The Psychology of Moral Conviction.

This review covers theory and research on the psychological characteristics and consequences of attitudes that are experienced as moral convictions, that is, attitudes that people perceive as grounded in a fundamental distinction between right and wrong. Morally convicted attitudes represent something psychologically distinct from other constructs (e.g., strong but nonmoral attitudes or religious beliefs), are perceived as universally and objectively true, and are comparatively immune to authority or peer influence. Variance in moral conviction also predicts important social and political consequences. Stronger moral conviction about a given attitude object, for example, is associated with greater intolerance of attitude dissimilarity, resistance to procedural solutions for conflict about that issue, and increased political engagement and volunteerism in that attitude domain. Finally, we review recent research that explores the processes that lead to attitude moralization; we integrate these efforts and conclude with a new domain theory of attitude moralization.

The roles of disgust and harm perception in political attitude moralization.

What causes people to see their political attitudes in a moral light? One answer is that attitude moralization results from associating one's attitude stance with feelings of disgust. To test the possibility that disgust moralizes, the current study used a high-powered preregistered design looking at within-person change in moral conviction paired with an experimental manipulation of disgust or anger (versus control). Results from the preregistered analyses found that we successfully induced anger but not disgust; however, our manipulation had no effect on moral conviction. Additional exploratory analyses investigating whether emotion and harm predicted increases in moral conviction over time found that neither disgust, anger, nor sadness had an effect on moralization, whereas perceptions of harm did predict moralization. Our findings are discussed in terms of their implications for current theory and research into attitude moralization.

Women's irrational beliefs about traditional feminine sex role stereotypes with the Multi-cultural version of the O' Kelly Women Beliefs Scale / Ideas irracionales de las mujeres sobre los estereotipos tradicionales del rol sexual femenino con la versión Multi-cultural de la "Escala O 'Kelly de creencias de la mujer"

To explore variation in the content of women's beliefs about traditional feminine sex role stereotypes, we ran a confirmatory factor analysis on data from a multi-national sample of 1643 women who completed the 30-item multicultural version of the O’Kelly Women Beliefs Scale. Analyses testing whether the data best conformed to a one- or a three-factor structure found that both models appeared to fit the data equally well. To further explore if distinguishing between different domains of irrational beliefs yielded greater explanatory power, we ran an additional exploratory factor analysis. Results showed that there were differences in the relative mount of variance explained by each of the three content areas initially included in the original version of the instrument; work and profession, love and sex, and self-sacrifice and victimization. The work and profession content area accounted for a larger percentage of the variance (33.41%) relative to the other subscales. Results were explained in terms of the relative influence of multi-national changes in the number of women joining the workforce over the past several decades

Para explorar la variación en el contenido del pensamiento irracional de las mujeres sobre los estereotipos tradicionales del rol sexual femenino utilizamos un análisis factorial confirmatorio en los datos de la versión multicultural de 30 ítems de la "Escala O' Kelly de creencias de la mujer", provenientes de una muestra multinacional de 1643 mujeres. Los resultados encontraron que los datos formaban de manera adecuada modelos con estructuras de uno y tres factores. A continuación, un análisis factorial exploratorio indicó diferencias en el valor relativo de la varianza de tres áreas cuyo contenido provino de la versión original del instrumento: trabajo y profesión, amor y sexo, y autosacrificio y victimización. El área de trabajo y profesión presentó un mayor porcentaje de la varianza total (33,41%) que las otras subescalas. Los resultados fueron explicados en términos de la relativa importancia dada por cambios multinacionales en el número de mujeres que han ingresado al área laboral en las últimas décadas

Moral Punishment in Everyday Life.

The present research investigated event-related, contextual, demographic, and dispositional predictors of the desire to punish perpetrators of immoral deeds in daily life, as well as connections among the desire to punish, moral emotions, and momentary well-being. The desire to punish was reliably predicted by linear gradients of social closeness to both the perpetrator (negative relationship) and the victim (positive relationship). Older rather than younger adults, conservatives rather than people with other political orientations, and individuals high rather than low in moral identity desired to punish perpetrators more harshly. The desire to punish was related to state anger, disgust, and embarrassment, and these were linked to lower momentary well-being. However, the negative effect of these emotions on well-being was partially compensated by a positive indirect pathway via heightened feelings of moral self-worth. Implications of the present field data for moral punishment research and the connection between morality and well-being are discussed.

Utopian Hopes or Dystopian Fears? Exploring the Motivational Underpinnings of Moralized Political Engagement.

People are more likely to become politically engaged (e.g., vote, engage in activism) when issues are associated with strong moral convictions. The goal of this research was to understand the underlying motivations that lead to this well-replicated effect. Specifically, to what extent is moralized political engagement motivated by proscriptive concerns (e.g., perceived harms, anticipated regret), prescriptive concerns (e.g., perceived benefits, anticipated pride), or some combination of these processes? And are the motivational pathways between moral conviction and political engagement the same or different for liberals and conservatives? Two studies (combined N = 2,069) found that regardless of political orientation, the association between moral conviction and political engagement was mediated by the perceived benefits of preferred but not the perceived harms of non-preferred policy outcomes, and by both anticipated pride and regret, findings that replicated in two contexts: legalizing same-sex marriage and allowing concealed weapons on college campuses.

Moralization Through Moral Shock: Exploring Emotional Antecedents to Moral Conviction.

The current research tested whether exposure to disgusting images increases moral conviction and whether this happens in the presence of incidental disgust cues versus disgust cues relevant to the target of moralization. Across two studies, we exposed participants to one of the four sets of disgusting versus control images to test the moralization of abortion attitudes: pictures of aborted fetuses, animal abuse, non-harm related disgusting images, harm related disgusting images, or neutral pictures, at either sub- or supraliminal levels of awareness. Moral conviction about abortion increased (compared with control) only for participants exposed to abortion-related images at speeds slow enough to allow conscious awareness. Study 2 replicated this finding, and found that the relationship between attitudinally relevant disgust and moral conviction was mediated by disgust, and not anger or harm appraisals. Findings are discussed in terms of their relevance for intuitionist theories of morality and moral theories that emphasize harm.

Social psychology. Response to Comment on "Morality in everyday life".

Voelkle challenges our conclusions regarding the relationship between morality and momentary happiness/sense of purpose based on methodological concerns. We show that our main conclusions are not affected by this methodological critique and clarify that the discrepancies between our and Voelkle's effect size estimates can be reconciled by the realization that two different (but compatible) research questions are being asked.

Morality in everyday life.

The science of morality has drawn heavily on well-controlled but artificial laboratory settings. To study everyday morality, we repeatedly assessed moral or immoral acts and experiences in a large (N = 1252) sample using ecological momentary assessment. Moral experiences were surprisingly frequent and manifold. Liberals and conservatives emphasized somewhat different moral dimensions. Religious and nonreligious participants did not differ in the likelihood or quality of committed moral and immoral acts. Being the target of moral or immoral deeds had the strongest impact on happiness, whereas committing moral or immoral deeds had the strongest impact on sense of purpose. Analyses of daily dynamics revealed evidence for both moral contagion and moral licensing. In sum, morality science may benefit from a closer look at the antecedents, dynamics, and consequences of everyday moral experience.

Political ideology is contextually variable and flexible rather than fixed.

Hibbing et al. argue that the liberal-conservative continuum is (a) universal and (b) grounded in psychological differences in sensitivity to negative stimuli. Our commentary argues that both claims overlook the importance of context. We review evidence that the liberal-conservative continuum is far from universal and that ideological differences are contextually flexible rather than fixed.

The expulsion from Disneyland: the social psychological impact of 9/11.

People expressed many different reactions to the events of September 11th, 2001. Some of these reactions were clearly negative, such as political intolerance, discrimination, and hate crimes directed toward targets that some, if not many, people associated with the attackers. Other reactions were more positive. For example, people responded by donating blood, increasing contributions of time and money to charity, and flying the American flag. The goal of this article is to review some of Americans' negative and positive reactions to 9/11. We also describe two frameworks, value protection and terror management theory, that provide insights into Americans' various reactions to the tragedy of 9/11.

Gut reactions: moral conviction, religiosity, and trust in authority.

Theory and research point to different ways moral conviction and religiosity connect to trust in political authorities to decide controversial issues of the day. Specifically, we predicted that stronger moral convictions would be associated with greater distrust in authorities such as the U.S. Supreme Court making the "right" decisions regarding controversial issues. Conversely, we predicted that stronger religiosity would be associated with greater trust in authorities. We tested these hypotheses using a survey of a nationally representative sample of Americans (N = 727) that assessed the degree to which people trusted the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on the legal status of physician-assisted suicide. Results indicated that greater religiosity was associated with greater trust in the U.S. Supreme Court to decide this issue, and that stronger moral convictions about physician-assisted suicide were associated with greater distrust in the U.S. Supreme Court to decide this issue. Also, the processes underlying religious trust and distrust based on moral convictions were more quick and visceral than slow and carefully considered.