Mapping the moral foundations of the European Union: Why a lack of moral diversity may undermine perceived EU legitimacy.

The stability and effectiveness of supranational organizations, like the European Union (EU), will improve when citizens perceive them as legitimate. Across three studies, two of which were preregistered, and a preregistered pilot study, we combined EU legal expertise with social psychological theory on morality to understand how perceived EU legitimacy is influenced by a sense of moral alignment with the EU. We propose that, currently, the EU gives more weight to values linked to "individualizing" moral foundations (e.g. compassion, social justice, and equality) than to values linked to "binding" moral foundations (e.g. patriotism, religion, and traditionalism). As this may leave people who endorse binding moral foundations feel unrepresented, we investigated whether the EU could gain legitimacy by appealing to values that resonate with binding moral foundations. In study 1, text analyses revealed that the European Commission President's State of the Union speeches indeed appeal more to individualizing than to binding moral foundations. Study 2 (n = 595) provided correlational evidence that the negative relationship between binding moral foundations and perceived EU legitimacy was mediated by lower moral alignment with EU law. Finally, study 3 (n = 567) showed through an experiment that reframing or rebalancing EU law to better align it with binding moral foundations could increase perceived EU legitimacy among people who endorse these moral foundations. The results illustrate the importance of understanding and attending to moral diversity among EU citizens. More generally, our work shows how a collaboration between social psychology and law contributes to safeguarding the legitimacy of supranational organizations.

People act when they feel obliged. Prosocial intentions toward Ukrainian refugees in Poland during the first two weeks of the war in Ukraine.

BACKGROUND: In February 2022, Poland became one of the most engaged countries in accepting Ukrainian refugees. Based on the norm activation model, the study, performed during the first two weeks of the war, examined the prosocial intentions of Poles toward Ukrainians in relation to the individualizing moral foundations (harm/care and fairness/reciprocity), as well as beliefs about the obligation of individual citizens to help. PARTICIPANTS AND PROCEDURE: The study was designed to investigate the views of Poles on helping Ukrainians in times of tension. On the second day of data collection, the war in Ukraine began. Therefore, the study shows the intentions of Poles to help refugees from Ukraine in the first days of full-scale war. A total of 139 people aged 18-71 years from the general public participated (102 females) in an online survey distributed through social media channels. RESULTS: The results show that individual obligation belief fully mediates the effect of individualizing moral foundations on prosocial behavior intentions. CONCLUSIONS: Based on the results, it could be concluded that during a refugee crisis, in line with the norm activation model, highlighting the personal obligation to provide support can be important to motivate people to help others in need. The effect of a sense of personal obligation is more important than the effect of an underlying individualizing morality.

Do moral values change with the seasons?

Moral values guide consequential attitudes and actions. Here, we report evidence of seasonal variation in Americans' endorsement of some-but not all-moral values. Studies 1 and 2 examined a decade of data from the United States (total N = 232,975) and produced consistent evidence of a biannual seasonal cycle in values pertaining to loyalty, authority, and purity ("binding" moral values)-with strongest endorsement in spring and autumn and weakest endorsement in summer and winter-but not in values pertaining to care and fairness ("individualizing" moral values). Study 2 also provided some evidence that the summer decrease, but not the winter decrease, in binding moral value endorsement was stronger in regions with greater seasonal extremity. Analyses on an additional year of US data (study 3; n = 24,199) provided further replication and showed that this biannual seasonal cycle cannot be easily dismissed as a sampling artifact. Study 4 provided a partial explanation for the biannual seasonal cycle in Americans' endorsement of binding moral values by showing that it was predicted by an analogous seasonal cycle in Americans' experience of anxiety. Study 5 tested the generalizability of the primary findings and found similar seasonal cycles in endorsement of binding moral values in Canada and Australia (but not in the United Kingdom). Collectively, results from these five studies provide evidence that moral values change with the seasons, with intriguing implications for additional outcomes that can be affected by those values (e.g., intergroup prejudices, political attitudes, legal judgments).

Expanding the empirical study of virtual reality beyond empathy to compassion, moral reasoning, and moral foundations.

This study utilizes a controlled experimental design to investigate the influence of a virtual reality experience on empathy, compassion, moral reasoning, and moral foundations. With continued debate and mixed results from previous studies attempting to show relationships between virtual reality and empathy, this study takes advantage of the technology for its ability to provide a consistent, repeatable experience, broadening the scope of analysis beyond empathy. A systematic literature review identified the most widely used and validated moral psychology assessments for the constructs, and these assessments were administered before and after the virtual reality experience. The study is comprised of two pre-post experiments with student participants from a university in the United States. The first experiment investigated change in empathy and moral foundations among 44 participants, and the second investigated change in compassion and moral reasoning among 69 participants. The results showed no significant change in empathy nor compassion, but significant change in moral reasoning from personal interest to post-conventional stages, and significant increase in the Care/harm factor of moral foundations. By testing four of the primary constructs of moral psychology with the most widely used and validated assessments in controlled experiments, this study attempts to advance our understanding of virtual reality and its potential to influence human morality. It also raises questions about our self-reported assessment tools and provides possible new insights for the constructs examined.

The Effects of Morally Reframed Messages on White Individuals' Attitudes Toward White Privilege.

Many White Americans are unaware of or tend to deny the existence of White privilege. One potential explanation for this denial is the belief that America functions as a meritocracy. Prior research suggests that morally reframed messages can change individuals' beliefs when the reframed messages align with their personal moral values. Contributing to the literature on morally reframed messages, the current pair of studies challenged individuals' beliefs about meritocracy in order to promote their awareness of White privilege. After demonstrating that morally reframed messages about America as a meritocracy can meaningful reflect five distinct moral foundations (i.e., Harm/Care, Fairness/Reciprocity, Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Respect, Purity/Sanctity), the current studies revealed that individuals who endorsed the moral values of Authority/Respect, Loyalty/Betrayal, and Purity/Sanctity (the binding foundations) reported stronger beliefs in meritocracy and less awareness of White privilege, whereas individuals who endorsed the moral values of Harm/Care and Fairness/Reciprocity (individualizing foundations) reported weaker beliefs in meritocracy and greater awareness of White privilege (Studies 1 and 2). Although the morally reframed messages promoted individuals' White privilege awareness compared to a control message (Study 2), the effectiveness of the messages was not enhanced when the messages aligned with individuals' moral values (Studies 1 and 2). The current pair of studies is the first to examine if individuals' endorsement of the five moral foundations can be used to change their beliefs about White privilege.

Moral trade-offs reveal foundational representations that predict unique variance in political attitudes.

Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) explains variation in moral judgements on the basis of multiple innate, intuitive foundations and has been subject to criticism over recent years. Prior research has tended to rely on explicit self-report in the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ). In contrast, we seek to capture intuitive choices between foundations in a novel task - the Moral Foundations Conflict Task (MFCT). Across four studies, responses on this task reflect foundations measured by the MFQ (study 1), are not altered under cognitive load or reduced cognitive control (studies 2a and 2b); and explain unique variance in political orientation and related constructs (study 3). Furthermore, using responses and response times generated on the MFCT, we present a computationally explicit model of foundation-related intuitive judgements and show that these patterns are consistent with the theoretical claims of MFT. These findings show that the MFCT outperforms the MFQ and can contribute to the understanding of moral value conflicts, furthering debate on the nature of moral values.

Shining the "Light" on Moral Foundations: Light Versus Dark Personality Relates More Strongly to Moral Foundations.

Endorsement of the moral foundations specified by Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) can sometimes fail to relate negatively to certain dispositions indicative of bad moral character. This evidence has fueled some concerns over whether the moral foundations in MFT are "moral." To increase understanding of how moral foundations relate to moral character, we proposed the "asymmetry hypothesis." This hypothesis states that "good" character is a more powerful predictor of each moral foundation than "bad" character. Put differently, there is an asymmetry in the strength (not merely direction) with which the moral foundations relate to encompassing indicators of good versus bad character. This is important because it suggests that links between the moral foundations and moral character will be somewhat concealed by focusing on bad character and/or not considering encompassing indicators of good character. A sample of college participants (N = 514) rated their endorsement of moral foundations and completed two sets of measures that represented encompassing indicators of both good and bad character. The data supported the asymmetry hypothesis: Each encompassing good-character assessment was a stronger predictor of each moral foundation than its corresponding encompassing bad-character assessment. Furthermore, variance unique to any good-character assessment had about moderate relations with each moral foundation, but variance unique to any bad-character assessment had no more than small relations with each moral foundation. The study provides a more nuanced understanding of how moral character relates to moral foundations and highlights utility in considering moral character as multidimensional.

Morality, Social Inclusion, and In-Group Superiority: The Differential Role of Individualizing and Binding Foundations in Perceptions of the Social Identity of In-Group and Out-Group Members.

Research into social identity and morality judgments typically focuses on how the former influences the latter. We approach this theme from the opposite direction, establishing the influence of morality on perceptions of social identity. In three studies, conducted in two cultures, we show that in-group members acting immorally are excluded from the group. Extending this investigation to the overlooked study of out-group-on-out-group behavior, in Studies 2 and 3, we compare perceptions of social inclusion for in-group members following (im)moral behavior toward the in-group with perceptions of out-group members following (im)moral behavior toward the out-group. We show that people treat in-group and out-group members alike with respect to binding morals, which concern preservation and protection of the group, but not individualizing morals, which concern preservation and protection of individual rights. Finally, in Study 3, we confirm the underlying motivating mechanism of reasserting in-group superiority by affirming the positive distinctiveness of one's own group.

Moral foundations, moral emotions, and moral distress in NICU nurses.

Background: Moral distress is common in neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) nurses. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationships between NICU nurses' moral foundations, moral emotions, and moral distress. Research design and method: This is an observational cross-sectional self-report questionnaire study. Participants and research context: One hundred and forty-two (24%) of 585 Level 3-4 NICU nurses completed pen-and-paper self-report measures of moral foundations (harm, fairness, ingroup, authority, and purity) (Moral Foundations Questionnaire-20), proneness to self-conscious moral emotions (guilt and shame) (modified Personal Feelings Questionnaire-2), and moral distress (futile care, compromised care, and untruthful care) (modified Revised Moral Distress Scale). Ethical considerations: Participation was voluntary and anonymous. The ethics committees of the participating hospitals approved the study protocol (HREC Reference: LNR/18/SCHN/316). Results: Non-parametric statistical analyses showed medium to large correlations between moral foundations and moral emotions. Moral foundations and moral emotions had trivial to small correlations with moral distress. Using a liberal p-value of <.10 for statistical significance because of the small sample size, harm (rs = 0.22) and fairness (rs = 0.16) predicted futile care, ingroup predicted compromised care (rs = 0.19) and untruthful care (rs = 0.15), and purity predicted untruthful care (rs = 0.15). Guilt-proneness predicted futile care (rs = 0.15). Shame-proneness did not predict moral distress. Conclusion: The correlations between moral foundations and moral emotions were significant. Moral foundations and guilt-proneness predicted one or more dimensions of moral distress. The smaller than expected effect sizes may have been owing to how moral foundations, moral emotions, and moral distress were conceptualized and measured, or to moral disengagement, including NICU nurses' possible reluctance to countenance aversive but morally warranted feelings of guilt and especially shame. Understanding the nature of these relationships may complement the efforts of NICU administrators, educators, counsellors, and nurses themselves to mitigate moral distress.

Moral foundations in autistic people and people with systemizing minds.

BACKGROUND: Do autistic people share the same moral foundations as typical people? Here we built on two prominent theories in psychology, moral foundations theory and the empathizing-systemizing (E-S) theory, to observe the nature of morality in autistic people and systemizers. METHODS: In dataset 1, we measured five foundations of moral judgements (Care, Fairness, Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity) measured by the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ) in autistic (n = 307) and typical people (n = 415) along with their scores on the Empathy Quotient (EQ) and Systemizing Quotient (SQ). In dataset 2, we measured these same five foundations along with E-S cognitive types (previously referred to as "brain types") in a large sample of typical people (N = 7595). RESULTS: Autistic people scored the same on Care (i.e., concern for others) as typical people (h1). Their affective empathy (but not their cognitive empathy) scores were positively correlated with Care. Autistic people were more likely to endorse Fairness (i.e., giving people what they are owed, and treating them with justice) over Care (h2). Their systemizing scores were positively correlated with Fairness. Autistic people or those with a systemizing cognitive profile had lower scores on binding foundations: Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity (h3). Systemizing in typical people was positively correlated with Liberty (i.e., hypervigilance against oppression), which is a sixth moral foundation (h4). Although the majority of people in all five E-S cognitive types self-identified as liberal, with a skew towards empathizing (h5), the percentage of libertarians was highest in systemizing cognitive types (h6). E-S cognitive types accounted for 2 to 3 times more variance for Care than did sex. LIMITATIONS: Our study is limited by its reliance on self-report measures and a focus on moral judgements rather than behavior or decision-making. Further, only dataset 2 measured political identification, therefore we were unable to assess politics in autistic people. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that some moral foundations in autistic people are similar to those in typical people (despite the difficulties in social interaction that are part of autism), and some are subtly different. These subtle differences vary depending on empathizing and systemizing cognitive types.

Meddling in the 2016 Elections and Satisfaction With Democracy in the US.

In this article, we investigate how external election interventions influence satisfaction with democracy. We expect that mere knowledge about a foreign intervention will not affect system support. Instead, only those who believe that the external influence campaign had a decisive impact on the election outcome should see a reduction in democratic satisfaction. Furthermore, since electoral winners are likely to think that their preferred party provides superior policy outputs, supporters of winning parties should be less affected by their beliefs in the decisiveness of an influence campaign. Finally, we expect that those who place a high value on in-group loyalty will be more likely to engage in motivated reasoning. Thus, in-group loyalty should cause electoral winners to discount the substantive impact of a given electoral intervention, whereas it should have the opposite effect for losers. Our analysis relies on US survey data, and it uncovers broad support for our theoretical expectations.

Meat and morality: The moral foundation of purity, but not harm, predicts attitudes toward cultured meat.

Cultured meat (also referred to as cultivated, cell-based, or cell-cultured meat) is a novel food technology that is presented as a method of meat production without reliance on large-scale industrial farming. The pro-cultured meat narrative rests, in part, on a moral foundation: cultured meat is purported to alleviate the environmental and animal welfare harms associated with farmed meat. Despite this narrative, no research has examined which moral values underpin attitudes towards cultured meat. To examine this, we surveyed 1861 participants from the United States and Germany about their moral foundations and their attitudes towards cultured meat. In line with predictions, people who more strongly endorse moral values about purity (i.e., had higher scores on the purity subscale of the moral foundations scale) held more negative attitudes towards cultured meat. However, this relationship was much more consistent among participants from the United States than participants from Germany. Against predictions, attitudes towards cultured meat were not reliably associated with the extent to which people focus on harm as a moral foundation. The latter finding was particularly surprising in light of harm-reduction narratives around cultured meat. These findings demonstrate the need for a more nuanced discussion about, and understanding of, consumer concerns around cultured meat and the values that underpin them.

A Crime by Any Other Name: Gender Differences in Moral Reasoning When Judging the Tax Evasion of Cryptocurrency Traders.

Tax evasion is a major issue for authorities worldwide. Understanding the factors that influence individuals' intrinsic motivation to pay taxes, known as their tax morale, is important for improving tax compliance. This study investigated gender differences in judging tax evasion in the context of cryptocurrency trading. Specifically, a survey study explored whether different moral foundations, financial literacies, and political orientations among females vs. males might explain potential gender differences in judging tax evasion. In an online survey, 243 U.S. adults read a vignette about a friend evading taxes in a cryptocurrency trading context. In a correlational analysis, we found that females judged tax evasion harsher, as being more morally wrong than males. Of the psychographic factors, only individualizing moral foundation values (i.e., fairness and harm avoidance) explained the harsher moral judgment by females. That is, individualizing moral foundation values were at a higher level among females, which further predicted females' harsher judgment of tax evasion. While females also had, on average, lower financial literacy and knowledge of cryptocurrencies than males, these did not predict their harsher judgment of tax evasion. The findings contribute to research on gender differences in moral judgments and highlight that a given transgression, or a specific crime, may violate different moral values in men and women. The results demonstrate to policy makers that it is important to take into account gender differences, in campaigns promoting tax morale and compliance.

Values in Context: The (Dis)connections Between Moral Foundations and Moral Conviction.

Moral foundations theory (MFT) argues that liberals and conservatives form different moral positions because liberals emphasize the values of harm and fairness, whereas conservatives emphasize the values of group loyalty, authority, and purity. In five studies (total N = 3,327), we investigated whether political orientation moderated the relationship between the perceived relevance of each moral foundation and moral conviction (i.e., the extent to which one perceives their attitude as based on morality) across four issues. Political differences in this relationship emerged but were inconsistent across issues and did not always align with the predictions of MFT or several other theoretical explanations. Our findings together with previous research indicate that MFT may do a better job predicting attitude position than it does predicting whether people perceive that their attitudes are moral convictions, and that some foundations may reflect conventional rather than moral values (e.g., authority).

AI Psychometrics: Assessing the Psychological Profiles of Large Language Models Through Psychometric Inventories.

We illustrate how standard psychometric inventories originally designed for assessing noncognitive human traits can be repurposed as diagnostic tools to evaluate analogous traits in large language models (LLMs). We start from the assumption that LLMs, inadvertently yet inevitably, acquire psychological traits (metaphorically speaking) from the vast text corpora on which they are trained. Such corpora contain sediments of the personalities, values, beliefs, and biases of the countless human authors of these texts, which LLMs learn through a complex training process. The traits that LLMs acquire in such a way can potentially influence their behavior, that is, their outputs in downstream tasks and applications in which they are employed, which in turn may have real-world consequences for individuals and social groups. By eliciting LLMs' responses to language-based psychometric inventories, we can bring their traits to light. Psychometric profiling enables researchers to study and compare LLMs in terms of noncognitive characteristics, thereby providing a window into the personalities, values, beliefs, and biases these models exhibit (or mimic). We discuss the history of similar ideas and outline possible psychometric approaches for LLMs. We demonstrate one promising approach, zero-shot classification, for several LLMs and psychometric inventories. We conclude by highlighting open challenges and future avenues of research for AI Psychometrics.

Rape or Homicide: Which Is Worse?

Some people believe rape is just as serious as homicide, or more serious, contrary to law. We examined the prevalence of this belief and whether it reflects an individual's political ideology and moral foundations. Analyses were based on a national YouGov survey of 1,125 US adults gathered in 2021. We found that only 26% of respondents believed rape was less serious than homicide. Most (61%) believed rape and homicide were equally serious, while 13% believed rape was more serious. Social progressives (particularly progressive women) were more likely than social conservatives to view rape as more serious or just as serious as homicide. However, this tendency was partially offset by the tendency of social progressives to view harm as a key factor in judging the morality of a behavior. We suggest that social progressives view rape more seriously than social conservatives because of their concern for gender inequality, but this concern is partially offset by their concern with harm.

Moral foundations and juror verdict justifications.

The purpose of this study was to examine the ways in which mock jurors justified their verdict decisions using moral foundations language. Participants read a trial transcript describing a second-degree murder charge featuring an automatism plea (which negates the physical volition of a crime). They then provided a two-to-three sentence rationale for their verdict choice, which we coded for the contextually-valid presence of words from the Moral Foundations (MF) Dictionary. Mock jurors were most likely to use harm-related language in justifying murder votes. A qualitative description also revealed differences in the content of the justifications.

Examining the role of moral foundations in promoting intergroup contact willingness.

Improving people's motivation to seek meaningful intergroup contact is considered key to facilitating intergroup harmony. Based on moral foundations theory, this study examines how moral foundations as individual traits predict contact willingness with three minority groups (foreign domestic helpers, LGBT, and Chinese expats) and how moral emotions mediate such associations. We tested our hypotheses based on survey data across Hong Kong and Singapore. We found that care/harm foundation positively predicted contact willingness with foreign domestic helpers and LGBT people, mediated by compassion. Sanctity/degradation foundation negatively predicted contact willingness with LGBT people only in Singapore. Loyalty/betrayal foundation served as a positive predictor of willingness to contact Chinese expats. We also found care/harm foundation to be exclusively associated with compassion and promoted willingness to contact with helpers and LGBT people. Our findings highlight the influence of moral foundations, and possibly norms and intergroup dynamics at the societal level in predicting willingness to contact outgroups.

A Teoria dos Fundamentos Morais e as eleições presidenciais brasileiras em 2018 e 2022 / The Moral Foundations Theory and the Brazilian Presidential Elections in 2018 and 2022

A Teoria dos Fundamentos Morais postula que liberais e conservadores são orientados por fun-damentos morais distintos, o que pode ser usado como estratégia de persuasão política, bem como influenciar no comportamento de voto. No presente trabalho, realizamos quatro estudos. Os participantes responderam a um instrumento online composto pelo Questionário de Funda-mentos Morais, uma medida de intenção de votos e informaram dados demográficos. Nos estu-dos foram identificados que a tendência individualizante influenciou a intenção de votos a can-didatos de esquerda, enquanto a tendência coesiva influenciou a intenção para candidatos de direita nas eleições presidenciais de 2018 e 2022. Conclui-se que a TFM é um modelo robusto para compreensão de aspectos do comportamento político brasileiro. (AU)

The Moral Foundations Theory postulates that liberals and conservatives are guided by distinct moral foundations, which can be used as a strategy for political persuasion, as well as influ-encing voting behavior. In the present paper, we carried out four studies. Participants re-sponded to an online instrument composed of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire, their in-tention to vote, to assign the position to candidates for the presidency, and their demographic data. The studies identified that the individualizing foundations influenced the intention to vote for left-wing candidates, while the binding foundations influenced the intention to vote for right-wing candidates in Brazil's 2018 and 2022 presidential elections. Therefore, the MFT is a robust model for understanding aspects of Brazilian political behavior. (AU)