The congruency between moral foundations and intentions to donate, self-reported donations, and actual donations to charity

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.

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.

When Future Leads to a Moral Present: Future Self-Relatedness Predicts Moral Judgments and Behavior in Everyday Life

Future self-perceptions seem to promote far-sighted decisions in intertemporal choices. Previous work suggested that future self-relatedness, the extent to which we feel similar and connected to our future self, is associated with moral concerns. We aimed to extend these findings to everyday moral judgments and behavior using experience sampling methods. In addition, we assessed how moral foundation concerns mediate the relationship between future self-relatedness and moral behavior. Participants (N = 151) reported their state-levels of future self-relatedness, individualizing, and binding moral foundations and answered whether they performed a moral action five times a day for seven days. Within- and between-participants future self-relatedness predicted daily fluctuations in individualizing and binding moral foundations concerns. On the behavioral level, only within-participants future self-relatedness predicted individualizing moral actions with individualizing moral foundations mediating this effect. Our findings suggest that within- and between-person changes in future self-relatedness might be used to predict everyday moral concerns and behavior.

Do moral intuitions influence judges' sentencing decisions? A multilevel study of criminal court sentencing in Pennsylvania

The influence of judges' personal moral values on their sentencing decisions is of longstanding interest to researchers and the public. Few studies, however, have examined this influence empirically. Using a unique data set that combines a survey of 81 criminal court judges with archival data on their 40,385 criminal sentences over a 2-year period, and drawing on Moral Foundations Theory, we hypothesize that judges with strong care and fairness intuitions will sentence defendants less severely while judges with strong loyalty, authority, and sanctity intuitions will sentence defendants more severely. We further hypothesize that these effects will be heightened when the defendant is from a racial minority group. Results show that sentencing outcomes are largely independent of judges' moral intuitions, except that fairness intuitions tend to increase leniency, especially when the defendant is Black, and sanctity intuitions tend to decrease leniency. Implications for future research on sentencing are discussed.

The moral foundations of cryptocurrency: evidence from Twitter and survey research

Despite its relatively brief history, cryptocurrency has already had a profound impact on the economy, with some predicting that it will eventually replace traditional fiat currencies. Historically, it had dark associations with illegal activities in the early days, although perceptions and associations likely have, in recent years, changed for the better. Thus, understanding how people perceive the morality of cryptocurrency currently forms the motivation of the current research. We, in particular, examine associations dependent on political ideology. Across both a large-scale analysis of Twitter posts (N = 959,393) and controlled survey research (N = 487), we find that cryptocurrency is currently best understood as being more strongly linked to conservative vs. liberal moral foundations. Cryptocurrency-related posts were more likely to express conservative moral foundations (Authority, Purity, and Loyalty) rather than liberal moral foundations (Fairness and Care), and individual endorsement of these conservative moral foundations was associated with increased interest in crypto investment.

Moral foundations theory and the narrative self: towards an improved concept of moral selfhood for the empirical study of morality

Within the empirical study of moral decision making, people's morality is often identified by measuring general moral values through a questionnaire, such as the Moral Foundations Questionnaire provided by Moral Foundations Theory (MFT). However, the success of these moral values in predicting people's behaviour has been disappointing. The general and context-free manner in which such approaches measure moral values and people's moral identity seems crucial in this respect. Yet, little research has been done into the underlying notion of self. This article aims to fill this gap. Taking a phenomenological approach and focusing on MFT, we examine the concept of moral self that MFT assumes and present an improved concept of moral self for the empirical study of morality. First, we show that MFT adopts an essentialist concept of moral self, consisting of stable moral traits. Then, we argue that such a notion is unable to grasp the dynamical and context sensitive aspects of the moral self. We submit that Ricoeur's narrative notion of identity, a self that reinterprets itself in every decision situation through self-narrative, is a viable alternative since it is able to incorporate context sensitivity and change, while maintaining a persisting moral identity. Finally, we argue that this narrative concept of moral self implies measuring people's morality in a more exploratory fashion within a delineated context.

Market mindset reduces endorsement of individualizing moral foundations, but not in liberals

People with a market mindset attend to ratios and rates, and allocate rewards adequately to costs but are less sensitive to feelings. In this project, we demonstrate that activating a market mindset also affects people’s acceptance of free-market principles and their endorsement of individualizing moral dimensions—care/harm and fairness/cheating. Experiment 1 documented that a market mindset positively impacted people’s endorsement of fair market ideology. Experiments 2 and 3 showed that the salience of such a market mindset hampered the importance of individualizing moral dimensions. Importantly, we found that political orientation moderated the negative effect of a market mindset on the endorsement of individualizing moral foundations—this effect held for participants who declared moderate and conservative political orientations, but not for liberals.

Moral Foundations Predict COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy: Evidence from a National Survey of Black Americans

In this study we examine the role of moral values in predicting COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among Black Americans. Guided by moral foundations theory, we assess the associations between six moral foundations (care, fairness, loyalty, authority, purity, liberty) and attitudes and intentions toward COVID-19 vaccination. Results of a national survey of Black Americans (N = 1,497) indicate that the care and loyalty moral foundations consistently predicted less vaccine hesitancy with overall more favorable attitudes and intentions toward COVID-19 vaccination, whereas the purity and liberty moral foundations were consistently associated with greater vaccine hesitancy. Relationships between the foundations and vaccine hesitancy were mediated by perceived vaccine effectiveness and safety. Implications of the findings for COVID-19 vaccine communication are discussed.

Moral values, social ideologies and threat-based cognition: Implications for intergroup relations

Moral foundations theory (MFT) has provided an account of the moral values that underscore different cultural and political ideologies, and these moral values of harm, fairness, loyalty, authority, and purity can help to explain differences in political and cultural ideologies; however, the extent to which moral foundations relate to strong social ideologies, intergroup processes and threat perceptions is still underdeveloped. To explore this relationship, we conducted two studies. In Study 1 (N = 157), we considered how the moral foundations predicted strong social ideologies such as authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO) as well as attitudes toward immigrants. Here, we demonstrated that more endorsement of individualizing moral foundations (average of harm and fairness) was related to less negative intergroup attitudes, which was mediated by SDO, and that more endorsement of binding moral foundations (the average of loyalty, authority, and purity) was related to more negative attitudes, which was mediated by RWA. Crucially, further analyses also suggested the importance of threat perceptions as an underlying explanatory variable. Study 2 (N = 388) replicated these findings and extended them by measuring attitudes toward a different group reflecting an ethnic minority in the United States, and by testing the ordering of variables while also replicating and confirming the threat effects. These studies have important implications for using MFT to understand strong ideologies, intergroup relations, and threat perceptions.

Why Are General Moral Values Poor Predictors of Concrete Moral Behavior in Everyday Life? A Conceptual Analysis and Empirical Study

Within moral psychology, theories focusing on the conceptualization and empirical measurement of people's morality in terms of general moral values -such as Moral Foundation Theory- (implicitly) assume general moral values to be relevant concepts for the explanation and prediction of behavior in everyday life. However, a solid theoretical and empirical foundation for this idea remains work in progress. In this study we explore this relationship between general moral values and daily life behavior through a conceptual analysis and an empirical study. Our conceptual analysis of the moral value-moral behavior relationship suggests that the effect of a generally endorsed moral value on moral behavior is highly context dependent. It requires the manifestation of several phases of moral decision-making, each influenced by many contextual factors. We expect that this renders the empirical relationship between generic moral values and people's concrete moral behavior indeterminate. Subsequently, we empirically investigate this relationship in three different studies. We relate two different measures of general moral values -the Moral Foundation Questionnaire and the Morality As Cooperation Questionnaire- to a broad set of self-reported morally relevant daily life behaviors (including adherence to COVID-19 measures and participation in voluntary work). Our empirical results are in line with the expectations derived from our conceptual analysis: the considered general moral values are poor predictors of the selected daily life behaviors. Furthermore, moral values that were tailored to the specific context of the behavior showed to be somewhat stronger predictors. Together with the insights derived from our conceptual analysis, this indicates the relevance of the contextual nature of moral decision-making as a possible explanation for the poor predictive value of general moral values. Our findings suggest that the investigation of morality's influence on behavior by expressing and measuring it in terms of general moral values may need revision.

Charity preferences and perceived impact moderate charitable giving and associated neural response

Charitable giving depends on individuals' abilities to make altruistic decisions. Previous studies suggest that altruism involves recruitment of neural resources in regions including social processing, reward/reinforcement learning, emotional response, and cognition. Despite evolutionary and social benefits to altruism, we know that humans do not always engage in altruistic behavior, like charitable giving. Understanding the underlying processes leading to decisions to donate is vital to improve prosocial community engagement. The present study examined how characteristics of the charitable giving opportunity influence an individual's decision to give and the neural engagement underlying these features. Twenty-nine participants subjectively rated ten charities on their value, effectiveness, and the subject's personal chance of donating. Participants then completed an fMRI task requiring them to decide to donate to certain charities given the probability of the donation helping, their personal preference for the charity, and whether the donation came at cost to themselves. There was a significant reduction in donating when the probability of helping was low versus high, and subjects were significantly less likely to donate to their lowest-rated charities. Further, probability of a donation being helpful and how much the subject favored a charity moderated PCC and left IFG engagement. Interestingly, reward neurocircuitry did not demonstrate similar sensitivity to these variations. These results may suggest individuals engage motivated reasoning to justify failure to donate, while donations are driven by emotion mentalizing that focuses on the welfare of others. This may provide valuable insight into how to engage individuals in altruistic giving.

Politics Turns Moral Foundations Into Consequences of Intergroup Attitudes

Abstract. Applying a longitudinal design, we tested the directions of the relationships between moral foundations and attitudes toward Muslim immigrants. The study was conducted during the official campaign period of the Hungarian parliamentary elections in 2018. It was found that moral foundations are consequences of intergroup attitudes. Latent change modeling showed that while individualizing foundations were independent of anti-Muslim attitudes, longitudinal change in binding foundations was predicted by prior anti-Muslim attitudes, but not the other way around. Furthermore, this relationship was moderated by exposure to the anti-Muslim and anti-immigration campaigns led by the government. These results suggest that people are motivated to harmonize their moral concerns with their prior social beliefs, and they actively utilize available political messages in this process.

The effect of anime character's facial expressions and eye blinking on donation behavior

Studies of the use of artificial agents and robots to solicit donations from people have suggested that the design of the agents must consider facial expressions. However, there has not been sufficient evidence to generalize the finding that the emotions conveyed by agents' facial expressions can induce donations. In the present study, we conducted an experiment with an animated character that has intermediate realism and a different appearance from those in previous studies to replicate the finding that facial expressions represented by changes in the shapes of the eyes and mouth cause people to become more prosocial and to test whether we can extend this finding to the emotional expressions presented by changes in the dynamic properties of eyes. In the experiment, participants ([Formula: see text]) played a hypothetical dictator game with an avatar that expressed its emotions by changing the shapes of its eyes, eyebrows and mouth and by changing the frequency of eye blinking. The results showed that the emotions expressed by changes in the shape of the facial parts contributed to eliciting a higher donation amount, consistent with previous studies. However, we could not find an additive effect of the emotional expression shown by eye blinking. The results suggest that, regardless of appearance, emotional expression is useful in the design of a virtual agent's face, but it might not be necessary to consider the dynamic properties of the eyes.

Moral "foundations" as the product of motivated social cognition: Empathy and other psychological underpinnings of ideological divergence in "individualizing" and "binding" concerns

According to moral foundations theory, there are five distinct sources of moral intuition on which political liberals and conservatives differ. The present research program seeks to contextualize this taxonomy within the broader research literature on political ideology as motivated social cognition, including the observation that conservative judgments often serve system-justifying functions. In two studies, a combination of regression and path modeling techniques were used to explore the motivational underpinnings of ideological differences in moral intuitions. Consistent with our integrative model, the "binding" foundations (in-group loyalty, respect for authority, and purity) were associated with epistemic and existential needs to reduce uncertainty and threat and system justification tendencies, whereas the so-called "individualizing" foundations (fairness and avoidance of harm) were generally unrelated to epistemic and existential motives and were instead linked to empathic motivation. Taken as a whole, these results are consistent with the position taken by Hatemi, Crabtree, and Smith that moral "foundations" are themselves the product of motivated social cognition.

Moral foundations underlying behavioral compliance during the COVID-19 pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, government and public health officials have advocated three behaviors to help “flatten the curve” of the disease—staying-at-home, wearing face masks, and social distancing. But, some people, especially those younger in age, have flouted restrictions, harming themselves and the community. We explore the moral foundations underlying people's compliance with the three behaviors. Our study with 1033 Americans revealed that caring and fairness concerns predict complying with all behaviors, while sanctity concerns only predict compliance with wearing face masks and social distancing. A deeper investigation revealed age differences in loyalty and sanctity concerns for staying-at-home and social distancing, and in sanctity concerns only for wearing face masks. The findings document the innate intuitions that guide one's decision to comply with such behaviors. They also provide governments and policy officials with implications on possible message frames to use in communicating the importance of the three behaviors in order to protect one's and the public's health from COVID-19 and other flu-like illnesses in the future.

Religious moral righteousness over care: a review and a meta-analysis

Does religion enhance an 'extended' morality? We review research on religiousness and Schwartz's values, Haidt's moral foundations (through a meta-analysis of 45 studies), and deontology versus consequentialism (a review of 27 studies). Instead of equally encompassing prosocial (care for others) and other values (duties to the self, the community, and the sacred), religiosity implies a restrictive morality: endorsement of values denoting social order (conservation, loyalty, and authority), self-control (low autonomy and self-expansion), and purity more strongly than care; and, furthermore, a deontological, non-consequentialist, righteous orientation, that could result in harm to (significant) others. Religious moral righteousness is highest in fundamentalism and weakens in secular countries. Only spirituality reflects an extended morality (care, fairness, and the binding foundations). Evolutionarily, religious morality seems to be more coalitional and 'hygienic' than caring.

The Psychology of Morality: A Review and Analysis of Empirical Studies Published From 1940 Through 2017

We review empirical research on (social) psychology of morality to identify which issues and relations are well documented by existing data and which areas of inquiry are in need of further empirical evidence. An electronic literature search yielded a total of 1,278 relevant research articles published from 1940 through 2017. These were subjected to expert content analysis and standardized bibliometric analysis to classify research questions and relate these to (trends in) empirical approaches that characterize research on morality. We categorize the research questions addressed in this literature into five different themes and consider how empirical approaches within each of these themes have addressed psychological antecedents and implications of moral behavior. We conclude that some key features of theoretical questions relating to human morality are not systematically captured in empirical research and are in need of further investigation.

The effects of perceived deceptiveness and pressure on consumer donation: a mixed-methods study

Purpose

This paper aims to use a negative perspective to investigate the effects of perceived deceptiveness and pressure on consumer donation and their underlying mechanisms in the context of asking for donations.

Design/methodology/approach

Study 1 used a qualitative approach to clarify the categories and dimensions of the research variables and explore their relationships. Study 2 empirically tested the hypotheses by combining a fictitious context and a real context related to asking for donations.

Findings

In the qualitative study, the data provided sufficient evidence to support the relationships in the theoretical model. The results of the empirical study showed that perceived deceptiveness negatively influences consumer donation, while perceived pressure positively affects donation amount. Notably, the discomfort of potential donors plays an important role in mediating these relationships.

Practical implications

This paper suggests a way for charities to raise more money, i.e. by cooperating with companies with good reputations, limited scandals and transparent supervisory mechanisms. Meanwhile, solicitors should pay attention to the adverse effects of discomfort to avoid generating resentment among consumers.

Originality/value

First, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to use a negative perspective to examine the effects of perceived deceptiveness and pressure on consumer donation. Second, the use of cognitive dissonance theory to highlight the role of discomfort represents a novel contribution to the literature. Third, using a mixed-methods approach to achieve a robust conclusion provides valuable insights and extends the existing literature.

The Effect of Moral Congruence of Calls to Action and Salient Social Norms on Online Charitable Donations: A Protocol Study

Online advertising is an important tool that can be utilized by charities to elicit attention and funding. A critical examination of advertisement strategies is thus necessary to increase the efficacy of fundraising efforts. Previous studies have shown that individuals’ moral views and perceptions of social norms can play important roles in charitable behavior. Thus, the current protocol describes a study to examine whether framing charitable advertisements in line with participants’ morality and increasing the salience of descriptive social norms increases subsequent charitable behavior. We describe experimental, online methods, whereby participants are provided with a framed call-to-action and normative information within a custom-developed application or existing survey platform. Furthermore, in the exploratory fashion, we discuss the possibility of collecting participants’ Facebook data and predicting moral profiles from this data. If there is an increased rate of donations as a result of moral compatibility and/or increased norm salience, charities can leverage this knowledge to increase the donations by tailoring their campaigns in a more appealing way for their prospective donors. Moreover, if it turns out to be possible to predict one’s moral profile from Facebook footprints, charities can use this knowledge to find and target people that are more likely to support their cause. However, this introduces important ethical questions that are discussed within this protocol.

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 Framing and Charitable Donation: Integrating Exploratory Social Media Analyses and Confirmatory Experimentation

Do appeals to moral values promote charitable donation during natural disasters? Using Distributed Dictionary Representation, we analyze tweets posted during Hurricane Sandy to explore associations between moral values and charitable donation sentiment. We then derive hypotheses from the observed associations and test these hypotheses across a series of preregistered experiments that investigate the effects of moral framing on perceived donation motivation (Studies 2 & 3), hypothetical donation (Study 4), and real donation behavior (Study 5). Overall, we find consistent positive associations between moral care and loyalty framing with donation sentiment and donation motivation. However, in contrast with people’s perceptions, we also find that moral frames may not actually have reliable effects on charitable donation, as measured by hypothetical indications of donation and real donation behavior. Overall, this work demonstrates that theoretically constrained, exploratory social media analyses can be used to generate viable hypotheses, but also that such approaches should be paired with rigorous controlled experiments.

Association of moral values with vaccine hesitancy

Clusters of unvaccinated children are particularly susceptible to outbreaks of vaccine-preventable disease ^1,2 . Existing messaging interventions demonstrate short-term success, but some may backfire and worsen vaccine hesitancy ³ . Values-based messages appeal to core morality, which influences the attitudes individuals then have on topics like vaccination ^4-7 . We must understand how underlying morals, not just attitudes, differ by hesitancy type to develop interventions that work with individual values. Here, we show in two correlational studies that harm and fairness foundations are not significantly associated with vaccine hesitancy, but purity and liberty foundations are. We found that medium-hesitancy parents were twice as likely as low-hesitancy parents to highly emphasize purity (adjusted odds ratio: 2.08; 95% confidence interval: 1.27-3.40). High-hesitancy respondents were twice as likely to strongly emphasize purity (adjusted odds ratio: 2.15; 95% confidence interval: 1.39-3.31) and liberty (adjusted odds ratio: 2.19; 95% confidence interval: 1.50-3.21). Our results demonstrate that endorsement of harm and fairness-ideas often emphasized in traditional vaccine-focused messages-are not predictive of vaccine hesitancy. This, combined with significant associations of purity and liberty with hesitancy, indicates a need for inclusion of broader themes in vaccine discussions. These findings have the potential for application to other health decisions and communications as well.