No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
What Are the Irreducible Basic Elements of Morality? A Critique of the Debate Over Monism and Pluralism in Moral Psychology
Abstract
The debate between monists and pluralists in moral psychology has been framed as an argument over the number of “irreducible basic elements” that can be used to describe the extent of the moral domain: Do all moral values ultimately reduce to one principle (i.e., monism), or are there multiple irreducibly distinct moral values (i.e., pluralism)? I critique the premise of this debate, arguing that the breadth of the moral domain cannot be adequately represented, understood, or explained in terms of moral values. Instead, an adequate account of moral psychology must explain moral phenomena in terms of more basic elements: ontological frames.
... Capitalizing on the revisionist potential of the ontological turn as exemplified by Richard Shweder's (1992) work, Beal (2020) claims that the goal of psychology is not simply to predict the outcome but rather to understand the interpretative framework behind the outcome. More specifically, he argues that in order to get at people's interpretive framework, "the surest way is not to interrogate people's values but to look instead at their ontologies" (p. ...
... These two elements-the ecological niches of ST versus WT, and their corresponding rationalities-come together in a third, ontological, dimension, opened up by Beal's (2020) notion of ontological framing. How we relate to entities or persons in the world are ontological frames, because it is through this particular relationship that we perceive the world in certain ways. ...
... This dense summary of Shweder can be unpacked with Beal's (2020) proposal of a hierarchical organization of moral cognition: The ontological framing (a), such as "widow," constitutes the basis for the content of the frame (b) that is articulated as the evaluative, interpretative narratives of moral reasoning, such as "it is a sin to eat fish," which in turn gives rise to unique sensitivity or personal attachment to abstract values (c) such as loyalty or liberty. As exemplary of the ontological turn, Shweder's approach stands in sharp contrast to the conventional approach in psychology. ...
Strong Ties and Weak Ties Rationality Scale (STWTRS) is a theory-driven questionnaire designed to capture cultural differences in reasoning about the world. It is intended to demonstrate empirically the heuristic value of the ontological turn that shifts the focus of cultural analysis from the down-stream values, beliefs, and behaviors to the upstream process of thinking and reasoning that is rooted in the local ways of being. This paper will present theory development, preliminary results, and potential contributions of this scale toward better understanding of the culturally different other.
... Many scholars, some inspired by evolutionary thinking, have attempted to divide morality into distinct domains. For example, Moral Foundations Theory posits that the moral mind is composed of several domains-harm/care, fairness/reciprocity, ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity-each of which has a specific logic and ex-plains a particular type of moral value found in human societies (Beal, 2020;Graham et al., 2013;Haidt, 2012a;Haidt and Joseph, 2007a). More recently, Oliver Curry and colleagues have used evolutionary game theory to identify seven distinct domains of social behavior, each of which they suggest must involve a specific moral sense with a specific logic: family values, group loyalty, reciprocity, bravery, respect, fairness, and property rights (Curry, 2016;Curry et al., 2021). ...
... That is, they view morality as a set of distinct domains, each of which follows a particular logic. Moral foundations theory, for example, divides morality into five domains (harm/care, fairness/reciprocity, ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity), each of which explains a particular type of moral value (Beal, 2020;Graham et al., 2013;Haidt, 2012a;Haidt and Joseph, 2007a). The theory of morality as cooperation, developed by Oliver Curry and colleagues, proposes that each type of cooperative behavior expressed in the human species has a moral counterpart, so that morality is a heterogeneous sum of principles: family values, group loyalty, reciprocity, bravery, respect, fairness, and property rights (Curry, 2016;Curry et al., 2021, and see also Cosmides et al., 2021). ...
We use an evolutionary approach to explain the existence and design features of human moral cognition. Because humans are under selection to appear as good cooperative investments, they face a trade-off between maximizing the immediate gains of each social interaction and maximizing its long-term reputational benefits. In a simplified game, we show that this trade-off leads individuals to behave according to the generalized Nash bargaining solution at evolutionary equilibrium. From this result, we derive the psychological proposition that moral cognition is a calculator of this bargaining solution. Moral cognition computes reciprocal obligations that would maximize mutual benefit if each partners complied to them, and tags as morally wrong the behaviors that violate these reciprocal contracts. These contractualist computations entail that (i) everyone in a social interaction deserves to receive a net benefit, (ii) people ought to act in a way that would maximize social welfare if everyone acted in the same way, (iii) all domains of social behavior can be moralized, (iv) moral duties can appear deontological and principled, and (v) moral intuitions depend heavily on the context since morality is not a set of rigid rules, but the product of flexible calculations. We then apply this theory to some of the most important areas of morality, such as distributive justice, ownership rules, the prohibition of violence, special obligations toward kin and ingroups, as well as moralistic punishment and obedience to authorities. We show that the same logic of mutually beneficial contracts explains the design features of moral intuitions in all these domains, as well as their cultural variations.
... Many scholars, some of whom are inspired by evolutionary thinking, have tried to split morality into different domains. For instance, Moral Foundations Theory posits that the moral mind is composed of several domains-Harm/Care, Fairness/Reciprocity, Ingroup/Loyalty, Authority/Respect, and Purity/Sanctity-, each with a specific logic and explaining a particular type of moral value found in human societies (Beal, 2020;Graham et al., 2013;Haidt, 2012a;Haidt and Joseph, 2007a). More recently, Oliver Curry and colleagues used evolutionary game theory to identify seven different domains of social behaviors, for each of which they suppose must exist a specific moral sense with a specific logic: family values, group loyalty, reciprocity, bravery, respect, fairness and property rights (Curry, 2016;Curry et al., 2021). ...
... That is, they consider morality as a set of distinct domains, each obeying a specific logic. Moral foundations theory, for example, splits morality into five domains (Harm/Care, Fairness/Reciprocity, Ingroup/Loyalty, Authority/Respect, and Purity/Sanctity), each explaining a particular type of moral value (Beal, 2020;Graham et al., 2013;Haidt, 2012a;Haidt and Joseph, 2007a). The morality as cooperation theory, developed by Oliver Curry and colleagues, proposes that every type of cooperative behaviors expressed in the human species has a moral counterpart, so that morality is a heterogeneous sum of principles: family values, group loyalty, reciprocity, bravery, respect, fairness and property rights (Curry, 2016;Curry et al., 2021, and see also Cosmides et al., 2021). ...
Our goal in this paper is to use an evolutionary approach to explain the existence and design-features of human moral cognition. Our approach is based on the premise that human beings are under selection to appear as good cooperative investments. Hence they face a trade-off between maximizing the immediate gains of each social interaction, and maximizing its long-term reputational effects. In a simple 2-player model, we show that this trade-off leads individuals to maximize the generalized Nash product at evolutionary equilibrium, i.e., to behave according to the generalized Nash bargaining solution. We infer from this result the theoretical proposition that morality is a domain-general calculator of this bargaining solution. We then proceed to describe the generic consequences of this approach: (i) everyone in a social interaction deserves to receive a net benefit, (ii) people ought to act in ways that would maximize social welfare if everyone was acting in the same way, (iii) all domains of social behavior can be moralized, (iv) moral duties can seem both principled and non-contractual, and (v) morality shall depend on the context. Next, we apply the approach to some of the main areas of social life and show that it allows to explain, with a single logic, the entire set of what are generally considered to be different moral domains. Lastly, we discuss the relationship between this account of morality and other evolutionary accounts of morality and cooperation.
... In psychology, the ontological turn signifies a shift in cultural analysis from disconnected, fragmentary lists of attributes to a holistic approach that situates thinking and reasoning in local ways of being and relating to the world. This paradigm shift was advocated by Shweder (1992) and has been recently reiterated by Beal (2020). Taking the ontological turn one step further, we ground our methodology on Maturana and Varela's theory of autopoietic systems to conduct an empirical investigation of the ontological universes of cultural insiders. ...
... With Shweder (1992), we believe that to investigate the cultural insider's ontological universe, it is imperative to use holistic, rather than analytic, approaches. In this respect, a promising candidate, according to Beal (2020), is ontological framing/category. In response to Beal's call for a shift of focus in measurement from outcome (what one believes) to process (how one thinks), we capitalized on the thinking process behind ontological framing by developing a scale of strong ties and weak ties rationalities (i.e., STWTRS) and by defining rationality in terms of reasoning and thinking rather than Reason. ...
We developed the Strong Ties Weak Ties Rationality Scale (STWTRS) to demonstrate the heuristic value of the ontological turn which attempts to do justice to the cultural insider’s picture of what is real. To test empirically the hypothesis of the existence of two distinct ontological universes that fall along the divide between strong ties and weak ties ontological framings, we used STWTRS to conduct a cross-cultural study (n = 961) using four samples (i.e., Taiwanese, Yi Chinese, Asian American, and non-Asian American). The results support our claim that the ontological universe of the cultural insider is not a list of fragmentary, ever expanding list of attributes that proliferate in cross-cultural psychology, so much as a coherent wholeness. We argue that this concept is best articulated by Maturana and Varela’s (1980) theory of autopoietic living systems. Potential contributions to the literature and future research directions are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
... These "harmless wrongs", thus, are often deemed as critical blind spots of cooperationbased theories of morality, which regard morality as a cognitive adaptation to the challenges of cooperation recurrent in human social life (Alexander, 1987;Baumard et al., 2013;Curry, 2016;Stanford, 2018;Tomasello, 2016). Explaining the full breadth of the moral domain, researchers argue, requires (i) recognizing that "there is more to morality than harm and fairness" (Haidt, 2012), and (ii) adopting "pluralist" theories of the moral mind that make room for mechanisms generating moral intuitions without functioning for cooperation (Graham et al., 2013;Haidt, 2012;Haidt & Joseph, 2007; see also Beal, 2020). ...
... Is morality about more than harm and fairness? (Baumard et al., 2013b;Beal, 2020;Curry, Jones Chesters, et al., 2019;Curry, Mullins, et al., 2019;Goodwin, 2017;Graham et al., 2013;Greene, 2015;Piazza et al., 2019;Schein & Gray, 2018). Condemnations of purity violations (e.g., gluttony, lustful sexuality, intoxicants) have widely appeared as a critical argument in those debates. ...
Why do many people moralize harmless bodily pleasures, such as gluttony, masturbation, and drinking alcohol? In three pre-registered experiments (N > 1,600), we investigated whether this is because they perceive bodily pleasures as indirectly facilitating antisocial behaviors by altering self-control. In Study 1 and 2, participants judged that targets who increased (vs. decreased) their indulgence harmless sex, food, alcohol, and laziness had become less cooperative, an effect mediated by the perception that they had become less self-controlled. In Study 3, participants judged that relaxing regulations over sex, food, and alcohol in a village would decrease self-control and cooperation in the village, although they judged enforcing puritanical prohibitions even more negatively. In all studies, the perception that indulgence reduces self-control and cooperativeness predicted the moral condemnation of harmless bodily pleasures. This supports the idea that some purity violations, although apparently harmless, are moralized because they are perceived as indirectly affecting cooperation.
... Although human ("Earthling") morality is not determined by color perception, we argue in this article that moral judgment on Earth is determined by a perceptual mode-"ontological framing" (see Beal, 2020)-that is functionally analogous to Xling color perception. Ontological framing is just as determinative of Earthling moral judgment, and it is subject to an analogous paradox that might be called "framing realism": Perceived framing and its moral implications are implicitly understood by Earthlings to be universal, timeless, and context-independent; however, object-framing varies among Earthlings and even within individuals over time. ...
... Contemporary theories of moral cognition, such as Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) and the Theory of Dyadic Morality (TDM), propose that moral judgment involves a subject judging whether an action violates a principle of fairness, loyalty, authority, non-harm, etc. However, Beal (2020) points out that the meaning of these abstract principles is necessarily defined in terms of concrete "framing" of moral relationships. For instance, an action is not "disloyal" in abstraction, but only comes to fit this description under very specific conditions. ...
We describe moral cognition as a process occurring in a distinctive cognitive space, wherein moral relationships are defined along several morally relevant dimensions. After identifying candidate dimensions, we show how moral judgments can emerge in this space directly from object perception, without any appeal to moral rules or abstract values. Our reductive “minimal model” (Batterman & Rice, 2014) elaborates Beal’s (2020) claim that moral cognition is determined, at the most basic level, by “ontological frames” defining subjects, objects, and the proper relation between them. We expand this claim into a set of formal hypotheses that predict moral judgments based on how objects are “framed” in the relevant dimensions of “moral space.”
... Sobre la base de otros estudios(Beal, 2020;Hester & Gray, 2020;Royzman, Cusimano, Metas, & Leeman, 2020;Watkins, 2020),Schein (2020) propone una guía para estudiar la psicología moral en contexto, con los objetivos de precisar las conclusiones que se hagan y aclarar los detalles de la evidencia que se recopile. Esta guía se resume en cuatro ejes a manera de preguntas de investigación desde una perspectiva contextual de la psicología moral: actores, acciones, juicios y valores.Actores. ...
La psicología moral ha tenido avances científicos de suma relevancia para la psicología en general y ciencias afines. Se comparte un documento en español de los principales conocimientos existentes hasta la fecha (desde el punto de vista del autor) en torno al estudio psicológico de la moralidad.
... However, the polyphony principle carries additional implications, especially for the field of moral psychology. We cannot adequately characterize the complexity of moral cognition as current models do, by appealing to value-pluralism (see Beal, 2020). And we must move beyond the vague claim that people are imperfectly rational. ...
Bermúdez persuasively argues that framing effects are not as irrational as commonly supposed. In focusing on the reasoning of individual decision-makers in complex situations, however, he neglects the crucial role of the social-communicative context for eliciting certain framing effects. We contend that many framing effects are best explained in terms of basic, rational principles of discourse processing and pragmatic reasoning.
... However, the polyphony principle carries additional implications, especially for the field of moral psychology. We cannot adequately characterize the complexity of moral cognition as current models do, by appealing to value-pluralism (see Beal, 2020). And we must move beyond the vague claim that people are imperfectly rational. ...
Bermúdez argues that a framing effect is rational, which will be true if one accepts that the biased editing phase is rational. This type of rationality was called procedural by Simon. Despite being procedurally rational in the evaluation phase framing effect stems from biased way we set a reference point against which outcomes are compared.
... This apparent disconnect between puritanical morality and cooperation has sparked intense debates about the cognitive architecture of morality, opposing unitary models of moral cognition to theories dividing morality into distinct cognitive domains (Beal, 2020;Graham et al., 2013;Schein & Gray, 2018). Unitary theories argue that all moral judgements are produced by a single, functionally unified cognitive mechanism. ...
Why do many societies moralize apparently harmless pleasures, such as lust, gluttony, alcohol, drugs, and even music and dance? Why do they erect temperance, asceticism, sobriety, modesty, and piety as cardinal moral virtues? According to existing theories, this puritanical morality cannot be reduced to concerns for harm and fairness: it must emerge from cognitive systems that did not evolve for cooperation (e.g., disgust-based “Purity” concerns). Here, we argue that, despite appearances, puritanical morality is no exception to the cooperative function of moral cognition. It emerges in response to a key feature of cooperation, namely that cooperation is (ultimately) a long-term strategy, requiring (proximately) the self-control of appetites for immediate gratification. Puritanical moralizations condemn behaviors which, although inherently harmless, are perceived as indirectly facilitating uncooperative behaviors, by impairing the self-control required to refrain from cheating. Drinking, drugs, immodest clothing, and unruly music and dance, are condemned as stimulating short-term impulses, thus facilitating uncooperative behaviors (e.g., violence, adultery, free-riding). Overindulgence in harmless bodily pleasures (e.g., masturbation, gluttony) is perceived as making people slave to their urges, thus altering abilities to resist future antisocial temptations. Daily self-discipline, ascetic temperance, and pious ritual observance are perceived as cultivating the self-control required to honor prosocial obligations. We review psychological, historical, and ethnographic evidence supporting this account. We use this theory to explain the fall of puritanism in WEIRD societies, and discuss the cultural evolution of puritanical norms. Explaining puritanical norms does not require adding mechanisms unrelated to cooperation in our models of the moral mind.
... With Shweder (1992), we believe that to investigate the cultural insider's ontological universe, it is imperative to use holistic, rather than analytic, approaches. In this respect, a promising candidate, according to Beal (2020), is ontological framing/category. In response to Beal's call for a shift of focus in measurement from outcome (what one believes) to process (how one thinks), we capitalized on the thinking process behind ontological framing by developing a scale of strong ties and weak ties rationalities (i.e., STWTRS) and by defining rationality in terms of reasoning and thinking rather than Reason. ...
© 2022, American Psychological Association. This paper is not the copy of record and may not exactly replicate the final, authoritative version of the article. Please do not copy or cite without authors' permission. The final article will be available, upon publication, via its DOI: 10.1037/hum0000284
... It is a flexible model because it can explain varying moral standards even in the same group. The use of different kinds of theories other than the moral monism-pluralism dimension would contribute to an inclusive understanding of people's moral judgment in cultural contexts (see also Beal, 2020). ...
The present work reviews moral judgment from the perspective of culture. Culture is a dynamic system of human beings interacting with their environment, and morality is both a product of this system and a means of maintaining it. When members of a culture engage in moral judgment, they communicate their “social morality” and gain a reputation as a productive member who contributes to the culture’s prosperity. People in different cultures emphasize different moral domains, which is often understood through the individualism-collectivism distinction that is widely utilized in cultural psychology. However, traditional morality research lacks the interactive perspective of culture, where people communicate with shared beliefs about what is good or bad. As a consequence, past work has had numerous limitations and even potential confounds created by methodologies that are grounded in the perspective of WEIRD (i.e., Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic) cultures. Great attention should be paid to the possibly misleading assumption that researchers and participants share the same understanding of the stimuli. We must address this bias in sampling and in the minds of researchers and better clarify the concept of culture in intercultural morality research. The theoretical and practical findings from research on culture can then contribute to a better understanding of the mechanisms of moral judgment.
... These results add to a growing body of research suggesting that context matters for moral judgment-people judge differently depending on how much they value a target (Beal, 2020) or on the identity of people involved (Hester & Gray, 2020). Just as lay theories about free will, human goodness, and economics can influence moral judgments (Nettle & Saxe, 2020Shariff et al., 2014Shariff et al., , 2016, our data suggest that people's beliefs about men's sexual self-control can also predict moralization of important social issues. ...
Why do some people have negative views toward mundane behaviors such as women breastfeeding in public or wearing revealing clothing? We suggest that moral opposition to these behaviors may partly stem from their perceived effects on men’s sexual responses. We hypothesized that (a) people would stereotype men as having relatively less control of their sexual urges (i.e., lower sexual self-control) compared to women and that (b) stereotypes about men’s sexual self-control would uniquely predict attitudes about women’s mundane (but potentially sexually arousing) behaviors. Five studies show that (a) people stereotyped men (vs. women) as lacking sexual self-control (Study 1) and (b) endorsement of this stereotype was associated with opposition to public breastfeeding and immodest clothing (Studies 2-5). The effects hold even after controlling for potential confounds and seem specific to relevant moral domains, although women (vs. men) tend not to view these behaviors as moral issues.
... First, there is the ultimate goal of modeling the complex dynamics of moral cognition. Elsewhere (Beal, 2020;Beal & Gogia, 2021), I describe some of the problems that emerge from the field's lack of understanding of the deeper structure of moral cognition in contemporary models such as Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) (e.g., Graham et al., 2013Graham et al., , 2018Haidt, 2012) and the Theory of Dyadic Morality (TDM) (e.g., Gray et al., 2012;Schein & Gray, 2015, while also analyzing the literature on moral dilemmas (e.g., Foot, 1967;Greene, 2013;Kohlberg, 1981;Mikhail, 2007;Thomson, 1985), dehumanization (e.g., e.g., Harris & Fiske, 2006Haslam, 2006;Haslam & Loughnan, 2014; J.P. Leyens et al., 2007;J-P. Leyens et al., 2003), and moral expansiveness (Crimston et al., 2016(Crimston et al., , 2018. ...
Theorists seeking evidence of moral cognition – whether in human infants, nonhuman animals, or any other population – would benefit from a minimalistic description of what moral cognition is. However, such a definition has proven elusive. Some argue that debates over the existence (or not) of moral cognition in various populations turn on unresolvable semantic disagreement over how to characterize the moral domain. I acknowledge a semantic dimension to some disputes and identify another problem: Often, while sidestepping semantics, researchers rely on logically circular operationalizations, defining moral cognition in terms of elements that are already implicitly understood to be features of moral cognition, while failing to answer the question of what makes these features, or their combination, uniquely moral. The present article proposes a single solution to both problems. The issue of semantics is addressed by the identification of a naturally emerging and distinctive cognitive modality that is necessary to all definitions of moral cognition. The problem of circularity is overcome by a reduction of moral cognition to elements that are, in themselves, nonmoral. I call this distinctive combination of nonmoral elements the “molecular” structure of moral cognition.
... This apparent disconnect between puritanical morality and cooperation has sparked intense debates about the cognitive architecture of morality, opposing unitary models of moral cognition to theories dividing morality into distinct cognitive domains (Beal, 2020;Graham et al., 2013;Schein & Gray, 2018). Unitary theories argue that all moral judgements are produced by a single, functionally unified cognitive mechanism. ...
Why do many human societies condemn apparently harmless and pleasurable behaviors, such as lust, gluttony, drinking, drugs, gambling, or even music and dance? Why do they erect temperance, hedonic restraint, sobriety, decency and piety as cardinal moral virtues? While existing accounts consider this puritanical morality as an exception to the cooperative function of moral intuitions, we propose that it stems, like other moral concerns, from moral intuitions targeting cooperative challenges. Specifically, we argue that it emerges in response to a key feature of cooperation, namely that the latter is (ultimately) a long-term strategy, requiring (proximately) the self-control of appetites for immediate gratification. Puritanical moralizations condemn and praise behaviors which, although not intrinsically cooperative or uncooperative, are perceived as affecting people’s propensity to cooperate, by modifying their ability to resist short-term impulses conflicting with cooperative motivations. Drinking, drugs, unruly feasts, dances, and immodest clothing are condemned as stimulating people’s short-term impulses, thus facilitating uncooperative behaviors (e.g. adultery, violence, economic free-riding). Immoderate indulgence in harmless bodily pleasures (e.g. lust, masturbation, gluttony) is perceived as addictively reinforcing short-term impulses, thus making harder the self-control of future temptations to cheat. Moralizations of ascetic temperance, daily self-discipline, and pious ritual observance are perceived as nurturing the self-restraint consubstantial to a cooperative character, able to resist selfish temptations when the latter arise. We review psychological, historical, and ethnographic evidence supporting this account, and discuss its implications regarding the cross-cultural variations and cultural evolution of puritanical norms.
... The demarcation of boundaries of moral concern has profound implications for the treatment of all lifeforms (Opotow, 1990;Singer, 1981). Furthermore, understanding the processes underlying attributions of moral worth may provide a foundation for understanding moral cognition more broadly (Beal, 2020). Here, in a violation of standard depictions of the expansion of moral concern (see Crimston et al., 2018b), we found that some individuals ascribe substantial moral value to ontologically distant entities and lesser moral value to ontologically more similar entities. ...
Previous examinations of the scope of moral concern have focused on aggregate attributions of moral worth. However, because trade‐offs exist in valuing different kinds of entities, tabulating total amounts of moral expansiveness may conceal significant individual differences in the relative proportions of moral valuation ascribed to various entities. We hypothesized that some individuals (“tree‐huggers”) would ascribe greater moral worth to animals and ecosystems than to humans from marginalized or stigmatized groups, while others (“human‐lovers”) would ascribe greater moral worth to outgroup members than to the natural world. Additionally, because moral valuation is often treated as being zero‐sum, we hypothesized that there would be no difference in aggregate levels of moral concern between tree‐huggers and human‐lovers. Finally, because attributions of mental capacities substantially contribute to moral valuation, we predicted that tree‐huggers and human‐lovers would show different patterns of mind attribution for animals versus humans. Three studies (N = 985) yielded evidence in support of our hypotheses. First, over one‐third of participants valued nature over outgroups. Second, extending moral value to animals and nature was not indicative of more expansive moral concern overall; instead, tree‐huggers and human‐lovers were identical in their aggregate ascriptions of moral worth. Third, tree‐huggers had relatively amplified tendencies to attribute mental capacities to animals and relatively reduced tendencies to attribute mental capacities to outgroup members—thus having elevated rates of both anthropomorphism and dehumanization. These findings necessitate a reconceptualization of both the extension of moral worth and the attribution of minds.
... It is possible, for example, that our interventions led children to attend to the frequency with which certain people have differential abilities or the frequency with which certain people tend to exert differential effort, which could have in turn led children to prefer equality or merit, respectively (see Nisan, 1984). The degree to which moral belief change is necessarily yoked to changes in "informational assumptions" (Turiel et al., 1991) or "ontological frames" (Beal, 2020) is a critical area for future exploration. Crucially, however, regardless of whether storybooks and testimony promote change directly (by impacting moral principles without intermediary changes) or indirectly (by first altering children's perceptions of relevant descriptive facts), the end result is an enduring alteration of moral commitments, which demonstrates a form of receptivity to storybooks and testimony that has not previously been documented in moral socialization research. ...
Can social communication alter children's preexisting inclinations toward equality-based or merit-based forms of resource distribution? Six- to eight-year-old children's (N = 248) fairness preferences were evaluated with third-party distribution tasks before and after an intervention. Study 1 indicated that stories about beavers dividing wood had no impact on children's fairness preferences, while Study 2 indicated that brief, direct testimony was highly influential. Study 3 matched storybooks and testimony in content, with each discussing a situation resembling the distribution task, and both formats exerted a significant impact on children's fairness preferences that persisted across several weeks. There were some indications that interventions preaching the superiority of equality-based fairness were particularly effective, but there were no differences between reason-based and emotion-based interventions. Overall, storybooks and testimony can powerfully and enduringly change children's existing distributive justice preferences, as long as the moral lessons that are conveyed are easily transferable to children's real-world contexts.
... On a local level cultural clashes concerning values, beliefs, and morals can create disparities, feelings of injustice, unfairness, and ultimately deprivation. Scholars in the social sciences, and psychology in particular, need to pay special attention to the affects migration and increasing cultural -and therefore moral [54] -pluralism in once homogenous countries. ...
We review research applying relative deprivation theory to comprehend social, economic, and political phenomena relating to social change. We highlight areas illuminated by relative deprivation and limitations of this contemporary research. Next, we outline four theoretical elaborations of relative deprivation theory to advance understanding of complex socio-economic and political processes of underlying rallies, riots, and revolutions. We end by suggesting methodological approaches and research agendas to understand psychological processes of social change.
Bermúdez's “rational framing effects” are consequences of a counterintuitive phenomenon that I call “normative polyphony”: the reality that a single action may, with logical consistency, sustain diverse positive and negative judgments. I show that normative polyphony emerges from “ontological polyphony” – that is, diverse possible framings of relevant details – and illustrate this “polyphony principle” through a reading of Dostoevsky's (1993) Crime and Punishment .
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。
We locate our review of recent social scientific literature on non-western migrants in western liberal democracies within two opposing master narratives: a subtractive and an additive view of migration. Within this framework, we bring to light the contemporary conceptualizations of non-western migrants in psychology by focusing on trauma. We then examine the cultural and moral clashes that sometimes arise from trans-global migration and the psychology of integration. We end by highlighting the importance of further research on cultural pluralism and omniculturalism to help foster more peaceful and diverse societies.
There is a gap between morality as experienced and morality as studied. In our personal and professional lives, moral judgments are embedded within a specific context. We know the who, what, where, and when and often can infer the why; we know the broader context of actions; and we may have a specific relationship with the actors. However, scholarly theorizing is often built on inferences from participants’ responses to decontextualized, impoverished stimuli. In our quest for uncovering general psychological truths, moral psychologists have examined evaluations of poorly guarded trolleys, strangers with odd sexual proclivities, and endorsement of abstract principles. The four articles included in this section demonstrate the power of contextualizing morality. In the current article, I place these papers within a broader framework for how scholars can contextualize morality research. I then argue why contextualizing morality matters: not only do contextualized questions better reflect the nuances of reality but also contextualized judgments might be key for improving predictions of moral behavior and understanding moral change.
Black men tend to be stereotyped as threatening and, as a result, may be disproportionately targeted by police even when unarmed. Here, we found evidence that biased perceptions of young Black men's physical size may play a role in this process. The results of 7 studies showed that people have a bias to perceive young Black men as bigger (taller, heavier, more muscular) and more physically threatening (stronger, more capable of harm) than young White men. Both bottom-up cues of racial prototypicality and top-down information about race supported these misperceptions. Furthermore, this racial bias persisted even among a target sample from whom upper-body strength was controlled (suggesting that racial differences in formidability judgments are a product of bias rather than accuracy). Biased formidability judgments in turn promoted participants' justifications of hypothetical use of force against Black suspects of crime. Thus, perceivers appear to integrate multiple pieces of information to ultimately conclude that young Black men are more physically threatening than young White men, believing that they must therefore be controlled using more aggressive measures.
The burgeoning science of ethics has produced a trend toward pessimism. Ordinary moral thought and action, we're told, are profoundly influenced by arbitrary factors and ultimately driven by unreasoned feelings. This book counters the current orthodoxy on its own terms by carefully engaging with the empirical literature. The result is a cautious optimism grounded in the pervasive role of reason in our moral minds. While the science suggests that moral knowledge and virtue don't come easily, we needn't reject ordinary moral psychology as fundamentally flawed or in need of serious repair. Outstanding Features • An empirical defense of reason's power over the passions. • An aggressive attack on sentimentalism, one of the most popular theories in moral psychology. • A general rebuttal to an entire class of sweeping debunking arguments. • An illumination of the sources of moral ignorance and disagreements. • An updated defense of the existence of genuine altruism. • An empirical argument for the ability to do what's right for the right reasons. • A more optimistic picture of our moral minds.
Black men tend to be stereotyped as threatening and, as a result, may be disproportionately targeted by police even when unarmed. Here, we found evidence that biased perceptions of young Black men’s physical size may play a role in this process. The results of 7 studies showed that people have a bias to perceive young Black men as bigger (taller, heavier, more muscular) and more physically threatening (stronger, more capable of harm) than young White men. Both bottom-up cues of racial prototypicality and top-down information about race supported these misperceptions. Furthermore, this racial bias persisted even among a target sample from whom upper-body strength was controlled (suggesting that racial differences in formidability judgments are a product of bias rather than accuracy). Biased formidability judgments in turn promoted participants’ justifications of hypothetical use of force against Black suspects of crime. Thus, perceivers appear to integrate multiple pieces of information to ultimately conclude that young Black men are more physically threatening than young White men, believing that they must therefore be controlled using more aggressive measures.
The paper critically reexamines the well-known “Julie and Mark” vignette, a stylized account of two college-age siblings opting to engage in protected sex while vacationing abroad (e.g., Haidt, 2001). Since its inception, the story has been viewed as a rhetorically powerful validation of Hume’s “sentimentalist” dictum that moral judgments are not rationally deduced but arise directly from feelings of pleasure or displeasure (e.g., disgust). People’s typical reactions to the vignette are alleged to support this view by demonstrating that individuals are prone to become morally dumbfounded (Haidt, 2001; Haidt, Bjorklund, & Murphy, 2000), i.e., they tend to “stubbornly” maintain their disapproval of the act without supporting reasons. In what follows, we critically reassess the traditional account, predicated on the notion that, among other things, most subjects simply fail to be convinced that the siblings’ actions are truly harm-free, thus having excellent reasons to disapprove of these acts. In line with this critique, 3 studies found that subjects 1) tended not to believe that the siblings’ actions were in fact harmless; 2) notwithstanding that, and in spite of holding a number of “counterargument-immune” reasons, subjects could be effectively maneuvered into exhibiting all the trademark signs of a morally dumbfounded state (which they subsequently recanted), and 3) with subjects’ beliefs about harm and standards of normative evaluation properly factored in, a more rigorous assessment procedure yielded a dumbfounding estimate of about 0. Based on these and related results, we contend that subjects’ reactions are wholly in line with the rationalist model of moral judgment and that their use in support of claims of moral arationalism should be reevaluated.
Moral psychologists have used scenarios of abuse and murder to operationalize harm and chicken-masturbation and dog-eating to operationalize impurity. These scenarios reveal different patterns of moral judgment across harm and purity, ostensibly supporting distinct moral mechanisms, modules, or “foundations.” However, these different patterns may stem not from differences in moral content per se but instead from biased sampling that confounds content with weirdness and severity. Supporting this hypothesis, frequently used impurity scenarios are weirder and less severe than both harm scenarios (Study 1) and participant-generated impurity scenarios (Study 2). Weirdness and severity—not content—also appear to drive differences between act and character evaluations (Study 3). Also problematic for modular accounts are extremely high correlations between harm and impurity (rs > .86), and findings that harm scenarios assess impurity better than researcher-devised impurity scenarios. Overall, patterns of moral judgment previously ascribed to distinct moral mechanisms may reflect domain-general moral cognition.
People see immorality in sin and sex, but is “purity” a unique type of moral content, with unique cognition? Domain-general accounts—and parsimony—suggest that all moral content is processed similarly and that “purity” is merely a descriptive label. Conversely, domain-specific theories (e.g., moral foundations theory [MFT]) argue for a special purity module. Consistent with domain-general accounts, we demonstrated that purity concerns are not distinguished from harm concerns—in either MFT or naturalistic scenarios—and that controlling for domain-general dimensions eliminates effects previously ascribed to moral “modules.” Here, we reaffirm the strength of our data, exploring how issues raised by Graham reflect only weaknesses in MFT. Importantly, we identify several clear contradictions between Graham’s comment and past-published accounts of MFT. To the extent that MFT stands by its published stimuli, methodologies, and theoretical assumptions, we believe that we have disconfirmed MFT on its own terms.
Do moral disagreements regarding specific issues (e.g., patriotism, chastity) reflect deep cognitive differences (i.e., distinct cognitive mechanisms) between liberals and conservatives? Dyadic morality suggests that the answer is "no." Despite moral diversity, we reveal that moral cognition-in both liberals and conservatives-is rooted in a harm-based template. A dyadic template suggests that harm should be central within moral cognition, an idea tested-and confirmed-through six specific hypotheses. Studies suggest that moral judgment occurs via dyadic comparison, in which counter-normative acts are compared with a prototype of harm. Dyadic comparison explains why harm is the most accessible and important of moral content, why harm organizes-and overlaps with-diverse moral content, and why harm best translates across moral content. Dyadic morality suggests that various moral content (e.g., loyalty, purity) are varieties of perceived harm and that past research has substantially exaggerated moral differences between liberals and conservatives.
© 2015 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.
The present research provides the first systematic empirical investigation into superhumanization, the attribution of supernatural, extrasensory, and magical mental and physical qualities to humans. Five studies test and support the hypothesis that White Americans superhumanize Black people relative to White people. Studies 1-2b demonstrate this phenomenon at an implicit level, showing that Whites preferentially associate Blacks versus Whites with superhuman versus human words on an implicit association test and on a categorization task. Studies 3-4 demonstrate this phenomenon at an explicit level, showing that Whites preferentially attribute superhuman capacities to Blacks versus Whites, and Study 4 specifically shows that superhumanization of Blacks predicts denial of pain to Black versus White targets. Together, these studies demonstrate a novel and potentially detrimental process through which Whites perceive Blacks.
Many people judge suicide to be immoral. We have found evidence that these moral judgments are primarily predicted by people’s belief that suicide taints the soul and by independent concerns about purity. This finding is inconsistent with accounts that define morality as fundamentally based upon harm considerations. In this commentary, we respond to a critique of our finding, and we provide further support for our original conclusions. Even when applying new exclusion criteria to our data, an examination of effect sizes demonstrates that concerns about purity robustly and meaningfully explain variance in moral judgments of suicide. While harm concerns sometimes predict moral judgments of suicide alongside purity concerns, they reliably explain a much smaller proportion of the variance than do purity concerns. Therefore, data from six studies continue to suggest that the relevance of harm concerns for moral judgments of suicide is substantially overshadowed by the contribution of purity concerns.
Recent research with moral dilemmas supports dual-process model of moral decision making. This model posits two different paths via which people can endorse utilitarian solution that requires personally harming someone in order to achieve the greater good (e.g., killing one to save five people): (i) weakened emotional aversion to the prospect of harming someone due to reduced empathic concern for the victim; (ii) enhanced cognition which supports cost-benefit analysis and countervails the prepotent emotional aversion to harm. Direct prediction of this model would be that personality traits associated with reduced empathy would show higher propensity to endorse utilitarian solutions. As per this prediction, we found that trait alexithymia, which is well-known to have deficits in empathy, was indeed associated with increased utilitarian tendencies on emotionally aversive personal moral dilemmas and this was due to reduced empathic concern for the victim. Results underscore the importance of empathy for moral judgments in harm/care domain of morality.
When something is wrong, someone is harmed. This hypothesis derives from the theory of dyadic morality, which suggests a moral cognitive template of wrongdoing agent and suffering patient (i.e., victim). This dyadic template means that victimless wrongs (e.g., masturbation) are psychologically incomplete, compelling the mind to perceive victims even when they are objectively absent. Five studies reveal that dyadic completion occurs automatically and implicitly: Ostensibly harmless wrongs are perceived to have victims (Study 1), activate concepts of harm (Studies 2 and 3), and increase perceptions of suffering (Studies 4 and 5). These results suggest that perceiving harm in immorality is intuitive and does not require effortful rationalization. This interpretation argues against both standard interpretations of moral dumbfounding and domain-specific theories of morality that assume the psychological existence of harmless wrongs. Dyadic completion also suggests that moral dilemmas in which wrongness (deontology) and harm (utilitarianism) conflict are unrepresentative of typical moral cognition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).
The aim of this study was to investigate Colombian children’s evaluations of locus of control, compliance, teacher legitimacy, and teacher methods of conflict resolution regarding personal, moral, and social-conventional interactions in the classroom setting. Sixty-three middle class Colombian children at 3 years (n = 20), 5 years (n = 24), and 7 years (n = 19) of age, almost evenly divided by gender, were individually interviewed. With increasing age, children judged that children, not teachers, should make decisions (locus of control) about choice of activities and choice of playmates, and for some social-conventional issues as well. The vast majority of children, with increasing age, preferred that teachers use negotiation and explanation instead of punishment when responding to all types of conflicts, personal, moral, and social-conventional ones. Colombian children’s reasoning about personal, moral, and social-conventional events was not strictly “hierarchical” or “authority-oriented” as might be expected from recent cultural theorising.
Observations and interviews were conducted in the Virgin Islands to examine the forms of responses adults and preschool children provided to moral and social conventional transgressions, and to determine whether children and adolescents made a conceptual distinction between morality and convention. Findings from both portions of the study paralled outcomes of previous observational and interview studies conducted with subjects in the United States. The observations in Virgin Islands preschools revealed that the responses of both adults and children to social conventional events differed from their responses to moral events. Both children's and adults' responses to moral events focused upon the intrinsic (hurtful or unjust) consequences of the actions upon victims. In contrast, the responses of both children and adults to transgressions of social conventions revolved around aspects of social order.Two forms of convention were observed: conventional school regulations and general conventions. Almost all responses to transgressions of conventional school regulations were initiated by adults. Children and adults responded with equal frequency to transgressions of general conventions. Interviews conducted with the preschool children revealed that they discriminated between the observed moral and conventional transgressions. These results were concordant with findings from interviews in the second portion of the study that older children and adolescents of the Virgin Islands treated conventional but not moral issues as relative.
The purpose of this study was to examine whether children in a non-Western cultural context make conceptual distinctions between morality and social convention. Fifty children from Busan, Korea, 10 each in kindergarten, third, sixth, ninth, and twelfth grades, were presented with prototypical moral and conventional transgressions. They made judgments of rule contingency, generalizability, and permissibility and also justified the wrongness of the acts. At all ages, children treated moral transgressions as more generalizably wrong and independent of rules than conventional transgressions. All transgressions were seen as not permissible, but moral transgressions were judged as less permissible than conventional transgressions. Younger children (kindergarten and Grade 3) judged conventional transgressions as less permissible than older children. Further, all children justified moral transgressions on the basis of obligation, fairness, and welfare, whereas they justified conventional transgressions on the basis of authority, social nonconformity, social coordination, prudential reasons, and (among young children) sanctions and pragmatic reasons. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Examined the impact of contextual factors on Indian and American adults' and children's (
N = 180) tendencies to hold agents morally accountable for justice breaches. Results revealed that Indians more frequently absolved agents of moral accountability for breaches performed under emotional duress or by young children than did Americans. Breaches were less frequently categorized in moral terms when moral reasoning and accountability judgments were assessed simultaneously than when only moral reasoning was assessed. Discussion considered (1) the impact of nonmoral beliefs on cultural and age differences in everyday moral judgment; (2) the use of personal-choice reasoning in weighting of extenuating circumstances; and (3) the methodological importance of focusing simultaneously on responsibility appraisals and social domain categorizations in understanding contextual influences on moral reasoning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Developmental theorists have struggled with defining the relations among biology, psychology, and sociocultural context, often reducing psychological functions of a person to either biological functioning or the role of sociocultural context - nature or nurture - and considering each area of human development separately. New Perspectives on Human Development addresses fundamental questions of development with a unified approach. It encompasses theory and research on cognitive, social and moral, and language and communicative development, in various stages of life, and explores interdisciplinary perspectives. New Perspectives on Human Development revisits old questions and applies original empirical findings, offering new directions for future research in the field.
People perceive that if their memories and moral beliefs changed, they would change. We investigated why individuals respond this way. In Study 1, participants judged that identity would change more after changes to memories and widely shared moral beliefs (e.g., about murder) versus preferences and controversial moral beliefs (e.g., about abortion). The extent to which participants judged that changes would affect their relationships predicted identity change (Study 2) and mediated the relationship between type of moral belief and perceived identity change (Study 3). We discuss the role that social relationships play in judgments of identity and highlight implications for psychology and philosophy.
Moral judgments about harm versus impurity differ in a number of nonsuperficial ways, as shown by dozens of studies, conducted by dozens of separate research labs, using a wide variety of methods and stimuli. Gray and Keeney attempt to explain away these differences by arguing that the “confounds” of severity and typicality may account for them all. This comment examines the evidence for this claim. Severity and typicality are undoubtedly important factors for moral judgment, but Gray and Keeney fail to demonstrate that they account for any (much less all) of the harm/impurity differences in the literature. Correlated ratings of “harm” and “impurity” are redundant with severity (.93 ≤ rs ≤ .97), merely tracking overall wrongness. The conclusion that harm and impurity judgments don’t meaningfully differ at all, that all the functional and cognitive differences in the literature are “illusions” resulting from confounds and “sampling bias,” is entirely unwarranted by the present studies.
There is a widespread notion, both within the sciences and among the general public, that mental deterioration can rob individuals of their identity. Yet there have been no systematic investigations of what types of cognitive damage lead people to appear to no longer be themselves. We measured perceived identity change in patients with three kinds of neurodegenerative disease: frontotemporal dementia, Alzheimer's disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Structural equation models revealed that injury to the moral faculty plays the primary role in identity discontinuity. Other cognitive deficits, including amnesia, have no measurable impact on identity persistence. Accordingly, frontotemporal dementia has the greatest effect on perceived identity, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis has the least. We further demonstrated that perceived identity change fully mediates the impact of neurodegenerative disease on relationship deterioration between patient and caregiver. Our results mark a departure from theories that ground personal identity in memory, distinctiveness, dispositional emotion, or global mental function.
© The Author(s) 2015.
Where does morality come from? Why are moral judgments often so similar across cultures, yet sometimes so variable? Is morality one thing, or many? Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) was created to answer these questions. In this chapter, we describe the origins, assumptions, and current conceptualization of the theory and detail the empirical findings that MFT has made possible, both within social psychology and beyond. Looking toward the future, we embrace several critiques of the theory and specify five criteria for determining what should be considered a foundation of human morality. Finally, we suggest a variety of future directions for MFT and moral psychology.
Part I. The Nature of Morality and the Development of Social Values: 1. Morality and domains of social knowledge 2. Morality and religious rules 3. Morality and the personal domain 4. Morality in context: issues of development 5. Morality in context: issues of culture 6. Morality and emotion 7. Reconceptualizing moral character Part II. Classroom Applications: 8. Creating a moral atmosphere 9. Integrating values education into the curriculum: a domain approach 10. Fostering the moral self Conclusion: keeping things in perspective Additional resources.
A thought-provoking examination of how explanations of social and moral development inform our understandings of morality and culture. A common theme in the latter part of the twentieth century has been to lament the moral state of American society and the decline of morality among youth. A sharp turn toward an extreme form of individualism and a lack of concern for community involvement and civic participation are often blamed for the moral crisis. Turiel challenges these views, drawing on a large body of research from developmental psychology, anthropology, sociology as well as social events, political movements, and journalistic accounts of social and political struggles. Turiel shows that generation after generation has lamented the decline of society and blamed young people. Using historical accounts, he persuasively argues that such characterizations of moral decline entail stereotyping, nostalgia for times past, and a failure to recognize the moral viewpoint of those who challenge traditions.
Two prominent theories offer different perspectives on the role of harm in moral cognition. Dyadic morality suggests that harm-related concerns are pervasive, whereas moral pluralism suggests that these concerns apply only to canonically harmful violations (e.g., murder), and not impure violations (e.g., suicide). Rottman et al. (2014) contrast these two theories by examining moral judgments of suicide. They conclude that suicide wrongness is independent of harm, therefore arguing against dyadic morality and for moral pluralism. However, these conclusions may be overstated; across all these studies, a meta-analysis reveals that harm is a significant predictor of suicide judgments. Moreover, the association between harm and suicide wrongness may be suppressed in individual studies by insufficient power, restrictive exclusion criteria, a single bivariate outlier, and reliance upon the conventional significance threshold of p < .05. In revised analyses harm is robustly associated with suicide wrongness, consistent with dyadic morality.
It has often been suggested that the mind is central to personal identity. But do all parts of the mind contribute equally? Across five experiments, we demonstrate that moral traits—more than any other mental faculty—are considered the most essential part of identity, the self, and the soul. Memory, especially emotional and autobiographical memory, is also fairly important. Lower-level cognition and perception have the most tenuous connection to identity, rivaling that of purely physical traits. These findings suggest that folk notions of personal identity are largely informed by the mental faculties affecting social relationships, with a particularly keen focus on moral traits.
In the current resurgence of interest in the biological basis of animal behavior and social organization, the ideas and questions pursued by Charles Darwin remain fresh and insightful. This is especially true of The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, Darwin's second most important work. This edition is a facsimile reprint of the first printing of the first edition (1871), not previously available in paperback. The work is divided into two parts. Part One marshals behavioral and morphological evidence to argue that humans evolved from other animals. Darwin shoes that human mental and emotional capacities, far from making human beings unique, are evidence of an animal origin and evolutionary development. Part Two is an extended discussion of the differences between the sexes of many species and how they arose as a result of selection. Here Darwin lays the foundation for much contemporary research by arguing that many characteristics of animals have evolved not in response to the selective pressures exerted by their physical and biological environment, but rather to confer an advantage in sexual competition. These two themes are drawn together in two final chapters on the role of sexual selection in humans. In their Introduction, Professors Bonner and May discuss the place of The Descent in its own time and relation to current work in biology and other disciplines.
The study examined moral judgments and concepts of social convention in Ijo communities located in the Niger Delta areas of Southern Nigeria. The main data analyses were based on responses from 46 subjects divided into three age groups: 8-11 years, 12-14 years, and 15-18 years (preliminary data were also obtained in a small village). Assessments were made of judgments about examples of a moral transgression and a breach of social convention. The examples used were based on pretesting for issues relevant to the community. With regard to each type of issue, subjects were asked to evaluate transgressions, provide explanations for their evaluations, and the extent to which punishment should be administered to the transgressors. Subjects were also posed with questions pertaining to the origins and alterability of rules, and authority jurisdiction over the rules. The findings showed differences in subjects' conceptual orientations to moral and conventional issues. Age differences were also found, mainly between the children and adolescents, in the patterns of responses to the various dimensions assessed. The findings indicate that two social conceptual orientations coexist in the Nigerian communities.
Where does morality come from? Why are moral judgments often so similar across cultures, yet sometimes so variable? Is morality one thing, or many? Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) was created to answer these questions. In this chapter we describe the origins, assumptions, and current conceptualization of the theory, and detail the empirical findings that MFT has made possible, both within social psychology and beyond. Looking toward the future, we embrace several critiques of the theory, and specify five criteria for determining what should be considered a foundation of human morality. Finally, we suggest a variety of future directions for MFT and for moral psychology.
Dehumanized perception, a failure to spontaneously consider the mind of another person, may be a psychological mechanism facilitating inhumane acts like torture. Social cognition–considering someone’s mind–recognizes the other as a human being subject to moral treatment. Social neuroscience has reliably shown that participants normally activate a social-cognition neural network to pictures and thoughts of other people; our previous work shows that parts of this network uniquely fail to engage for traditionally dehumanized targets (homeless persons or drug addicts; see Harris & Fiske, 2009, for review). This suggests participants may not consider these dehumanized groups’ minds. Study 1 demonstrates that participants do fail to spontaneously think about the contents of these targets’ minds when imagining a day in their life, and rate them differently on a number of human-perception dimensions. Study 2 shows that these human-perception dimension ratings correlate with activation in brain regions beyond the social-cognition network, including areas implicated in disgust, attention, and cognitive control. These results suggest that disengaging social cognition affects a number of other brain processes and hints at some of the complex psychological mechanisms potentially involved in atrocities against humanity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)