How and why people want to be more moral.

OBJECTIVE: What types of moral improvements do people wish to make? Do they hope to become more good, or less bad? Do they wish to be more caring? More honest? More loyal? And why exactly do they want to become more moral? Presumably, most people want to improve their morality because this would benefit others, but is this in fact their primary motivation? Here, we begin to investigate these questions. METHOD: Across two large, preregistered studies (N = 1818), participants provided open-ended descriptions of one change they could make in order to become more moral; they then reported their beliefs about and motives for this change. RESULTS: In both studies, people most frequently expressed desires to improve their compassion and more often framed their moral improvement goals in terms of amplifying good behaviors than curbing bad ones. The strongest predictor of moral motivation was the extent to which people believed that making the change would have positive consequences for their own well-being. CONCLUSIONS: Together, these studies provide rich descriptive insights into how ordinary people want to be more moral, and show that they are particularly motivated to do so for their own sake.

The Effect of War Commemorations on Support for Diplomacy: A Five-Nation Study.

We remember the past in order not to repeat it, but does remembrance of war in fact shape support for military or diplomatic approaches to international conflict? In seven samples from five countries (collected online, total N = 2,493), we examined support for military and diplomatic approaches to conflict during war commemorations (e.g., Veterans Day). During war commemorations in the United States, support for diplomacy increased, whereas support for military approaches did not change. We found similar results in the United Kingdom and Australia on Remembrance Day, but not in Germany, or France, nor in Australia on Anzac Day. Furthermore, support for diplomacy was predicted by concern about loss of ingroup military lives during war, independently of concern about harm to outgroup civilians. These studies expand our understanding of how collective memories of war may be leveraged to promote diplomatic approaches to contemporary geopolitical conflict.

The Morality of War: A Review and Research Agenda.

What is judged as morally right and wrong in war? I argue that despite many decades of research on moral psychology and the psychology of intergroup conflict, social psychology does not yet have a good answer to this question. However, it is a question of great importance because its answer has implications for decision-making in war, public policy, and international law. I therefore suggest a new way for psychology researchers to study the morality of war that combines the strengths of philosophical just-war theory with experimental techniques and theories developed for the psychological study of morality more generally. This novel approach has already begun to elucidate the moral judgments third-party observers make in war, and I demonstrate that these early findings have important implications for moral psychology, just-war theory, and the understanding of the morality of war.

A fundamental asymmetry in judgments of soldiers at war.

How should we judge a soldier who is fighting for an unjust cause? Is such a soldier the moral equal of a soldier fighting for an opposing, just cause? According to traditional just war theory (Walzer, 2006), soldiers on either side of a war are moral equals, regardless of the justness of the cause for which they fight (the "principle of combatant equality"). According to revisionist just war theory, however, the justness of the soldiers' causes should inform moral judgments of their actions; on this view, our judgments of soldiers on either side of a just versus unjust war should therefore be asymmetric (McMahan, 2009). Despite intense philosophical debate regarding these 2 theories, little work has examined whether lay moral judgments accord with the principle of combatant equality. Assessing lay moral judgments is important because people's attitude toward soldiers may have a variety of consequences, ranging from their support for war, to their acceptance, rejection, or valorization of individual combatants. Across 9 studies, we find consistent evidence that ordinary individuals' judgments of soldiers' actions are influenced by the justness of the soldiers' causes, contrary to the principle of combatant equality. Two factors partially explain this effect: First, people implicitly presume that soldiers identify with the cause for which they fight, which influences moral judgments of their actions; second, people implicitly align themselves with the just side of a war, treating combatants on the just side as part of their ingroup, thus rendering more favorable moral judgments of them. Several other possible explanations were not supported. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Reflecting on Sacrifices Made by Past Generations Increases a Sense of Obligation Towards Future Generations.

Tackling climate change presents an intergenerational dilemma: People must make sacrifices today, to benefit future generations. What causes people to feel an obligation to benefit future generations? Past research has suggested "intergenerational reciprocity" as a potential driver, but this research is quite domain specific, and it is unknown how well it applies to climate change. We explored a novel means of invoking a sense of intergenerational reciprocity: inducing reflection on the sacrifices made by previous generations. Our studies revealed that such reflection predicts and causes a heightened sense of moral obligation towards future generations, mediated by gratitude. However, there are also some downsides (e.g., feelings of unworthiness), and perceptions of obligation do not substantially affect pro-environmental attitudes or motivations. Thus, while reflecting on past generations' sacrifices can generate a sense of intergenerational obligation, it is limited in the extent to which it can increase pro-environmental concern.

Rationalizing meat consumption. The 4Ns.

Recent theorizing suggests that the 4Ns - that is, the belief that eating meat is natural, normal, necessary, and nice - are common rationalizations people use to defend their choice of eating meat. However, such theorizing has yet to be subjected to empirical testing. Six studies were conducted on the 4Ns. Studies 1a and 1b demonstrated that the 4N classification captures the vast majority (83%-91%) of justifications people naturally offer in defense of eating meat. In Study 2, individuals who endorsed the 4Ns tended also to objectify (dementalize) animals and included fewer animals in their circle of moral concern, and this was true independent of social dominance orientation. Subsequent studies (Studies 3-5) showed that individuals who endorsed the 4Ns tend not to be motivated by ethical concerns when making food choices, are less involved in animal-welfare advocacy, less driven to restrict animal products from their diet, less proud of their animal-product decisions, tend to endorse Speciesist attitudes, tend to consume meat and animal products more frequently, and are highly committed to eating meat. Furthermore, omnivores who strongly endorsed the 4Ns tended to experience less guilt about their animal-product decisions, highlighting the guilt-alleviating function of the 4Ns.