Abstract
Prior work has suggested that existential threats in the form of terror attacks may shift liberals’ reliance on moral foundations to more resemble those of conservatives. We therefore hypothesized that endorsement of these moral foundations would have increased when the COVID-19 epidemic became a salient threat. To examine this hypothesis we conducted a longitudinal study with 237 American participants across the liberal-conservative spectrum, in which their endorsement of various moral foundations were measured before and after the advent of the pandemic. We did not find evidence of any systematic change in the endorsement of any moral foundation, neither in general nor specifically among liberals or specifically among those who perceived the greatest threat from COVID-19. We conclude that the threat from the pandemic does not seem to have had any substantial effect on the moral foundations that people rely on. We discuss how this finding relates to other longitudinal studies of the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on measures related to conservatism.
Highlights
According to moral foundations theory (Haidt and Joseph, 2007; Haidt, 2012), human morality boils down to a small set of distinct moral foundations: Harm, Fairness, Authority, Ingroup, and Purity.1 These foundations provide reasons for moral judgments
COVID-19 Effect on Moral Foundations moral foundation researchers group the moral foundations in two categories: Harm and Fairness are referred to as individualizing foundations because they are conceived as supporting individual-focused contractual approaches to society, while Authority, Ingroup, and Purity are referred to as binding foundations because they are conceived as binding people together into larger groups and institutions (Graham et al, 2011)
Based on prior research linking the historical prevalence of infectious diseases to endorsement of binding moral foundations (Van Leeuwen et al, 2012), we expected that binding moral foundations would be activated by the emergence of a novel infectious disease threat
Summary
According to moral foundations theory (Haidt and Joseph, 2007; Haidt, 2012), human morality boils down to a small set of distinct moral foundations: Harm, Fairness, Authority, Ingroup, and Purity (or Sanctity). These foundations provide reasons for moral judgments. This difference in what conservatives and liberals regard as relevant foundations of morality is thought to explain major political differences in moral judgments (Haidt, 2012; Koleva et al, 2012; Strimling et al, 2019) To describe this phenomenon, COVID-19 Effect on Moral Foundations moral foundation researchers group the moral foundations in two categories: Harm and Fairness are referred to as individualizing foundations because they are conceived as supporting individual-focused contractual approaches to society, while Authority, Ingroup, and Purity are referred to as binding foundations because they are conceived as binding people together into larger groups and institutions (Graham et al, 2011). The more people rely on binding foundations, the more conservative we expect their morality to be
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