The effects of culture and moral foundations on moral judgments: The ethics of authority mediates the relationship between power distance and attitude towards lying to one’s supervisor

Abstract

We tested whether moral judgments in a cross-cultural setting are related to both culture and moral foundations. Our objective was to verify if the relationship between cultural power distance and moral judgment of both egoistic and other-oriented lies told to one’s supervisor is mediated by adherence to the ethics of authority. We analyzed data from Mexican, Spanish, Estonian, Dutch, Swedish, and Polish respondents (N = 1176). The hypothesized mediation effects were found to be significant: higher power distance entailed more negative moral judgments. Power distance was positively related to the ethics of authority, which was in turn related to harsher moral judgments. When we controlled for the influence of the ethics of authority, power distance was no longer related to moral judgments.