in the past decades (Fehr & Schurtenberger, 2018), there is a debate on whether human prosociality could be better understood as a unitary construct or a multifaceted construct foundation theory), such as generosity and honesty (Graham et al., 2013;Haidt & Joseph, 2004;Schroeder et al., 2019). Moreover, distinctions between social preferences could help to understand moral diversity across contexts, individuals and cultures (e.g., Atari et al., 2020), that is, to appreciate that different people could endorse different values and that the same individual might value different social preferences across contexts. Lastly, the differentiation between social preferences have implications on the design of institutions aiming to facilitate social preferences, considering that a nudging strategy might enhance some social preferences but may have unintended side-effects on others. ...
The current literature has revealed mixed evidence on whether loss (vs. gain) context promotes or curtails human prosociality. The current study (N=96) aimed to address this issue by examining whether gain/loss context has distinct effects on different prosocial preferences combining computational modelling with Dictator Game and Message Game. These interactive games allow for dissociating preferences for generosity and honesty, which have been respectively associated with intuitive and deliberative systems. Our behavioural and computational modelling results indicate that loss context enhances concerns for generosity but reduces concerns for honesty. These findings support an account under the framework of dual process model asserting that loss facilitates intuitive responses during social decision-making, regardless of whether they are prosocial or proself. The current findings reconcile previous debates on the relationship between loss-gain context and human prosociality and shed light on the design of institutions to promote human prosocial behaviours.
... Several mechanisms might account for the relationship between Purity concerns at county-level and lower demand for COVID-19 vaccines. First, Purity concerns have been found to be associated with the rejection of new things and novel experiences (Atari, Graham, Dehghani, 2020;Lewis & Bates, 2011); therefore, high concerns over keeping the human body's integrity and "naturalness" may be linked to avoiding these vaccines because they may be perceived This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. ...
Despite the widespread availability of COVID-19 vaccines, the United States has a depressed rate of vaccination relative to similar countries. Understanding the psychology of vaccine refusal, particularly the possible sources of variation in vaccine resistance across U.S. subpopulations, can aid in designing effective intervention strategies to increase vaccination across different regions. Here, we demonstrate that county-level moral values (i.e., Care, Fairness, Loyalty, Authority, and Purity) are associated with COVID-19 vaccination rates across 3,106 counties in the contiguous United States. Specifically, in line with our hypothesis, we find that fewer people are vaccinated in counties whose residents prioritize moral concerns about bodily and spiritual purity. Further, we find that stronger endorsements of concerns about Fairness and Loyalty to the group predict higher vaccination rates. These associations are robust after adjusting for structural barriers to vaccination, the demographic makeup of the counties, and their residents’ political voting behavior. Our findings have implications for health communication, intervention strategies based on targeted messaging, and our fundamental understanding of the moral psychology of vaccination hesitancy and behavior.
... Other studies were not able to reproduce the original five factor structure of the scale. This seems especially the case for samples from non-WEIRD cultures (Davis et al., 2016;Atari et al., 2020;Iurino and Saucier, 2020; but see Dogruyol et al., 2019 for a contrary result). The scale may be regarded as general in nature, i.e., it does not relate to specific moral issues or behaviors. ...
Within moral psychology, theories focusing on the conceptualization and empirical measurement of people’s morality in terms of general moral values –such as Moral Foundation Theory- (implicitly) assume general moral values to be relevant concepts for the explanation and prediction of behavior in everyday life. However, a solid theoretical and empirical foundation for this idea remains work in progress. In this study we explore this relationship between general moral values and daily life behavior through a conceptual analysis and an empirical study. Our conceptual analysis of the moral value-moral behavior relationship suggests that the effect of a generally endorsed moral value on moral behavior is highly context dependent. It requires the manifestation of several phases of moral decision-making, each influenced by many contextual factors. We expect that this renders the empirical relationship between generic moral values and people’s concrete moral behavior indeterminate. Subsequently, we empirically investigate this relationship in three different studies. We relate two different measures of general moral values -the Moral Foundation Questionnaire and the Morality As Cooperation Questionnaire- to a broad set of self-reported morally relevant daily life behaviors (including adherence to COVID-19 measures and participation in voluntary work). Our empirical results are in line with the expectations derived from our conceptual analysis: the considered general moral values are poor predictors of the selected daily life behaviors. Furthermore, moral values that were tailored to the specific context of the behavior showed to be somewhat stronger predictors. Together with the insights derived from our conceptual analysis, this indicates the relevance of the contextual nature of moral decision-making as a possible explanation for the poor predictive value of general moral values. Our findings suggest that the investigation of morality’s influence on behavior by expressing and measuring it in terms of general moral values may need revision.
... When members of a dignity culture (British) identified with moral people, they tended to identify only with those who exhibit individualizing foundations but not binding foundations (AlSheddi et al., 2019). Additionally, among members of an honor culture (Iranians), honor values were related to all five moral foundations, but the strongest relations were with binding foundations compared to individualizing foundations (Atari et al., 2020). ...
This dissertation investigated how honor and dignity cultural logics were related to why people choose to forgive or not forgive and how that choice was associated with one’s well-being and relationship quality. Few studies examined why people forgive or do not, and even fewer used diverse samples or examined cultural values. In addition, forgiveness is often recommended because it has relational, physical, and psychological benefits; however, people may still choose not to forgive. The literature is not clear if the positive outcomes of forgiveness are because of the degree of forgiveness or the reasons for forgiveness; it is also unclear if all reasons for not forgiving are related to worse outcomes or if the person’s motives for withholding forgiveness are related to these outcomes. This dissertation addressed that gap by examining whether types of forgiveness (i.e., decisional and emotional) mediated the relation between forgiveness motives and well-being or relationship quality and how unforgiveness motives related to these same outcomes. I conducted two studies where Mexicans (an honor culture) and Northern U.S. European Americans (a dignity culture) wrote about conflicts they had forgiven or not forgiven. In Study 1, participants wrote about how they came to this decision (i.e., their reasons for forgiving or not forgiving), and in Study 2, participants indicated to what extent they used different motives for forgiving or not forgiving. In both studies, participants also indicated the type of offense that occurred (whether it was a reputation threat and the type of moral foundation violated).
Results showed that Mexicans and Northern U.S. European Americans tended to forgive the most for egocentric, relationship, and altruistic reasons and forgave for religious, normative, and reparative work reasons to a lesser extent. Mexicans and Northern U.S. European Americans also tended to not forgive for similar reasons; unreadiness, self-protection, reputation, lack of reparative work, and moral concern. The findings related to cultural differences in the use of forgiveness and unforgiveness motives were mixed; some supported my hypotheses, and some did not. Additionally, the findings demonstrated that it does matter why someone chose to forgive or not to forgive; not all forgiveness reasons are associated with better outcomes, and not all unforgiveness reasons are associated with worse outcomes. Forgiving for egocentric, religious, or normative reasons was not consistently associated with well-being or relationship quality, but forgiving for relationship, altruistic, and reparative work reasons were highly related to relationship quality but inconsistently with well-being in both cultural groups. Not forgiving because of unreadiness reasons was associated with worse well-being but better relationship commitment with their offender. In contrast, not forgiving because of moral concerns was positively related to satisfaction with life and relationship satisfaction but negatively with relationship commitment. Lastly, in both studies, conflicts were not about one’s reputation but were primarily about harm/care, fairness/reciprocity, or ingroup/loyalty moral foundations, and this did not vary by country.
... They are emotionally-laden, automatic, and intuitive judgments, and people typically reason about moral issues after these automatic responses or when prompted for explanations (Haidt, 2001(Haidt, , 2012Haidt & Joseph, 2004). 6 Existing literature has identified the six primary moral foundations of care, fairness, loyalty, authority, purity, and liberty (Graham et al., 2013;Iyer et al., 2012), though scholars recognize there might be others (Atari et al., 2020;Graham et al., 2018). ...
Organizations are making massive investments in artificial intelligence (AI), and recent demonstrations and achievements highlight the immense potential for AI to improve organizational and human welfare. Yet realizing the potential of AI necessitates a better understanding of the various ethical issues involved with deciding to use AI, training and maintaining it, and allowing it to make decisions that have moral consequences. People want organizations using AI and the AI systems themselves to behave ethically, but ethical behavior means different things to different people, and many ethical dilemmas require trade-offs such that no course of action is universally considered ethical. How should organizations using AI—and the AI itself—process ethical dilemmas where humans disagree on the morally right course of action? Though a variety of ethical AI frameworks have been suggested, these approaches do not adequately address how people make ethical evaluations of AI systems or how to incorporate the fundamental disagreements people have regarding what is and is not ethical behavior. Drawing on moral foundations theory, we theorize that a person will perceive an organization’s use of AI, its data procedures, and the resulting AI decisions as ethical to the extent that those decisions resonate with the person’s moral foundations. Since people hold diverse moral foundations, this highlights the crucial need to consider individual moral differences at multiple levels of AI. We discuss several unresolved issues and suggest potential approaches (such as moral reframing) for thinking about conflicts in moral judgments concerning AI.
... They emphasize the importance of personal rights, justice, and caring about the well-being of individuals (Vauclair et al., 2014). Nowadays, we refer to them as being individualistic societies known as Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD; Henrich et al., 2010;Atari et al., 2020). The traits of an individualistic culture are autonomy, personal success, and the pursuit of uniqueness. ...
Many theories have shaped the concept of morality and its development by anchoring it in the realm of the social systems and values of each culture. This review discusses the current formulation of moral theories that attempt to explain cultural factors affecting moral judgment and reasoning. It aims to survey key criticisms that emerged in the past decades. In both cases, we highlight examples of cultural differences in morality, to show that there are cultural patterns of moral cognition in Westerners’ individualistic culture and Easterners’ collectivist culture. It suggests a paradigmatic change in this field by proposing pluralist “moralities” thought to be universal and rooted in the human evolutionary past. Notwithstanding, cultures vary substantially in their promotion and transmission of a multitude of moral reasonings and judgments. Depending on history, religious beliefs, social ecology, and institutional regulations (e.g., kinship structure and economic markets), each society develops a moral system emphasizing several moral orientations. This variability raises questions for normative theories of morality from a cross-cultural perspective. Consequently, we shed light on future descriptive work on morality to identify the cultural characteristics likely to impact the expression or development of reasoning, justification, argumentation, and moral judgment in Westerners’ individualistic culture and Easterners’ collectivist culture.
... college students), which is representative neither of the generation population in western countries (as would survey pools constructed to match the composition of a given adult population by gender, age, education and ethnicity- [27]), nor of the more global non-WEIRD population [58]. Although research suggests that instruments such as the MFQ are relatively stable across cultures [59], there is an emerging corpus of work attempting to diversify moral psychology research samples [60,61], and to conduct cross-cultural comparisons with massive online methodologies [62]. Such initiatives will be particularly needed when evaluating the acceptability of information technologies such as deep-fakes, which are spreading equally fast in western and non-western countries [63]. ...
Rapid technological advances in artificial intelligence are creating opportunities for real-time algorithmic modulations of a person’s facial and vocal expressions, or ‘deep-fakes’. These developments raise unprecedented societal and ethical questions which, despite much recent public awareness, are still poorly understood from the point of view of moral psychology. We report here on an experimental ethics study conducted on a sample of N = 303 participants (predominantly young, western and educated), who evaluated the acceptability of vignettes describing potential applications of expressive voice transformation technology. We found that vocal deep-fakes were generally well accepted in the population, notably in a therapeutic context and for emotions judged otherwise difficult to control, and surprisingly, even if the user lies to their interlocutors about using them. Unlike other emerging technologies like autonomous vehicles, there was no evidence of social dilemma in which one would, for example, accept for others what they resent for themselves. The only real obstacle to the massive deployment of vocal deep-fakes appears to be situations where they are applied to a speaker without their knowing, but even the acceptability of such situations was modulated by individual differences in moral values and attitude towards science fiction.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘Voice modulation: from origin and mechanism to social impact (Part II)’.
... This distinction was subsequently developed further in Moral Foundations Theory, which has identified moral themes such as harm, fairness, loyalty, authority, and purity (Graham et al., 2013;Haidt & Graham, 2007). Within this work, a separate moral foundation of protectiveness of female kin, romantic partners, broader family, and country ("Queret") was found uniquely in Iran (Atari et al., 2020). Yet, variability in certain values such as honor and respect for one's self, family, or community can emerge even within the same country such as the culture of honor in the American South (Nisbett & Cohen, 1996). ...
Tolerance is widely considered to be a key response to the challenge of managing diversity in pluralistic societies. However, tolerance comes in a number of different forms with distinct psychological profiles and societal implications. Drawing on research from political science, philosophy, sociology, and several subdisciplines within psychology, we discuss tolerance as a process of forbearance, which has received little attention in psychology. We propose a dual-process model of moral reasoning to differentiate between two distinct forms of tolerance and intolerance: intuitive and deliberative. Specifically, intuitive tolerance results from gut-level objection toward difference that is overridden (or not, in the case of intolerance) by more careful processing of the reasons to tolerate. By contrast, deliberative tolerance involves reflective thinking in which there is a weighing of one’s reasonable objection to dissenting conduct against reasons to nevertheless tolerate, leading either to tolerance or intolerance. We further consider individual differences and situational factors that influence threat versus adjustment responses to living with diversity. Finally, we consider cultural differences involved in tolerance before exploring the implications of different meanings of tolerance and intolerance for living with cultural, religious, and ideological diversity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)
La Teoría de los Fundamentos Morales (MFT) de Haidt y cols. es posiblemente la teoría de Psicología Moral que más impacto académico ha tenido en este siglo.
Dicha teoría plantea un modelo para la moral humana compuesto de cinco grandes categorías o fundamentos morales, Cuidado/Daño, Justicia/engaño, Lealtad/Traición, Autoridad/Subversión y Pureza/Degradación. Según la MFT, cada fundamento moral constituiría un conjunto de intuiciones morales que ya estarían presentes de forma muy rudimentaria desde el nacimiento, pero que se desarrollarían dialécticamente con la estructura moral del grupo en el cual el individuo evoluciona desde la infancia. Este proceso llevaría a la emergencia y evolución de configuraciones morales específicas para cada grupo, llamadas matrices morales, que serían compartidas por sus miembros, y que serían significativamente diferentes a las configuraciones morales de otros grupos, lo cual facilitaría la aparición de ciertos conflictos o prejuicios intergrupales. Por ejemplo, para la MFT, mientras que los liberales mostrarían una matriz moral compuesta principalmente por los fundamentos de Cuidado/Daño y Justicia/Engaño, los conservadores mostrarían una matriz moral en la que los cinco fundamentos tendrían la misma importancia.
Las hipótesis realizadas por la MFT acerca de las diferencias entre liberales y conservadores han sido objeto de gran interés por la comunidad académica, y ha producido una gran cantidad de evidencia empírica a su favor, tanto dentro como fuera de EEUU. El éxito de la MFT también ha traído consigo numerosas críticas, dirigidas tanto a la validez de sus hipótesis, como también a sus propios presupuestos teóricos.
No obstante, y pese a la visibilidad que ha adquirido la MFT, tanto respecto a la evidencia empírica recogida en su marco, como en el número de críticas recibidas, no ha habido ningún estudio que haya tratado de comprobar los presupuestos de la MFT utilizando análisis alternativos de los datos generados por sus autores. Por ejemplo, pese
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a que las críticas de índole metodológica referidas a la fiabilidad de la MFQ30 (alfas, índices de ajuste, número de factores del modelo) han sido numerosas, la conveniencia de utilizar el análisis factorial en el seno de un modelo categorial para comprobar que las personas se agrupan en torno a configuraciones específicas, no ha sido puesto en duda, a día de hoy, por ningún investigador.
Por ello, el objetivo de esta tesis ha sido doble. En primer lugar, se ha tratado de comprobar desde una perspectiva metodológica rigurosa los presupuestos de la MFT. Si la MFT presupone la emergencia de grupos morales específicos, es necesario utilizar una metodología de clase latente y/o perfil latente para comprobar si dicha emergencia se produce. En segundo lugar, esta tesis ha tratado de acumular evidencias de validez de una estructura latente alternativa a la de las cinco categorías de la MFT, que tenga sustantividad teórica, y que resuelva algunas de las críticas más importantes recibidas por la MFT.
Estos objetivos se han llevado a cabo con éxito a través de ocho estudios empíricos, en los cuales, se ha acumulado evidencia a favor de dos conclusiones fundamentales: (1) Las matrices morales, tal y como las plantea la MFT, posiblemente no existen. (2) Las personas no se agrupan en configuraciones morales específicas, ni en torno a una serie de categorías morales concretas, sino que parecen ordenarse en dos dimensiones morales generales, Moralismo General y Orientación Moral, que superan la distinción categorial planteada por la MFT.
Moral judgments are shaped by socialization and cultural heritage. Understanding how moral considerations vary across the globe requires the systematic development of moral stimuli for use in different cultures and languages. Focusing on Dutch populations, we adapted and validated two recent instruments for examining moral judgments: (1) the Moral Foundations Vignettes (MFVs) and (2) the Socio-Moral Image Database (SMID). We translated all 120 MFVs from English into Dutch and selected 120 images from SMID that primarily display moral, immoral, or neutral content. A total of 586 crowd-workers from the Netherlands provided over 38,460 individual judgments for both stimuli sets on moral and affective dimensions. For both instruments, we find that moral judgments and relationships between the moral foundations and political orientation are similar to those reported in the US, Australia, and Brazil. We provide the validated MFV and SMID images, along with associated rating data, to enable a broader study of morality.
The study aims to contribute to the literature by investigating the relationships among moralities, cultural fit and life satisfaction. Data are drawn from a representative sample of Türkiye, a country with a permanent record of low well‐being scores and indications of polarisation over moral values. Consistent with the hypotheses, binding morality is found to have a strong overall positive effect on life satisfaction, both directly and indirectly via cultural fit. Additionally, results substantiate the prediction that individualising morality will be associated with diminished life satisfaction. Nonetheless, analyses regarding cultural fit exhibit mixed results and should be interpreted with caution. Findings are discussed within the context of the literature and in relation to sociopolitical leanings currently observed in Türkiye.
Moral Foundations Theory has received great attention since its inception, especially regarding its hypothesis about the moral differences between liberals and conservatives (Graham et al., 2011). A systematic review and meta-analysis about this topic were published recently by Kivikangas et al. (2021). However, since it was mainly involved samples from the USA, it did not cover the moderating effect that cultural differences can have on the relationship between political identity and moral foundations. In order to replicate and complement Kivikangas et al (2021) results, a meta-analysis review of every published or unpublished research available, about the relationship between political identity and moral foundations outside the USA, was conducted. After a wide web search, a total of 46 studies (k = 92; N = 165,403), were selected. Pooled correlations supported Moral Foundations Theory assumptions, although effect sizes were smaller than presented in Graham et al., (2011) and Kivikangas et al., (2021). The use of the YourMorals website to collect samples, and the use of the 30-item Moral Foundations Questionnaire, yielded the most important moderating effects on pooled correlations. The average political orientation of the sample appeared also as a significant moderator, whereas Region did not. The possible non-linear relationship between political identity and moral foundations, and the need to consider measurement bias when utilizing the Yourmorals platform and when choosing a scale to measure moral foundations scores, are discussed.
Drawing from the Moral Foundations Theory, in this article I hypothesize that higher scores on binding moral foundations are related to having children or being in a committed relationship. I support this assumption by presenting empirical evidence gathered from one meta-analytical analysis involving moral foundations and marital status, one meta-analytical analysis involving moral foundations and parental status, and four independent samples t test. After a wide web search, a total of nineteen studies for marital status (k = 27; N = 38,044) and ten studies for parental status (k = 12; N = 24,521), were gathered for the metanalyses, and a subsample of eight studies (k = 8; N = 6,982) was gathered for the t test. The results showed that having children is significantly related with higher scores on the three binding foundations (Loyalty/betrayal, Authority/subversion and Purity/degradation), and that being married, being in a committed relationship or having ever been in a committed relationship is significantly related with the five moral foundations.
Moral foundations theory has been a generative framework in moral psychology in the last 2 decades. Here, we revisit the theory and develop a new measurement tool, the Moral Foundations Questionnaire–2 (MFQ-2), based on data from 25 populations. We demonstrate empirically that equality and proportionality are distinct moral foundations while retaining the other four existing foundations of care, loyalty, authority, and purity. Three studies were conducted to develop the MFQ-2 and to examine how the nomological network of moral foundations varies across 25 populations. Study 1 (N = 3,360, five populations) specified a refined top-down approach for measurement of moral foundations. Study 2 (N = 3,902, 19 populations) used a variety of methods (e.g., factor analysis, exploratory structural equations model, network psychometrics, alignment measurement equivalence) to provide evidence that the MFQ-2 fares well in terms of reliability and validity across cultural contexts. We also examined population-level, religious, ideological, and gender differences using the new measure. Study 3 (N = 1,410, three populations) provided evidence for convergent validity of the MFQ-2 scores, expanded the nomological network of the six moral foundations, and demonstrated the improved predictive power of the measure compared with the original MFQ. Importantly, our results showed how the nomological network of moral foundations varied across cultural contexts: consistent with a pluralistic view of morality, different foundations were influential in the network of moral foundations depending on cultural context. These studies sharpen the theoretical and methodological resolution of moral foundations theory and provide the field of moral psychology a more accurate instrument for investigating the many ways that moral conflicts and divisions are shaping the modern world.
Moral expressions in online communications can have a serious impact on framing discussions and subsequent online behaviours. Despite research on extracting moral sentiment from English text, other low-resource languages, such as Persian, lack enough resources and research about this important topic. We address this issue using the Moral Foundation theory (MFT) as the theoretical moral psychology paradigm. We developed a Twitter data set of 8000 tweets that are manually annotated for moral foundations and also we established a baseline for computing moral sentiment from Persian text. We evaluate a plethora of state-of-the-art machine learning models, both rule-based and neural, including distributed dictionary representation (DDR), long short-term memory (LSTM) and bidirectional encoder representations from transformer (BERT). Our findings show that among different models, fine-tuning a pre-trained Persian BERT language model with a linear network as the classifier yields the best results. Furthermore, we analysed this model to find out which layer of the model contributes most to this superior accuracy. We also proposed an alternative transformer-based model that yields competitive results to the BERT model despite its lower size and faster inference time. The proposed model can be used as a tool for analysing moral sentiment and framing in Persian texts for downstream social and psychological studies. We also hope our work provides some resources for further enhancing the methods for computing moral sentiment in Persian text.
Conversations about the internationalization of psychological sciences have occurred over a few decades with very little progress. Previous work shows up to 95% of participants in the studies published in mainstream journals are from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic nations. Similarly, a large proportion of authors are based in North America. This imbalance is well-documented across a range of subfields in psychology, yet the specific steps and best practices to bridge publication and data gaps across world regions are still unclear. To address this issue, we conducted a hackathon at the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science 2021 conference to develop guidelines to improve international representation of authors and participants, adapted for various stakeholders in the production of psychological knowledge. Based on this hackathon, we discuss specific guidelines and practices that funding bodies, academic institutions, professional academic societies, journal editors and reviewers, and researchers should engage with to ensure psychology is the scientific discipline of human behavior and cognition across the world. These recommendations will help us develop a more valid and fairer science of human sociality.
Given its centrality in scholarly and popular discourse, morality should be expected to figure prominently in everyday talk. We test this expectation by examining the frequency of moral content in three contexts, using three methods: (a) Participants’ subjective frequency estimates (N = 581); (b) Human content analysis of unobtrusively recorded in-person interactions (N = 542 participants; n = 50,961 observations); and (c) Computational content analysis of Facebook posts (N = 3822 participants; n = 111,886 observations). In their self-reports, participants estimated that 21.5% of their interactions touched on morality (Study 1), but objectively, only 4.7% of recorded conversational samples (Study 2) and 2.2% of Facebook posts (Study 3) contained moral content. Collectively, these findings suggest that morality may be far less prominent in everyday life than scholarly and popular discourse, and laypeople, presume.
The interface of sexual behavior and evolutionary psychology is a rapidly growing domain, rich in psychological theories and data as well as controversies and applications. With nearly eighty chapters by leading researchers from around the world, and combining theoretical and empirical perspectives, The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Sexual Psychology is the most comprehensive and up-to-date reference work in the field. Providing a broad yet in-depth overview of the various evolutionary principles that influence all types of sexual behaviors, the handbook takes an inclusive approach that draws on a number of disciplines and covers nonhuman and human psychology. It is an essential resource for both established researchers and students in psychology, biology, anthropology, medicine, and criminology, among other fields. Volume 1: Foundations of Evolutionary Perspectives on Sexual Psychology addresses foundational theories and methodological approaches.
Darwin found that many animals had characteristics that were difficult to explain in terms of natural selection (i.e., the gradual process in which organisms better adapted to their environment survive and reproduce more successfully over sufficiently long time periods). He proposed a new selective force, sexual selection, which refers to the process generated by differential sexual access to opposite-sex mates. The process of sexual selection, in its classic conceptualization, consisted of two components: male–male competition, resulting in built-in weapons, and female choice, resulting in ornaments. Following Darwin, sexual selection is often divided into two forms: (1) intrasexual selection, in which members of one sex, most often males, compete with one another to gain sexual access to opposite-sex mates; and (2) intersexual selection, in which individuals of one sex, most often females, choose among individuals of the opposite sex as mates. The two forms of sexual selection have been investigated in humans across cultures, producing a large body of work on psychological similarities and differences between women and men in the context of mating. Post-mating sexual selection and its effect on sexual psychology have also gained increasing research attention in the last two decades. Two post-mating strategies in sexual selection are discussed: sperm competition (the competition between the sperm of two or more males to fertilize the egg(s) of a single female) and mate guarding (behaviors used to maintain reproductive opportunities and sexual access to a mate). Previous applications of sexual selection to sexual psychology and future directions in integration of multiple perspectives in evolutionary social sciences are discussed.
The distinction between moral monism and moral pluralism has been reflected in the early vision of moral philosophy. Moral pluralism can be traced back to moral relativism, which holds that there is no universal moral principle. And any moral value applies only within certain cultural boundaries and individual value systems. However, moral universalism, a monistic ethical position, holds that there are universal ethics that apply to all people. In recent years, the above theoretical confrontations have entered the field of moral psychology. The dispute between monism and pluralism is one of the most active theoretical controversies in the field of moral psychology in recent years. Moral monism holds that all external moral-related phenomena and internal moral structures can be explained by one factor. The representative theories are stages theory of moral development and dyadic morality theory and so on. On the other hand, moral pluralism holds that morality cannot be explained by a single factor, but there are many heterogeneous moral dimensions, which are culturally sensitive. The representative theories include the triadic moral discourse theory, the relational model theory and the moral foundations theory and so on.
Among them, the dyadic morality theory put forward by Kurt Gray et al. and the moral foundation theory put forward by Jonathon Haidt are the typical representatives of the disputes between monism and pluralism. Gray et al. argued that harm is the most powerful factor in explaining moral judgments and moral judgments about harm are more intuitive. Moreover, people with different political orientations reach a consensus that harm is the core of moral judgments. On the contrary, Haidt et al. believed that people of different political orientations, cultures and social classes is manifested with different moral foundations, and the moral foundations scale has good construct validity, discriminant validity, practical validity, etc. The disputes between the two theories mainly focus on the explanatory power of harm, the harmfulness of moral dumbfounding, modularity views and the problem of purity. Specifically, Gray et al. argued that moral dumbfounding stems from biased sampling that confounds content with weirdness and severity, rather than purity violation. They also believed that the so-called "harmless wrongs" can be explained by perceived harm. Importantly, purity cannot be regarded as an independent construct of morality. Moreover, there is few evidence to support the modular claims. Nevertheless, Haidt et al. believed that moral monism oversimplifies the connotations of morality. The different moral foundations are not " Fodorian modularity", but more flexible and overlapping "massive modularity". Furthermore, plenty of evidence supported purity as an independent moral foundation.
Future research should be carried out in the following aspects. First of all, morality must need a clearer definition. To ensure the validity of moral research, future research should try to define moral concepts more clearly and should ensure that only one construct is tested at a time. Without ensuring that the situation clearly reflects a certain moral dimension, it is difficult for researchers to pinpoint which moral dimension influences people’s moral judgments. Secondly, in addition to paying attention to the disputes between monism and pluralism, we also need to separate from the disputes, take an objective view of the different characteristics of the controversies, learn from each other and complement each other, so as to promote the development of moral psychology. Specifically, moral monism emphasizes the simplicity of moral constructs and the accuracy of measurement, while pluralism emphasizes the understanding of the nature of morality among people in different cultures. These are two different theoretical constructs and explanations of the nature of morality. Future research should combine the advantages of moral monism and moral pluralism, and try to adopt realistic situations with high ecological validity, so as to construct a more perfect integrated theoretical model. Last but not the least, most previous empirical studies have been dominated by the "WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic)” sample. Future research should urgently consider the possibility of carrying out morality research in different cultures, especially based on the Chinese culture to explore the nature of morality.
一元论与多元论之争是道德心理学领域近些年最为活跃的理论交锋之一。道德一元论认为所有外在的道德现象与内在的道德结构或原因都可以用一种因素来解释，代表理论为道德发展阶段论、对应道德理论等。道德多元论则认为道德不能只用一种单一的因素来解释，而是存在多个不同质的道德维度，且具有文化敏感性，代表理论为三元道德话语理论、关系模式理论以及道德基础理论等。
其中，格雷等人提出的对应道德理论和海特提出的道德基础理论是一元论与多元论之争的典型代表。格雷等人认为伤害是解释道德判断最强有力的因素，而且关于伤害的道德判断更加直觉。此外，不同政治倾向的人皆认为伤害是道德认知的核心。反之，海特等人认为不同政治倾向、文化、社会阶层的人关注不同的道德基础，而且道德基础量表有良好的构念效度、区分效度、实用效度等。双方的论争主要集中在伤害的解释力、道德失声现象、模块化道德与洁净维度独立性等方面。具体而言，格雷等人认为道德失声源于伤害和情境怪异性，而不是洁净违背，而且洁净不可作为独立的道德维度。另外，没有证据支持模块化道德假说。但海特等人认为一元论过度简化了道德内涵。道德基础理论并非是五个“福多式模块”，而是更为灵活和重叠的“群集模块”。有大量证据支持洁净可以作为独立的道德基础。
未来研究应从如下几个方面开展。首先，道德需要一个更加清晰的界定。为保证道德研究的有效性，未来研究应尽可能做到将道德概念定义地更加清晰，应当确保每次只检验一种构念。如果不保证情境清晰地反应某种道德维度，则研究者很难精确指出哪种道德维度影响了人们的道德判断。其次，除了关注一元论与多元论本身的争议，我们也需从纷争中抽离出来，客观看待这两种道德取向研究的不同特点，彼此取长补短，以推动道德心理整体研究的发展。具体而言，一元论重视道德构念的简洁度以及测量的精确性，多元论则着重强调不同文化下的人群对于道德本质的理解。这是两种不同的建构理论和看待道德本质的方式。未来研究应该结合一元论与多元论研究彼此的优势，尽可能采用生态效度高的现实情境，从而建构出更为完善的整合式理论模型。最后，以往绝大多数实证研究却是以“怪异(WEIRD，指西方、受教育、工业化、富裕及民主)”样本为主导。未来研究应亟需考虑在不同文化下开展道德研究的可能性，尤其是针对中国本土文化的道德本质探究。
A representative sample (n = 2282) of Swedish adults completed the Moral Foundations Questionnaire, which measures moral intuitions concerning care, fairness, loyalty, authority, and purity. A subset (n = 607) completed a measure of intuitions about liberty. Measurement invariance was estimated across sex, age, education, income, left-right placement, religiosity, and party preference groups, based on multigroup confirmatory factor analyses of two-, three-, five-, six-, and eight-factor models, as well as bifactor models (with methods factors or a general factor). Acceptable configural, metric, and scalar invariance was obtained for most group comparisons, particularly based on the more complex models. The clearest exceptions were (1) configural non-invariance in comparisons involving participants with very low education or income, and (2) scalar non-invariance in comparisons of ideological groups based on three- and six-factor models but not the eight-factor model, which distinguished lifestyle liberty from government liberty.
Sexual assaults are a social problem in Iran; however, psychological factors that predict perceptions of sexual assault remain largely unexamined. Here, we examine the relationship between moral concerns, culture-specific gender roles, and victim blaming in sexual assault scenarios in Iranian culture. Relying on Moral Foundations Theory and recent theoretical developments in moral psychology in the Iranian context, we examined the correlations between five moral foundations (Care, Fairness, Loyalty, Authority, and Purity), a culture-specific set of values called Qeirat (which includes guarding and [over]protectiveness of female kin, romantic partners, broader family, and country), and victim blaming. In a community sample of Iranians (N = 411), we found Qeirat values to be highly correlated with victim blaming, and that this link was mediated by a number of culture-specific proscriptions about women's roles and dress code (i.e., Haya). In a regression analysis with all moral foundations, Qeirat values, Haya, and religiosity as predictors of victim blaming, only Haya, religiosity, high Authority values, and low Care values were found to predict how strongly Iranian participants blamed victims of sexual assault scenarios.
The 7-item Functionality Appreciation Scale (FAS; Alleva et al., 2017) measures an individual's appreciation of their body for what it can do and is capable of doing (i.e., functionality appreciation). However, few studies have assessed the psychometric properties of the FAS in non-English speaking populations and in younger age groups. Here, we examined the psychometric properties of a novel Farsi translation of the FAS in Iranian adolescent girls and boys. A sample of 828 Iranian adolescents completed the FAS alongside the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and the Beck Depression Inventory-II. Participants were randomly split into a first split-half for exploratory factor analysis (EFA) or a second split-half for confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The EFA broadly supported a 1-dimensional model of FAS scores, although one item had low item-factor loadings. The CFA indicated that both the 6-and 7-item models had adequate fit. In further analyses, we found that the 7-item unidimensional model was invariant across gender and that higher FAS scores were significantly associated with higher self-esteem and lower depressive symptoms, indicative of convergent validity. These results provide evidence that the Farsi translation of the FAS is reliable and valid for use in Iranian adolescent girls and boys.
Previous research indicates that mate retention strategies are associated with mate value and affect relationship satisfaction. The current research aimed to replicate previous findings in a non-WEIRD society (Iran) and to extend this research by investigating the moderating roles of individual and coalitional mate retention. Participants (n = 754; 416 women) in a committed, heterosexual relationship from two independent samples reported (1) their relationship satisfaction, (2) their partner’s mate value, (3) the frequency of performing individual mate retention, and (4) the frequency of requesting coalitional mate retention. Results indicated that there were positive associations between mate value, individual and coalitional Benefit-Provisioning mate retention behaviors, and relationship satisfaction. We found negative associations between individual and coalitional Cost-Inflicting mate retention behaviors and relationship satisfaction. We found that mate retention moderated the relationship between mate value and relationship satisfaction. Limitations of the current study are noted, and future directions are discussed.
Religiosity has been linked with prosocial behavior and a preference for religious ingroups over outgroups. Yet, there are important differences in religious people’s beliefs, values, and practices. Fundamental and quest orientation toward religion may differentially predict intergroup bias in prosociality. Also, individualizing and binding moral foundations may have diverse effects on ingroup and outgroup bias in helping, as moral foundations theory (MFT) suggests that individualizing and binding foundations differ in how much they focus on ingroup and outgroup moral considerations. In this study, we examined the relationship between religious dimensions (quest religion, religious fundamentalism, intrinsic religiosity, and religious activity), moral foundations, prosocial behavior, and intergroup bias in helping. We found evidence for the effect of individualizing foundations, religious fundamentalism, and quest religion above and beyond demographics and other religious dimensions on intergroup bias in helping. Furthermore, there were independent positive effects of individualizing foundations, religious activity, and age, and independent negative effects of female gender and religious fundamentalism on prosocial behavior. This study provides a more nuanced understanding of the relations between religion, prosociality, and moral intuitions in a Muslim context.
The past 3 decades have witnessed growing efforts to rethink areas of inquiry traditionally dominated by the humanities. One such area is religion, and, by extension, “Islamic studies” (i.e., the study of Islam and Muslim societies). Recent efforts to rethink religion and Islamic studies draw insights from cognitive science, and also frequently employ quantitative approaches. Such approaches make use of psychological statistics, socioeconomic statistics, and statistical data extracted from massive collections of digitized cultural artifacts (e.g., texts, photos, sound recordings). These types of statistical data make it possible to quantitively describe long‐term global psychological, socioeconomic, and cultural trends; explain how these trends relate to one another; and explain how these trends relate to Muslim societies. This article introduces the emerging lines of research mentioned above. Furthermore, it suggests that these lines of research open the way for a new more ambitious and more interdisciplinary Islamic studies – one which builds on valuable forms of humanities expertise while integrating the best insights from non‐humanities fields.
The Brexit referendum campaign was characterised by blaming of the EU, with blame seemingly inextricable from politics. However, what is not clear from existing research is what blame actually does to the people who read, hear, or otherwise consume it (the ‘audience’). Does blame actually matter? Specifically, in what ways does exogenous blame make villains in politics, as characters who are bad, strong, and active, and whom we feel negatively towards? Such a question is vital in the context of affective polarisation, where it is not simply that we disagree with our opponents—it is it that we experience negative emotions towards them.
This research applies an abductive approach grounded in a critical realist ontology that cycles between theory and empirical data. Feldman Barrett’s Theory of Constructed Emotions is introduced to connect societal ‘feeling structures’ discussed in prior international relations work with the human body that has hitherto been absent, while blame is defined as a discursive practice in which a speaker claims a party is doing, or has done, a harmful thing. A data analysis framework is developed that permits for investigation of the effects of discursive practices, calling for identification of context, performance, effects, and points of resistance and contestation. The empirical chapters address each stage of this framework in sequence.
The Brexit referendum campaign is selected as a case study, and a mixed methods design utilising both qualitative content and statistical analyses emerges in-depth meaning and wider generalisability alike. Data analysed includes pre-referendum materials from Nigel Farage and the Leave campaigns, particularly Leave.EU, as well as the Remain campaign (355); this is compared with three months of articles and public commentary from the ‘Metro’ newspaper (60 issues), providing insight into context, performance, and contestation. In-depth semi-structured focus groups and interviews with Leave voters (18) and a survey-experiment conducted amongst UK voters (1368) enables identification of both contestation and the effects of blame—specifically how blame makes people feel, and how it makes them feel about a party who is blamed.
This research finds that blame makes villains in politics directly where it engenders negative, ‘villain-type feelings’ towards a blamed party, with annoyance predominant; and indirectly where it engenders compassion for victims. Its effects are mediated by the audience who consume the blame and may be mitigated by contestation strategies employed by that audience or others such as alternative campaigns. These include strategies that engage directly with the blame—counter-blaming, rebuttal, naming and shaming blame—as well as indirectly through use of alternate discursive practices such as credit or threat, and by changing the subjects and objects of blame.
This work exceptionally investigates the effects and contestation of ‘exogenous’ third-party blame, contributing to the fields of international relations, political science, and social psychology; shows that it is not what we ‘are’ but rather what we ‘know’ that circumscribes the effects of blame, defraying concerns over psychometric targeting; provides insight into how communication professionals and EU staff may contest blame, beyond avoiding or shifting it; and demonstrates the effectiveness of blame in creating a villain of the EU in the specific case of the Brexit campaign.
Language is a psychologically rich medium for human expression and communication. While language usage has been shown to be a window into various aspects of people's social worlds, including their personality traits and everyday environment, its correspondence to people's moral concerns has yet to be considered. Here, we examine the relationship between language usage and the moral concerns of Care, Fairness, Loyalty, Authority, and Purity as conceptualized by Moral Foundations Theory. We collected Facebook status updates (N = 107,798) from English-speaking participants (n = 2691) along with their responses on the Moral Foundations Questionnaire. Overall, results suggested that self-reported moral concerns may be traced in language usage, though the magnitude of this effect varied considerably among moral concerns. Across a diverse selection of Natural Language Processing methods, Fairness concerns were consistently least correlated with language usage whereas Purity concerns were found to be the most traceable. In exploratory follow-up analyses, each moral concern was found to be differentially related to distinct patterns of relational, emotional, and social language. Our results are the first to relate individual differences in moral concerns to language usage, and to uncover the signatures of moral concerns in language.
Most of the empirical research on sex differences and cultural variations in morality has relied on within-culture analyses or small-scale cross-cultural data. To further broaden the scientific understanding of sex differences in morality, the current research relies on two international samples to provide the first large-scale examination of sex differences in moral judgements nested within cultures. Using a sample from 67 countries (Study 1; n = 336 691), we found culturally variable sex differences in moral judgements, as conceptualized by Moral Foundations Theory. Women consistently scored higher than men on Care, Fairness, and Purity. By contrast, sex differences in Loyalty and Authority were negligible and highly variable across cultures. Country-level sex differences in moral judgements were also examined in relation to cultural, socioeconomic, and gender-equality indicators revealing that sex differences in moral judgements are larger in individualist, Western, and gender-equal societies. In Study 2 (19 countries; n = 11 969), these results were largely replicated using Bayesian multi-level modelling in a distinct sample. The findings were robust when incorporating cultural non-independence of countries into the models. Specifically, women consistently showed higher concerns for Care, Fairness, and Purity in their moral judgements than did men. Sex differences in moral judgements were larger in individualist and gender-equal societies with more flexible social norms. We discuss the implications of these findings for the ongoing debate about the origin of sex differences and cultural variations in moral judgements as well as theoretical and pragmatic implications for moral and evolutionary psychology.
Moral Foundations Theory is among the latest theories of moral judgement in social cognition. This theory has specified six foundations of care, fairness, loyalty, authority, sanctity, and liberty as underlying morality concerns. The present study aimed to examine the characteristics of these foundations in Iranian moral mentality and compared them against foreign findings and predictions, particularly the recent debate between two leading theorists in this field, i.e. Graham and Janoff-Bulman. Method: Participants were 172 Iranians who were questioned about ideal society and moral and immoral behaviors. Responses were examined and categorized based on belongingness to foundations. Accordingly, foundation exemplars and their motivational weight and relational context were determined. To determine the grouping of foundations, exploratory factor analysis; to compare foundations regarding motivational weight, analysis of variance; and to compare the frequency of foundation exemplars between relational contexts, chi-square test was used. Results: The number of extracted factors from the foundations was three in the context of each of the three questions. Foundations were found to differ regarding motivational weight; however, almost all of them had exemplars from both motivational orientations. Moreover, despite the focus of each foundation on one or two particular relational contexts, almost all foundations had exemplars referring to all three relational contexts. Conclusion: Findings provided support for the three-folded super-structure of morality. Results also indicated that Janoff-Bulman has drawn a narrow image of the motivational orientation of foundations, just as assumptions of moral foundation theorists underestimate the variability in relational contexts of foundations.
La validité de la mesure est une partie intégrante de l’interprétation des efforts de recherche et de toutes les tentatives de réplication subséquentes. Pour évaluer les pratiques de mesure actuelles et la validité de construction des mesures dans les études de réplication à grande échelle, nous avons procédé à un examen systématique des mesures utilisées dans « Many Labs 2: Investigating Variation in Replicability Across Samples and Settings » (Klein et al., 2018). Pour évaluer les propriétés psychométriques des échelles utilisées dans « Many Labs 2 », nous avons effectué des analyses de facteurs et de fiabilité sur les données accessibles au public. Nous rapportons que les mesures de « Many Labs 2 » étaient souvent courtes, présentant peu de preuves de validité dans l’étude originale, que les mesures comportant plus de preuves de validité dans l’étude originale affichaient des propriétés psychométriques plus fortes dans l’échantillon de réplication, et que les versions traduites des échelles affichaient une fiabilité moindre. Nous discutons des implications de ces résultats pour l’interprétation des résultats de réplication et nous formulons des recommandations pour améliorer les pratiques de mesure de futures réplications.
People from different cultural backgrounds vary in how they define, perceive, and react to violations of relational boundaries. Muslim cultures are diverse and include nearly one in four people in the world, yet research on their relational and moral norms is scarce. We contribute to narrowing this gap by studying gheirat, a moral-emotional experience ubiquitous in Muslim Middle Eastern cultures. In four mixed-methods studies, we study how gheirat is experienced, what situations elicit it, and its social functions among Iranian adults (N = 1107) using qualitative interviews, scenario- and prototype-based surveys, and an experiment. The prototypical experience of gheirat consisted of diverse appraisals (including sense of responsibility, insecurity, and low self-worth) and emotional components (including hostility, social fears, and low empowerment). We identified three types of relational violations that elicit gheirat: harm or insult to namoos (people and self-relevant entities one is obliged to protect), romantic betrayal by namoos, and intrusions by a third person. Each violation type led to a distinct variant of the prototype. Contrary to folk theories of gheirat, we did not find support for the idea that gheirat is a predominantly male experience. However, an experiment on the signaling effects of gheirat revealed that gheirat-expressors are ascribed both positive and negative traits, but positive traits prevail for men and negative traits prevail for women. We discuss how the results contribute to a better understanding of Iranian social life and intercultural contact, as well as the implications for theories of emotion and the cultural logic of honor.
In this article, we present a tool and a method for measuring the psychological and cultural distance between societies and creating a distance scale with any population as the point of comparison. Because psychological data are dominated by samples drawn from Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) nations, and overwhelmingly, the United States, we focused on distance from the United States. We also present distance from China, the country with the largest population and second largest economy, which is a common cultural comparison. We applied the fixation index ( F ST ), a meaningful statistic in evolutionary theory, to the World Values Survey of cultural beliefs and behaviors. As the extreme WEIRDness of the literature begins to dissolve, our tool will become more useful for designing, planning, and justifying a wide range of comparative psychological projects. Our code and accompanying online application allow for comparisons between any two countries. Analyses of regional diversity reveal the relative homogeneity of the United States. Cultural distance predicts various psychological outcomes.
The field of psychology prides itself on being a data-driven science. In 2008, however, Arnett brought to light a major weakness in the evidence on which models, measures, and theories in psychology rest. He demonstrated that the most prominent journals in six subdisciplines of psychology focused almost exclusively (over 70% of samples and authors) on a cultural context, the United States, shared by only 5% of the world's population. How can psychologists trust that these models and results generalize to all humans, if the evidence comes from a small and unrepresentative portion of the global population? Arnett's analysis, cited over 1,300 times since its publication, appears to have galvanized researchers to think more globally. Social scientists from the United States have increasingly sought ways to collaborate with colleagues abroad. Ten years later, an analysis of the same 6 journals for the period of 2014 to 2018 indicates that the authors and samples are now on average a little over 60% American based. The change is mainly due to an increase in authorship and samples from other English-speaking and Western European countries. Thus, it might be said that 11% of the world's population is now represented in these top psychology journals, but that 89% of the world's population continues to be neglected. Majority world authors and samples (4-5%) are still sorely lacking from the evidence base. Psychology still has a long way to go to become a science truly representative of human beings. Several specific recommendations are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).
It has been proposed that somatosensory reaction to varied social circumstances results in feelings (i.e., conscious emotional experiences). Here, we present two preregistered studies in which we examined the topographical maps of somatosensory reactions associated with violations of different moral concerns. Specifically, participants in Study 1 ( N = 596) were randomly assigned to respond to scenarios involving various moral violations and were asked to draw key aspects of their subjective somatosensory experience on two 48,954-pixel silhouettes. Our results show that body patterns corresponding to different moral violations are felt in different regions of the body depending on whether individuals are classified as liberals or conservatives. We also investigated how individual differences in moral concerns relate to body maps of moral violations. Finally, we used natural-language processing to predict activation in body parts on the basis of the semantic representation of textual stimuli. We replicated these findings in a nationally representative sample in Study 2 ( N = 300). Overall, our findings shed light on the complex relationships between moral processes and somatosensory experiences.
"Morality" is a Western term that brings to mind all sorts of associations. In contemporary Western moral psychology it is a commonplace to assume that people (presumably across all cultures and languages) will typically associate the term "moral" with actions that involve considerations of harm and/or fairness. But is it cross-culturally a valid claim? The current work provides some preliminary evidence from Mongolia to address this question. The word combination of yos surtakhuun is a Mongolian translation of the Western term "moral". However, freelisting data indicates that Mongolians do not typically associate the term yos surtakhuun with actions that involve considerations of harm and/or fairness. Instead, the most cognitively salient category is respect (khündlekh). The lack of convergence between moral and yos surtakhuun suggests that the term "moral" does not refer to universal "moral" cogni-tion that specifically deals with harm and/or fairness. On the contrary, I would argue that the term "moral" brings to mind exclusively WEIRD associations, and yos surtakhuun brings to mind specifically Mongolian associations. Thus, pointing to different historically shaped cultural models of "moral" behavior.
Moral judgment is among the topics studied in social cognition. Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) is a recent theory in moral psychology which has an intercultural intuitionist approach to moral beliefs of people around the world. The current study is concerned with examining psychometric properties of the Persian version of the questionnaire associated with this theory, and comparing findings with reports from the original version as well as other cultures. Data are provided by three studies on Iranian samples: Golkar (2016) and studies 2 and 3 of Nejat (2016), with 280, 314, and 180 participants respectively, who responded to MFQ-30. There were slight differences between the translations used in these samples. Calculation of Cronbach alphas, as well as exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted, and comparisons were made between genders in reliance on foundations. Cronbach alphas for Care (average 0.43), Fairness (average 0.52) and Loyalty (average 0.54) were relatively low and generally lower than Authority (average 0.67) and Sanctity (average 0.73). Exploratory FA yielded a three-factor solution in Nejat's (2016) study 2, and two-factor solutions in Golkar (2016) and Nejat's (2016) study 3. Fit of data to the correlated five-factor model was acceptable, albeit not perfect (average RMSEA= 0.076; CMIN/df = 2.52; CFI = 0.67). ANIMAL and KILL (Care), RICH (Fairness), and TEAM (Loyalty) were the weakest items. Women scored higher than men in Care, Fairness, and Sanctity. Psychometric properties of the Persian MFQ, though not excellent in some respects, was comparable to those reported by some other cultures, and therefore seems to be mainly caused by the complex nature of morality itself. Observed gender differences were similar to international findings, and are thus supportive of the known-groups validity for this questionnaire.
Can personality traits be measured and interpreted reliably across the world? While the use of Big Five personality measures is increasingly common across social sciences, their validity outside of western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) populations is unclear. Adopting a comprehensive psychometric approach to analyze 29 face-to-face surveys from 94,751 respondents in 23 low- and middle-income countries, we show that commonly used personality questions generally fail to measure the intended personality traits and show low validity. These findings contrast with the much higher validity of these measures attained in internet surveys of 198,356 self-selected respondents from the same countries. We discuss how systematic response patterns, enumerator interactions, and low education levels can collectively distort personality measures when assessed in large-scale surveys. Our results highlight the risk of misinterpreting Big Five survey data and provide a warning against naïve interpretations of personality traits without evidence of their validity.
Significance
This study provides information on sex ratio at birth (SRB) reference levels and SRB imbalance. Using a comprehensive database and a Bayesian estimation model, we estimate that SRB reference levels are significantly different from the commonly assumed historical norm of 1.05 for most regions. We identify 12 countries with strong statistical evidence of SRB imbalance: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, China, Georgia, Hong Kong (SAR of China), India, Republic of Korea, Montenegro, Taiwan (Province of China), Tunisia, and Vietnam.
The emergence of large-scale cooperation during the Holocene remains a central problem in the evolutionary literature. One hypothesis points to culturally evolved beliefs in punishing, interventionist gods that facilitate the extension of cooperative behaviour toward geographically distant co-religionists. Furthermore, another hypothesis points to such mechanisms being constrained to the religious ingroup, possibly at the expense of religious outgroups. To test these hypotheses, we administered two behav-ioural experiments and a set of interviews to a sample of 2228 participants from 15 diverse populations. These populations included foragers, pastoralists, horticulturalists, and wage labourers, practicing Buddhism, Christianity, and Hinduism, but also forms of animism and ancestor worship. Using the Random Allocation Game (RAG) and the Dictator Game (DG) in which individuals allocated money between themselves, local and geographically distant co-religionists, and religious outgroups, we found that higher ratings of gods as monitoring and punishing predicted decreased local favouritism (RAGs) and increased resource-sharing with distant co-religionists (DGs). The effects of punishing and monitoring gods on out-group allocations revealed between-site variability, suggesting that in the absence of intergroup hostility, moralizing gods may be implicated in cooperative behaviour toward outgroups. These results provide support for the hypothesis that beliefs in monitoring and punitive gods help expand the circle of sustainable social interaction, and open questions about the treatment of religious outgroups.
The emergence of large-scale cooperation during the Holocene remains a central problem in the evolutionary literature. One hypothesis points to culturally evolved beliefs in punishing, interventionist gods that facilitate the extension of cooperative behaviour toward geographically distant co-religionists. Furthermore, another hypothesis points to such mechanisms being constrained to the religious ingroup, possibly at the expense of religious outgroups. To test these hypotheses, we administered two behavioural experiments and a set of interviews to a sample of 2228 participants from 15 diverse populations. These populations included foragers, pastoralists, horticulturalists, and wage labourers, practicing Buddhism, Christianity, and Hinduism, but also forms of animism and ancestor worship. Using the Random Allocation Game (RAG) and the Dictator Game (DG) in which individuals allocated money between themselves, local and geographically distant co-religionists, and religious outgroups, we found that higher ratings of gods as monitoring and punishing predicted decreased local favouritism (RAGs) and increased resource-sharing with distant co-religionists (DGs). The effects of punishing and monitoring gods on outgroup allocations revealed between-site variability, suggesting that in the absence of intergroup hostility, moralizing gods may be implicated in cooperative behaviour toward outgroups. These results provide support for the hypothesis that beliefs in monitoring and punitive gods help expand the circle of sustainable social interaction, and open questions about the treatment of religious outgroups.
Two primary goals of psychological science should be to under- stand what aspects of human psychology are universal and the way that context and culture produce variability. This requires that we take into account the importance of culture and context in the way that we write our papers and in the types of populations that we sample. However, most research published in our leading journals has relied on sampling WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) populations. One might expect that our scholarly work and editorial choices would by now reflect the knowledge that Western populations may not be representative of humans generally with respect to any given psychological phenomenon. However, as we show here, almost all research published by one of our leading journals, Psychological Science, relies on Western samples and uses these data in an unreflective way to make inferences about humans in general. To take us for- ward, we offer a set of concrete proposals for authors, journal editors, and reviewers that may lead to a psychological science that is more representative of the human condition.
Does moral culture contribute to the evolution of cooperation? Here, we examine individuals' and communities' models of what it means to be good and bad and how they correspond to corollary behavior across a variety of socioecological contexts. Our sample includes over 600 people from eight different field sites that include foragers, horticulturalists, herders, and the fully market-reliant. We first examine the universals and particulars of explicit moral models. We then use these moral models to assess their role in the outcome of an economic experiment designed to detect systematic, dishonest rule-breaking favoritism. We show that individuals are slightly more inclined to play by the rules when their moral models include the task-relevant virtues of “honesty” and “dishonesty.” We also find that religious beliefs are better predictors of honest play than these virtues. The predictive power of these values' and beliefs' local prevalence, however, remains inconclusive. In summary, we find that religious beliefs and moral models may help promote honest behavior that may widen the breadth of human cooperation.
Objectives A few of the challenges involved in measuring moral development includes tools and methodology.
The present study compared two neo-Kohlbergian approaches in the study of moral development.
Methods A total of 40 peoples referred to the Center for Behavioral and Mental Health Assessment were
selected as a sample group, subjected to QUAN-QUAL (equal) design, and assessed using Defining Issue
Test (DIT), Sociomoral Reflection Measure-Short Form (SRM-SF), semi-structured interviews based on
hypothetical moral dilemmas, and in-depth interviews based on real-life dilemmas.
Results The results showed that DIT and SRM-SF scores were correlated in the moral maturity index;
however, these two methods and the results of conflicts in real life exhibited significant differences .
Conclusion Therefore, standards and instructions were applied to both methods including test based on
the memory or recalling that would yield similar results. Furthermore, the difference between these two
methods with respect to results and interviews based on real-life dilemmas might be dependent on the
situation of the individual than the tools, making self-judgment easier for individuals.
We propose that methods from the study of category-based induction can be used to test the accuracy of theories of moral judgment. We had participants rate the likelihood that a person would engage in a variety of actions, given information about a previous behavior. From these likelihood ratings, we extracted a hierarchical, taxonomic model of how moral violations relate to each other (Study 1). We then tested the descriptive adequacy of this model against an alternative model inspired by Moral Foundations Theory, using classic tasks from induction research (Studies 2a and 2b), and using a measure of confirmation, which accounts for the baseline frequency of these violations (Study 3). Lastly, we conducted focused tests of combinations of violations where the models make differing predictions (Study 4). This research provides new insight into how people represent moral concepts, connecting classic methods from cognitive science with contemporary themes in moral psychology.
There are a large number of commonly used measures of religiosity, yet these measures have been developed within a specific culture or religion. Based on the commonality of Abrahamic religions (i.e., Judaism, Christianity and Islam), the present study aimed to develop an initial cross-cultural validation of the Abrahamic Religiosity Scale (ARS). The data were collected from 12 countries from Asia, Europe, Africa and America, and exploratory factor analysis resulted in a 35-item, one-dimensional scale. Confirmatory factor analysis yielded a 28-item with one factor. The scale showed sufficient internal consistency with an adequate alpha coefficient (α = .95). Moreover, the correlation coefficients between items and the total score of ARS ranged between .36 and .70. Therefore, the ARS may be used as a psychometrically robust measure in cross-cultural studies on religiosity. Validation of the ARS is strongly recommended within specific cultures and languages.
The underrepresentation of girls and women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields is a continual concern for social scientists and policymakers. Using an international database on adolescent achievement in science, mathematics, and reading (N = 472,242), we showed that girls performed similarly to or better than boys in science in two of every three countries, and in nearly all countries, more girls appeared capable of college-level STEM study than had enrolled. Paradoxically, the sex differences in the magnitude of relative academic strengths and pursuit of STEM degrees rose with increases in national gender equality. The gap between boys’ science achievement and girls’ reading achievement relative to their mean academic performance was near universal. These sex differences in academic strengths and attitudes toward science correlated with the STEM graduation gap. A mediation analysis suggested that life-quality pressures in less gender-equal countries promote girls’ and women’s engagement with STEM subjects.
Psychological science is increasingly diverse in the tools available for research and the questions it is able to ask. But this potential is seriously limited by a lack of diversity in study populations, in situations and contexts explored, and in the researchers themselves. The current situation is problematic and difficult to change because of niche construction processes that favor the status quo. Systems level changes are needed to support a healthy psychological science.
Claims of universality for Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) require extensive cross-cultural validation. The present study aims to (1) develop Turkish versions of three instruments used to research MFT (MFQ, MFQL, MSQ); (2) assess the psychometric properties of the Turkish instruments; (3) test the assumptions of the theory against findings from the instruments in Turkish culture. Three independently translated versions of the MFQ were administered to three samples totaling 1432 respondents. Results were consistent across samples. Internal reliability was satisfactory. CFA indicated a best fit for a 5-factor solution despite low fit indices and high error coefficients. EFA yielded a 3-factor solution, which did not replicate the 2-factor “individualizing” and “binding” factors found in U.S. samples. CFA and EFA with the MSQ produced 2-factor solutions which also did not align with the individualizing-binding dichotomy. Meaningful relations between the moral foundations and scores on political orientation and religiosity supported the validity of the measures in Turkish culture.
The present research aimed to examine the psychometric properties of the Self-Rating of Religiosity (SRR) in Iran. In addition, the associations between the Persian version of this single-item measure of religiosity and the Big Five personality dimensions were investigated. Study 1 (n = 51) suggested that the Persian translation of the SRR had adequate test-retest reliability over a three-week period. Study 2 (n = 228) provided evidence for good convergent validity of the SRR, indexed by strong positive associations with scores on the Duke University Religion Index (DUREL). The Big Five dimensions of personality were measured using the Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI). Moreover, the scores on the SRR were positively associated with Agreeableness (r = .23, p < .01) and Conscientiousness (r = .16, p < .05), while negatively associated with Openness to Experience (r = −.25, p < .01). These findings are in line with cross-cultural findings on personality correlates of intrinsic religiosity. Limitations and future directions are discussed.
Intrinsic to the social, educational and behavioural sciences is the aim of addressing patterned variation in human thought and action across settings. Surprisingly, however, empirical work in these sciences continues to be limited by a lack of diversity in study populations, research methodology and the researchers themselves. This Perspective analyses these dimensions of diversity as they are situated in and affected by the larger organizational systems for publication, grants and academic advancement. This complex system appears to operate in a mutually reinforcing manner to discourage diversity. Our analysis suggests that diversity goals central to our sciences will require systems-level action rather than a focus on any one component in isolation.
The current study investigated the psychometric properties of the Persian translation of the Mate Retention Inventory–Short Form (MRI-SF) in Iran. We also investigated sex differences in the use of mate retention tactics and investigated the relationships between mate retention behaviors and a number of related cultural constructs. Participants (N = 308) ranged in age from 18 to 57 years. All participants were in a committed romantic relationship, with mean relationship length of 63.5 months (SD = 73.8). Participants completed the Persian translation of the MRI-SF and measures of religiosity, relationship satisfaction, self-esteem, and socioeconomic status. Cultural measures specific to Iran were also included, such as Mahr (for married individuals), self-perceived Qeiratiness (for men), and self-perceived jealousy (for women). Mahr is a mandatory amount of money or possessions paid or promised to be paid by the groom to the bride at the time of the marriage contract. Qeirati is a male-specific adjective in Persian meaning protective against unwanted attention toward a man’s romantic partner. Female jealousy is usually regarded the counterpart of male Qeiratiness in Iranian culture. The 19 mate retention tactics formed a two-component structure, consistent with previous research. Results demonstrate adequate internal consistency of 2-item assessments of mate retention tactics. Observed sex differences accorded with previous mate retention research and are discussed in reference to evolutionary perspectives on human mating. Several significant associations emerged between mate retention tactics and Iranian culture-specific variables and are discussed from a cross-cultural perspective.
Honor values articulate gender roles, the importance of reputation in maintaining one’s place in society, and maintaining respect for the groups one belongs to. In that sense honor provides a template for organizing social interactions and hence may be functional even among people and societies that do not report valuing and endorsing honor. We test the prediction that honor influences judgment and attention when activated in two experiments (N = 538). Using a culture-as-situated cognition perspective, we predicted that activating one aspect of honor would activate other aspects, even among individuals who do not much endorse honor values. We tested these predictions among European Americans, a group that is not typically associated with honor values. In each study, participants were randomly assigned to experimental or control groups, which differed in one way: the experimental group read statements about honor values as a first step and the control group did not. Participants then judged stick-figure pairs (judging which is male; Study 1, n = 130) or made lexical decisions (judging whether a letter-string formed a correctly spelled word; Study 2, n = 408). In Study 1, experimental group participants were more likely to choose the visually agentic figure as male. In Study 2, experimental group participants were more accurate at noticing that the letter-string formed a word if the word was an honor-relevant word (e.g., noble), but they did not differ from the control group if the word was irrelevant to honor (e.g., happy). Participants in both studies were just above the neutral point in their endorsement of honor values. Individual differences in honor values endorsement did not moderate the effects of activating an honor mindset. Though honor is often described as if it is located in space, we did not find clear effects of where our letter strings were located on the computer screen. Our findings suggest a new way to consider how honor functions, even in societies in which honor is not a highly endorsed value.
A large number of studies have assessed human mate preferences using lists of characteristics. To date, there is little data regarding mate preferences in Iran. The present study aimed to investigate dimensions in mate preferences among Iranian women and to validate a female-specific instrument in Iranian context. Three studies were designed and conducted. The first study was an interview-based qualitative analysis of women’s mate preferences. The second study provided a psychometrically sound list of 26 characteristics in a potential mate. The third study confirmed the five-factor structure of the instrument. In sum, five dimensions of mate preferences among Iranian women are kindness/dependability, status/resources, attractiveness/sexuality, religiosity/chastity, and education/intelligence, as measured by the newly developed 26-item scale.
This study compares negotiation strategy and outcomes in countries illustrating dignity, face, and honor cultures. Hypotheses predict cultural differences in negotiators' aspirations, use of strategy, and outcomes based on the implications of differences in self-worth and social structures in dignity, face, and honor cultures. Data were from a face-to-face negotiation simulation; participants were intra-cultural samples from the USA (dignity), China (face), and Qatar (honor). The empirical results provide strong evidence for the predictions concerning the reliance on more competitive negotiation strategies in honor and face cultures relative to dignity cultures in this context of negotiating a new business relationship. The study makes two important theoretical contributions. First, it proposes how and why people in a previously understudied part of the world, that is, the Middle East, use negotiation strategy. Second, it addresses a conundrum in the East Asian literature on negotiation: the theory and research that emphasize the norms of harmony and cooperation in social interaction versus empirical evidence that negotiations in East Asia are highly competitive. Copyright
Portraits of moral heroes often portray the hero gazing up and to the viewer’s right in part because ideologically minded followers select and propagate these images of their leaders. Study 1 found that the gaze direction of portraits of moral heroes (e.g., Martin Luther King, Jr.) tend to show the hero looking up-and-right more often than chance would predict, and more often than portraits of celebrities (e.g., Elvis Presley) do. In Studies 2 and 3, we asked participants to play the role of an ideologically motivated follower, and select an image of their leader to promote the cause. Participants preferentially selected the up-and-right version. In Study 4, we found that conceptual metaphors linking directionality to personal virtues of warmth, pride, and future-mindedness helped explain why the up-and-right posture looks most heroic. Followers play an active role in advancing social causes by portraying their leaders as moral heroes.
Centuries' worth of cultural stories suggest that self-sacrifice may be a cornerstone of our moral concepts, yet this notion is largely absent from recent theories in moral psychology. For instance, in the footbridge version of the well-known trolley car problem the only way to save five people from a runaway trolley is to push a single man on the tracks. It is explicitly specified that the bystander cannot sacrifice himself because his weight is insufficient to stop the trolley. But imagine if this were not the case. Would people rather sacrifice themselves than push another? In Study 1, we find that people approve of self-sacrifice more than directly harming another person to achieve the same outcome. In Studies 2 and 3, we demonstrate that the effect is not broadly about sensitivity to self-cost, instead there is something unique about sacrificing the self. Important theoretical implications about agent-relativity and the role of causality in moral judgments are discussed.
The Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ) measures five universal moral foundations of Harm/care, Fairness/reciprocity, Ingroup/loyalty, Authority/respect, and Purity/sanctity. This study provided an independent test of the factor structure of the MFQ using Confirmatory Factor Analysis in a large New Zealand national probability sample (N = 3,994). We compared the five-factor model proposed by Moral Foundations Theory against alternative single-factor, two-factor, three-factor, and hierarchical (five foundations as nested in two second order factors) models of morality. The hypothesized five-factor model proposed by Moral Foundations Theory provided a reasonable fit. These findings indicate that the five-factor model of moral foundations holds in New Zealand, and provides the first independent test of the factor structure of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire.
Models of personality structure are not correct or incorrect. Instead, they are either useful or not for some purpose. As a result, a researcher’s choice of a model will depend on their priorities. Possible priorities include maximizing variance accounted for, parsimony, cross- language generalizability, relevance to theory, and potential to synthesize across studies. Whether the HEXACO or any other model is “best” will depend on how much value a researcher places on each of these and other criteria.
We present evidence for a complex relationship between religiousness and Haidt’s moral foundations, with data from four experiments, measuring 21 different dimensions of personal religiousness and utilizing six different religious primes. The more conservative dimensions of religiousness, such as intrinsic religious orientation and religious attendance, were positively related to binding moral foundations of loyalty, authority, and purity and sometimes related to the individualizing foundation of care. However, other, less conservative dimensions of religiousness, such as quest and extrinsic religious orientations, were unrelated or negatively related to binding foundations. Benevolent God concept was the only religious measure that was positively related to all five moral foundations. We did not find reliable effects of religious primes on endorsement of moral foundations. Results suggest a consistent but complicated relationship between religiousness and moral foundations at a dispositional level.
Religiosity as a significant cultural aspect can impact an array of reproductive behaviors. In particular, religiosity can influence intrasexual rivalry as a competitive strategy and content of mate retention behaviors among men and women. However, a few studies have examined the relationship between religiosity, intrasexual rivalry, and mate retention behaviors in non-Western cultures. In Study 1, we examine the province-level relationship between religiosity and reproductive outcomes (i.e., fertility, divorce, family values, and sex ratio) in Iran, a non-Western understudied culture. In Study 2, we use a multi-item measure of religiosity, a new multi-dimensional measure to assess intrasexual rivalry (Intrasexual Rivalry Scale; two components of rival-derogation and self-promotion), and Mate Retention Inventory-Short Form (MRI-SF) in a community sample (N = 211). Results suggested that province-level religiosity in Iran is associated with male-biased sex ratio, lower degrees of divorce , and higher levels of fertility. Study 2's findings showed that religiosity is inversely associated with self-promoting intrasexual traits. We demonstrated that self-promotion is related to benefit-provisioning and rival-derogation attitudes in a same-sex individual or is associated with cost-inflicting mate retention behaviors. We demonstrated that religiosity can predict important mating outcomes in both province-and individual-levels in Iran.
Cultural evolution
There is substantial variation in psychological attributes across cultures. Schulz et al. examined whether the spread of Catholicism in Europe generated much of this variation (see the Perspective by Gelfand). In particular, they focus on how the Church broke down extended kin-based institutions and encouraged a nuclear family structure. To do this, the authors developed measures of historical Church exposure and kin-based institutions across populations. These measures accounted for individual differences in 20 psychological outcomes collected in prior studies.
Science , this issue p. eaau5141 ; see also p. 686
Although numerous models attempted to explain the nature of moral judgment, moral foundations theory (MFT) led to a paradigmatic change in this field by proposing pluralist "moralities" (care, fairness, loyalty, authority, sanctity). The five-factor structure of MFT is thought to be universal and rooted in the evolutionary past but the evidence is scarce regarding the stability of this five-factor structure across diverse cultures. We tested this universality argument in a cross-cultural dataset of 30 diverse societies spanning the WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic) and non-WEIRD cultures by testing measurement invariance of the short-form of the moral foundations questionnaire. The results supported the original conceptualization that there are at least five diverse moralities although loadings of items differ across WEIRD and non-WEIRD cultures. In other words, the current research shows for the first time that the five-factor structure of MFT is stable in the WEIRD and non-WEIRD cultures.
The replication crisis facing the psychological sciences is widely regarded as rooted in methodological or statistical shortcomings. We argue that a large part of the problem is the lack of a cumulative theoretical framework or frameworks. Without an overarching theoretical framework that generates hypotheses across diverse domains, empirical programs spawn and grow from personal intuitions and culturally biased folk theories. By providing ways to develop clear predictions, including through the use of formal modelling, theoretical frameworks set expectations that determine whether a new finding is confirmatory, nicely integrating with existing lines of research, or surprising, and therefore requiring further replication and scrutiny. Such frameworks also prioritize certain research foci, motivate the use diverse empirical approaches and, often, provide a natural means to integrate across the sciences. Thus, overarching theoretical frameworks pave the way toward a more general theory of human behaviour. We illustrate one such a theoretical framework: dual inheritance theory.
Researchers have been showing growing interest in the relationship between personality and mate retentions behaviors. There is evidence that the Dark Triad of personality (i.e., Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) may be associated with mate retention behavior in romantic relationships. Yet, most of the mentioned studies have been conducted in Western samples. The present study aimed to examine the relationship between the Dark Triad and mate retention behaviors in Iranian married individuals. Descriptive statistics and evaluation of sex differences suggested that Iranian men scored significantly higher on domains of mate retention. Women scored higher on narcissism. Correlational analyses indicated that Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy are positively correlated with Benefit-Provisioning, Cost-Inflicting, and overall mate retention. Therefore, individuals who score higher on the Dark Triad traits employ mate retention strategies to prevent dissolution of their marital relationships. The findings are clearly consistent with previous findings in Western cultures.
Personality dimensions are associated with various romantic relationship outcomes. The current study examined associations among the Big Five personality dimensions and mate retention domains in a community sample in Iran. Participants (n = 308) completed a survey that included measures of personality and mate retention behaviors. The results revealed that Conscientiousness and Openness to Experience were negatively associated with Cost-Inflicting mate retention behaviors (e.g., mate concealment, threatening infidelity), and that these associations remained significant when controlling for key demographic variables of sex, age, education, and relationship length. The results highlight the relationship between personality dimensions and mate retention in a non-Western culture. Limitations of the current study are noted and future directions are discussed.
Although Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) is claimed to be universally applicable, the data brought to bear in its support come from a self-selected population with mostly English-speaking participants. To the best of our knowledge, the theory has not been hitherto tested in a predominantly Muslim country with non-western moral and religious sensibilities. In Study 1, we replicated previous findings using Turkish participants by showing through confirmatory factor analyses that the 5-factor structure of MFT provided a better fit than alternative models. In Study 2, the participants' cultural schemas of individualism and collectivism were experimentally manipulated to see the distinctness and separate manipulability of the five individual foundations. The individualism prime led to an increased concern with the harm dimension whereas the collectivism manipulation led to an increased concern with the loyalty dimension. Taken together, the findings suggest that the 5-factor model of morality is the best fitting model in Turkey as well and that it is useful in predicting the results of cultural prime manipulations.
Deception is common in nature and humans are no exception. Modern societies have created institutions to control cheating, but many situations remain where only intrinsic honesty keeps people from cheating and violating rules. Psychological, sociological and economic theories suggest causal pathways to explain how the prevalence of rule violations in people's social environment, such as corruption, tax evasion or political fraud, can compromise individual intrinsic honesty. Here we present cross-societal experiments from 23 countries around the world that demonstrate a robust link between the prevalence of rule violations and intrinsic honesty. We developed an index of the 'prevalence of rule violations' (PRV) based on country-level data from the year 2003 of corruption, tax evasion and fraudulent politics. We measured intrinsic honesty in an anonymous die-rolling experiment(5). We conducted the experiments with 2,568 young participants (students) who, due to their young age in 2003, could not have influenced PRV in 2003. We find individual intrinsic honesty is stronger in the subject pools of low PRV countries than those of high PRV countries. The details of lying patterns support psychological theories of honesty. The results are consistent with theories of the cultural co-evolution of institutions and values, and show that weak institutions and cultural legacies that generate rule violations not only have direct adverse economic consequences, but might also impair individual intrinsic honesty that is crucial for the smooth functioning of society.
Around the globe, people fight for their honor, even if it means sacrificing their lives. This is puzzling from an evolutionary perspective, and little is known about the conditions under which honor cultures evolve. We implemented an agent-based model of honor, and our simulations showed that the reliability of institutions and toughness of the environment are crucial conditions for the evolution of honor cultures. Honor cultures survive when the effectiveness of the authorities is low, even in very tough environments. Moreover, the results show that honor cultures and aggressive cultures are mutually dependent in what resembles a predator-prey relationship described in the renowned Lotka-Volterra model. Both cultures are eliminated when institutions are reliable. These results have implications for understanding conflict throughout the world, where Western-based strategies are exported, often unsuccessfully, to contexts of weak institutional authority wherein honor-based strategies have been critical for survival.
http://pss.sagepub.com/content/27/1/12
http://www.gelfand.umd.edu/papers/PSYS602860_REV.pdf
Additional resources: https://osf.io/btawq/
Perhaps no field of psychology is more strongly motivated and better equipped than evolutionary psychology to respond to the recent call for psychologists to expand their empirical base beyond WEIRD (Western Educated Industrialized Rich Democratic) samples. Evolutionary psychologists have historically focused their efforts on identifying species-specific psychological traits, for which evidence often hinged on the extent to which traits were generalizable across human groups. Now, a new generation of researchers is embracing cultural and environmental variation to test evolutionary hypotheses. Here we discuss how comparative research with diverse societies, while challenging, can help inform the complex nature of our species' psychology and in doing so, we outline best theoretical and methodological practices as well as common pitfalls in cross-cultural investigations. We end with a recommendation for the use of publicly available databases for cataloging psychological variation across the world's many diverse populations. Because of rapid culture change and globalization, it is more important now than ever to document what we know about the world's cultures in ways that can be used by future researchers.