Endorsement Of Foundations Research Articles

Standing up or giving up? Moral foundations mediate political differences in evaluations of BLACK LIVES MATTER and other protests

AbstractBlack Lives Matter (BLM) protests challenge the existing social order whereas other protests do not (e.g., gun‐rights protests). Some protests even reinforce it (e.g., Blue Lives Matter protests). Protests challenging the social order align with “individualizing” moral foundations (e.g., fairness, harm/care) but undermine “binding” moral foundations (e.g., loyalty, authority), which may partially explain political differences in approval of protesting. Four studies examined whether moral foundation endorsement mediated the effect of political orientation on protest evaluations. In Study 1, liberals rated BLM protests and general protesting as more moral than conservatives, partially due to increased individualizing and decreased binding endorsement. Studies 2–4 replicated this pattern for BLM and general protesting, but these effects disappeared for gun‐rights protests and largely reversed for Blue Lives Matter protests, which uphold the status quo. These results suggest that protest evaluations partially reflect the moral values prioritized by different political groups.

Systemic sclerosis and the COVID-19 pandemic: World Scleroderma Foundation preliminary advice for patient management

Due to the frequent presence of interstitial lung disease and widespread use of immunosuppressive treatment, systemic sclerosis (SSc) patients may be considered at risk for a more severe disease course...

Seeing beyond political affiliations: The mediating role of perceived moral foundations on the partisan similarity-liking effect.

Decades of research have demonstrated that we like people who are more similar to us. The present research tested a potential mechanism for this similarity-liking effect in the domain of politics: the stereotype that people’s political orientation reflects their morals. People believe that Democrats are more likely to endorse individualizing morals like fairness and Republicans are more likely to endorse binding morals like obedience to authority. Prior to the 2016 election, American participants (N = 314) viewed an ostensible Facebook profile that shared an article endorsing conservative ideals (pro-Trump or pro-Republican), or liberal ideals (pro-Clinton or pro-Democrat). Participants rated the favorability of the profile-owner, and completed the Moral Foundations Questionnaire for the profile-owner and themselves. As predicted, participants liked the profile-owner more when they shared political beliefs, and used political stereotypes to infer the moral foundations of the profile-owner. Additionally, the perceived moral foundation endorsement of the profile owner differentially mediated the relationship between the ideology and evaluations of the profile owner based on the party affiliation of the participant: perceived individualizing foundations mediated the relationship for Democratic participants and perceived binding foundations mediated the relationship for Republican participants. In other words, people liked their in-group members more because they thought that the profile-owner endorsed a specific type of morals. In Study 2 (N = 486), we ruled out the potential explanation that any political stereotype can account for the similarity-liking effect, replicating the results of Study 1 even when controlling for perceptions of other personality differences. Taken together, these studies highlight that there may be something unique about the perceived type of morality of political in-group and out-group members that may be contributing to the similarity-liking effect in politics.

Moral Foundations and Voting Intention in Italy.

Based on the view of morality proposed by the Moral Foundations Theory, this paper investigates whether voting intention is associated with moral foundation endorsement in not perfectly bipolar electoral contexts. Three studies carried out in Italy from 2010 to 2013, showed that controlling for ideological orientation, moral foundation endorsement is associated with voting intention. In Study 1 and 3, in fictitious and real national elections, intention to vote for right-wing political groups rather than for left-wing rivals was associated with Sanctity, confirming previous results obtained in the U.S. Furthermore, as a function of the specific competing political groups in each of the examined contexts other moral foundations predicted voting intention. In Study 1, Care and Authority predicted voting intention for the major political groups rather than for an autonomist party that aimed at decreasing central government’s fiscal power in favor of fiscal regional autonomy. In Study 3, Loyalty predicted the intention to vote for the major parliamentarian parties rather than for a movement that aimed at capturing disaffection towards traditional politics. In Study 2, at real regional elections, Loyalty predicted voting intention for the incumbent right-wing governor rather than for the challengers and Fairness predicted voting intention for left-wing extra-parliamentarian political groups rather than for the major left-wing party. Thus multiple moral concerns can be associated with voting intention. In fragmented and unstable electoral contexts, at each election the context of the competing political groups may elicit specific moral concerns that can contribute to affect voting intention beyond ideological orientation.

Disgust sensitivity relates to moral foundations independent of political ideology.

Moral judgments seem related to the emotion disgust. Evolutionary considerations might illuminate the psychological processes underlying this relation. Several studies have noted that individuals who are more disgust sensitive condemn moral violations more strongly. However, this association could result from both disgust sensitivity and moral judgment being correlated with political ideology. To clarify the relationship between disgust sensitivity and moral judgment, we analyzed data from multiple published and unpublished datasets that included the Three-Domain Disgust Scale, the Moral Foundations Questionnaire, and a measure of ideology (total N = 2,478). Results showed that associations between disgust sensitivity and moral judgment remained when controlling for ideology. Each of the 3 types of disgust sensitivity uniquely predicted at least 1 of the 5 moral foundations. Moral disgust predicted scores for all moral foundations (largest effect for fairness/reciprocity). Sexual disgust predicted scores for all moral foundations except fairness/reciprocity (largest effect for purity/sanctity). Pathogen disgust had small predictive effects for ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity. All effects were positive (i.e., higher levels of disgust sensitivity were associated with greater moral foundation endorsement). These findings suggest specific relations between disgust sensitivity and moral judgment that are not explained by ideology, shedding further light on the functions of disgust and morality.

Boosting Belligerence

Major terrorist events, such as the recent attacks in Ankara, Sinai, and Paris, can have profound effects on a nation’s values, attitudes, and prejudices. Yet psychological evidence testing the impact of such events via data collected immediately before and after an attack is understandably rare. In the present research, we tested the independent and joint effects of threat (the July 7, 2005, London bombings) and political ideology on endorsement of moral foundations and prejudices among two nationally representative samples (combined N = 2,031) about 6 weeks before and 1 month after the London bombings. After the bombings, there was greater endorsement of the in-group foundation, lower endorsement of the fairness-reciprocity foundation, and stronger prejudices toward Muslims and immigrants. The differences in both the endorsement of the foundations and the prejudices were larger among people with a liberal orientation than among those with a conservative orientation. Furthermore, the changes in endorsement of moral foundations among liberals explained their increases in prejudice. The results highlight the value of psychological theory and research for understanding societal changes in attitudes and prejudices after major terrorist events.

Conservative Self-Enhancement

Political conservatism has been linked to motivated forms of social cognition, sensitivity to threat, and defensive cognitive styles. The present research examined whether liberal-conservative political ideology was associated with self-enhancement using large Internet samples across eight studies (N=13,002). Meta-analysis of these results revealed that the tendency to make overly positive self-evaluations was positively associated with general political conservatism, social conservatism, economic conservatism, and conservative patterns of moral foundation endorsement (.12 ≤ rrandom ≤ .13; .07 ≤ rfixed ≤ .10), even after controlling for key demographic variables (.08 ≤ rrandom ≤ .16; .03 ≤ rfixed ≤ .09). These findings suggest that, above and beyond previously studied variables, multiple forms of political conservatism predict a strengthened tendency to evaluate the self in an overly positive way.

Morality and Its Relation to Political Ideology

Our research investigated whether promotion concerns with advancement and prevention concerns with security related to moral beliefs and political ideology. Study 1 found that chronic prevention and promotion focus had opposite relations to binding foundation endorsement (as measured by the Moral Foundations Questionnaire), that is, positive for prevention and negative for promotion, and opposite relations to political ideology, that is, more conservative for prevention and more liberal for promotion, and the relation between focus and political ideology was partially mediated by binding foundation endorsement. Study 2 showed that promotion and prevention, even as situationally induced states, can contribute to differences in binding foundation endorsement, with prevention producing stronger endorsement (compared with a control) and promotion producing weaker endorsement.

The Moral Stereotypes of Liberals and Conservatives: Exaggeration of Differences across the Political Spectrum

We investigated the moral stereotypes political liberals and conservatives have of themselves and each other. In reality, liberals endorse the individual-focused moral concerns of compassion and fairness more than conservatives do, and conservatives endorse the group-focused moral concerns of ingroup loyalty, respect for authorities and traditions, and physical/spiritual purity more than liberals do. 2,212 U.S. participants filled out the Moral Foundations Questionnaire with their own answers, or as a typical liberal or conservative would answer. Across the political spectrum, moral stereotypes about “typical” liberals and conservatives correctly reflected the direction of actual differences in foundation endorsement but exaggerated the magnitude of these differences. Contrary to common theories of stereotyping, the moral stereotypes were not simple underestimations of the political outgroup's morality. Both liberals and conservatives exaggerated the ideological extremity of moral concerns for the ingroup as well as the outgroup. Liberals were least accurate about both groups.

The Endorsement of the Moral Foundations in Food-Related Moral Thinking in Three European Countries

Food has become a prominent object of everyday moral discussions. This study examines how gender, political orientation, and country of origin are connected to moral foundation endorsement in food-related moral thinking. Respondents were university students (N = 371) from Finland, Denmark, and Italy who completed a word association task, in that given stimulus words were “ethical food” and “unethical food.” Results showed a presence of five moral foundations in the data, and indicated high prevalence of the Purity/Sanctity foundation in food-related moral thinking. As expected, gender differences emerged in the endorsement of the Fairness/Reciprocity and the Purity/Sanctity foundations. Also, between-country differences emerged in four of the five moral foundations, indicating that even within Europe countries may differ from each other in their endorsement of foundations. The results also verified the previously found effect of political orientation in three of the five moral foundations, although the study used a completely new and different type of method compared with previous studies. The study concludes by proposing more cross-national comparative studies where the focus is on the specific objects of moral thinking.

The Moral Stereotypes of Liberals and Conservatives: Exaggeration of Differences Across the Political Divide

We investigated the moral stereotypes political liberals and conservatives have of themselves and each other. In reality, liberals endorse the individual-focused moral concerns of compassion and fairness more than conservatives do, and conservatives endorse the group-focused moral concerns of ingroup loyalty, respect for authorities and traditions, and physical/spiritual purity more than liberals do. 2,212 U.S. participants filled out the Moral Foundations Questionnaire with their own answers, or as a typical liberal or conservative would answer. Across the political spectrum, moral stereotypes about “typical” liberals and conservatives correctly reflected the direction of actual differences in foundation endorsement but exaggerated the magnitude of these differences. Contrary to common theories of stereotyping, the moral stereotypes were not simple underestimations of the political outgroup’s morality. Both liberals and conservatives exaggerated the ideological extremity of moral concerns for the ingroup as well as the outgroup. Liberals were least accurate about both groups.

The virtual university: legitimized at century’s end: future uncertain for the new millennium

As higher education enters an age of global convergence of human activities and knowledge, the virtual university gains acceptance on three fronts: accreditation, government support, and foundation endorsement. The current environment seems to favor the primacy of the instructor, with technology in a supporting role, and a mixture of profit and nonprofit motives. However, if education, like information, becomes a commodity, then other, less viable models may emerge.