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Liberals and Conservatives
Rely on Different Sets of
Moral Foundations
Jesse Graham, Jonathan Haidt, and Brian A. Nosek
University of Virginia
Background
• Most previous work done with undergraduate WEIRD populations
• Binding foundations previously focus of sources of immorality
Moral Foundations Theory
• Shweder’s three ethics
o Ethic of autonomy
o Ethic of community
o Ethic of divinity
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
• Fiske’s models of social relationships
o Equality matching
o Authority ranking
• Schwartz’s 10 value-types
o
o
o
o
o
Social justice
Protect environment
National security
Obedient
Clean
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.
The Moral Foundations
Harm/care
Fairness/reciprocity
Authority/respect
Ingroup/loyalty
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”
Harm/care
Fairness/reciprocity
Authority/respect
Study 1: Moral Relevance
Study 2: Moral Judgments
Study 3: Moral Trade-Offs
Study 4: Moral Texts
Ingroup/loyalty
Purity/sanctity
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
Method
Political 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”
Harm/care
Fairness/reciprocity
Authority/respect
Study 1: Moral Relevance
Purity/sanctity
✓
Study 2: Moral Judgments
Study 3: Moral Trade-Offs
Study 4: Moral Texts
Ingroup/loyalty
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
Method
Political 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”
Harm/care
Fairness/reciprocity
Authority/respect
✓
Study 2: Moral Judgments ✓
Study 1: Moral Relevance
Study 3: Moral Trade-Offs
Study 4: Moral Texts
Ingroup/loyalty
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
Method
Political 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”
Harm/care
Fairness/reciprocity
Authority/respect
✓
Study 2: Moral Judgments ✓
Study 3: Moral Trade-Offs ✓
Study 1: Moral Relevance
Study 4: Moral Texts
Ingroup/loyalty
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
Method
1. 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 sermons
5. 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”
Harm/care
Fairness/reciprocity
Authority/respect
✓
Study 2: Moral Judgments ✓
Study 3: Moral Trade-Offs ✓
Study 4: Moral Texts ✓
Study 1: Moral Relevance
Ingroup/loyalty
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 representative
o Selection bias
• Further directions
o Kinds of fairness
o Kinds of purity