Liberals and Conservatives Rely on Different Sets of Moral Foundations
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Transcript of Liberals and Conservatives Rely on Different Sets of Moral Foundations
Liberals and ConservativesRely on Different Sets of
Moral Foundations
Jesse Graham, Jonathan Haidt, and Brian A. Nosek
University of Virginia
Background
Shweder, R. A., Much, N. C., Mahapatra, M., & Park, L. (1997). The “big three” of morality (autonomy, community, and divinity), and the “big three” explanations of suffering. In A. Brandt & P. Rozin (Eds.), Morality and health ( pp. 119-169). New York: Routledge
• Most previous work done with undergraduate WEIRD populations
• Binding foundations previously focus of sources of immorality
Fiske, A. P. (1992). Four elementary forms of sociality: Framework for a unified theory of social relations. Psychological Review, 99, 689-723.
Schwartz, S. H. (1992). Universals in the content and the structure of values. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 25, pp. 1-65). New York: Academic Press.
Moral Foundations Theory• Shweder’s three ethics
o Ethic of autonomyo Ethic of communityo Ethic of divinity
• Fiske’s models of social relationshipso Equality matchingo Authority ranking
• Schwartz’s 10 value-typeso Social justiceo Protect environmento National securityo Obediento Clean
The Moral Foundations
Harm/care Fairness/reciprocity Ingroup/loyalty
Authority/respect Purity/sanctity
Study 1: Moral Relevance
Study 2: Moral Judgments
Study 3: Moral Trade-Offs
Study 4: Moral Texts
Harm/care Fairness/reciprocity Ingroup/loyalty
Authority/respect Purity/sanctity
Moral Foundations Hypothesis: “Political liberals construct their moral systems primarily upon two psychological foundations—Harm/care and Fairness/reciprocity—whereas political conservatives construct moral systems more evenly upon five psychological foundations”
Study 1: Moral Relevance
How relevant are various concerns when making moral judgments?
Prediction:Liberals: rate individualizing foundations as more
relevant than conservatives
Conservatives: rate binding foundations as more relevant than liberals
Study 1: Moral Relevance
MethodPolitical self-identification:
strongly liberal. . . .moderate. . . .strongly conservative
“When you decide whether something is right or wrong, to what extent are the following considerations relevant to your thinking?”
-high relevance ratings on “Whether or not someone believed in astrology” canceled participant
Study 1: Moral Relevance
Results
Moral Foundations Hypothesis: “Political liberals construct their moral systems primarily upon two psychological foundations—Harm/care and Fairness/reciprocity—whereas political conservatives construct moral systems more evenly upon five psychological foundations”
Study 1: Moral Relevance
Study 2: Moral Judgments
Study 3: Moral Trade-Offs
Study 4: Moral Texts
Harm/care Fairness/reciprocity Ingroup/loyalty
Authority/respect Purity/sanctity
✓
Study 2: Moral Judgments
Moral judgments based on implicit and explicit political identity
Prediction:Liberals: agree with judgments favoring individualizing
foundations more than conservatives
Conservatives: agree with judgments favoring binding foundations more than liberals
Study 2: Moral Judgments
MethodPolitical self-identification:
strongly liberal. . . .moderate. . . .strongly conservative
“When you decide whether something is right or wrong, to what extent are the following considerations relevant to your thinking?”
-high relevance ratings on “Whether or not someone believed in astrology” canceled participant
Study 2: Moral Judgments
Method
“To what extent do you agree with the following moral judgments?”
Study 2: Moral Judgments
Results
Moral Foundations Hypothesis: “Political liberals construct their moral systems primarily upon two psychological foundations—Harm/care and Fairness/reciprocity—whereas political conservatives construct moral systems more evenly upon five psychological foundations”
Study 1: Moral Relevance
Study 2: Moral Judgments
Study 3: Moral Trade-Offs
Study 4: Moral Texts
Harm/care Fairness/reciprocity Ingroup/loyalty
Authority/respect Purity/sanctity
✓✓
Study 3: Moral Trade-Offs
For what price would you violate your moral values?
Prediction:Liberals would be more willing than conservatives
to trade off binding foundations
Study 3: Moral Trade-Offs
MethodPolitical self-identification:
strongly liberal. . . .moderate. . . .strongly conservative
“Try to imagine actually doing the following things, and indicate how much money someone would have to pay you (anonymously and secretly) to be willing to do each thing. For each action, assume that nothing bad would happen to you afterwards. Also assume that you cannot use the money to make up for your action. If you prefer to thank about Euros or any other currency, please do. The exact amounts are not very important.”
$0 (for free), $10 , $100, $10,000, $100,000 , $1,000,000 , never
Study 3: Moral Trade-Offs
Method“Try to imagine actually doing the following things, and indicate how much money someone would have to pay you (anonymously and secretly) to be willing to do each thing.”
Study 3: Moral Trade-Offs
Results
Moral Foundations Hypothesis: “Political liberals construct their moral systems primarily upon two psychological foundations—Harm/care and Fairness/reciprocity—whereas political conservatives construct moral systems more evenly upon five psychological foundations”
Study 1: Moral Relevance
Study 2: Moral Judgments
Study 3: Moral Trade-Offs
Study 4: Moral Texts
Harm/care Fairness/reciprocity Ingroup/loyalty
Authority/respect Purity/sanctity
✓✓✓
Study 4: Moral Texts
Do particular moral foundations characterize sermons delivered to liberal communities and conservative communities?
Prediction:Liberals (Unitarian Universalist): greater emphasis
on individualizing foundations
Conservatives (Southern Baptist): greater emphasis on binding foundations
Study 4: Moral Texts
Method1. Identify liberal and conservative Christian denominations (liberal:
Unitarian Universalist ; conservative: Southern Baptist)2. Locate databases of sermons (text form)3. Create Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count program dictionary:
- core concepts: harm and care, fairness and reciprocity, ingroup and loyalty, authority and respect, purity and sanctity- associations, synonyms, and antonyms (supporting and violating)
4. Count word frequencies in sermons5. Evaluate context
- 1 for support- -1 for negation- 0 for unclear or irrelevant
Study 4: Moral Texts
Results
Study 4: Moral Texts
Results
Moral Foundations Hypothesis: “Political liberals construct their moral systems primarily upon two psychological foundations—Harm/care and Fairness/reciprocity—whereas political conservatives construct moral systems more evenly upon five psychological foundations”
Study 1: Moral Relevance
Study 2: Moral Judgments
Study 3: Moral Trade-Offs
Study 4: Moral Texts
Harm/care Fairness/reciprocity Ingroup/loyalty
Authority/respect Purity/sanctity
✓✓✓
✓
Conclusion & Further Directions• All 4 studies supported the Moral Foundations Hypotheses• Liberal morality concerned primarily with care/harm and
fairness/reciprocity• Conservative morality concerned with all foundations evenly• Limitations
o Samples not representativeo Selection bias
• Further directionso Kinds of fairnesso Kinds of purity