Abstract
Moral foundations research suggests that liberals care about moral values related to individual rights such as harm and fairness, while conservatives care about those foundations in addition to caring more about group rights such as loyalty, authority, and purity. However, the question remains about how conservatives and liberals differ in relation to group-level moral principles. We used two versions of the moral foundations questionnaire with the target group being either abstract or specific ingroups or outgroups. Across three studies, we observed that liberals showed more endorsement of Individualizing foundations (Harm and Fairness foundations) with an outgroup target, while conservatives showed more endorsement of Binding foundations (Loyalty, Authority, and Purity foundations) with an ingroup target. This general pattern was found when the framed, target-group was abstract (i.e., ‘ingroups’ and ‘outgroups’ in Study 1) and when target groups were specified about a general British-ingroup and an immigrant-outgroup (Studies 2 and 3). In Studies 2 and 3, both Individualizing-Ingroup Preference and Binding-Ingroup Preference scores predicted more Attitude Bias and more Negative Attitude Bias toward immigrants (Studies 2 and 3), more Implicit Bias (Study 3), and more Perceived Threat from immigrants (Studies 2 and 3). We also demonstrated that increasing liberalism was associated with less Attitude Bias and less Negative Bias toward immigrants (Studies 2 and 3), less Implicit Bias (Study 3), and less Perceived Threat from immigrants (Studies 2 and 3). Outgroup-individualizing foundations and Ingroup-Binding foundations showed different patterns of mediation of these effects.
Highlights
To understand how people make sense of right and wrong in their social environment, Moral Foundations Theory proposed that five core moral values evolved to help direct social decisions and judgments (Haidt, 2012; Koleva et al, 2012)
A negative regression coefficient between Ingroup Preference Score and Political Ideology indicated that conservatives showed more endorsement and liberals less endorsement of the moral foundation when it
We found that political ideology did not relate significantly to Ingroup-Individualizing Foundations (Average of IngroupHarm and Ingroup-Fairness; Hypothesis 2a), but it did significantly relate to Ingroup-Binding Foundations (Average of Ingroup-Loyalty, Ingroup-Authority, and Ingroup-Purity; Hypothesis 2c); this effect showed that liberals were significantly less invested in the Ingroup-Binding foundations than were conservatives
Summary
To understand how people make sense of right and wrong in their social environment, Moral Foundations Theory proposed that five core moral values evolved to help direct social decisions and judgments (Haidt, 2012; Koleva et al, 2012). These moral foundations are Harm (e.g., decisions that hurt others), Fairness (e.g., giving everyone an equal chance), Loyalty (e.g., loyalty to a country or Intergroup Relations, Morality, and Ideology social group), Authority (e.g., respect for leaders, group roles, etc.), and Purity (e.g., cleanliness and religious sanctification; Haidt, 2007, 2012). A deeper understanding of these relationships can help improve the dialog and communication between people with different political orientations when they discuss issues related to intergroup processes (e.g., immigrants and policies related to those issues)
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