Validation of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire in Turkey and its relation to cultural schemas of individualism and collectivism

Moralities, cultural fit and life satisfaction

The study aims to contribute to the literature by investigating the relationships among moralities, cultural fit and life satisfaction. Data are drawn from a representative sample of Türkiye, a country with a permanent record of low well-being scores and indications of polarisation over moral values. Consistent with the hypotheses, binding morality is found to have a strong overall positive effect on life satisfaction, both directly and indirectly via cultural fit. Additionally, results substantiate the prediction that individualising morality will be associated with diminished life satisfaction. Nonetheless, analyses regarding cultural fit exhibit mixed results and should be interpreted with caution. Findings are discussed within the context of the literature and in relation to sociopolitical leanings currently observed in Türkiye.

Nostalgia increases punitiveness by intensifying moral concern

We addressed the relation between nostalgia and moral judgment or behavior. We hypothesized that nostalgia, a social emotion, increases moral concern (H1), nostalgia intensifies punitiveness against moral transgressors (H2), and that the nostalgia-punitiveness link is mediated by moral concern (H3). We conducted three cross-sectional (Studies 1, 2, 4) and one experimental (Study 3) investigations (N = 1145). The investigations, involving distinct operationalizations of the relevant constructs (nostalgia, moral concern, punitiveness) and diverse samples (U.S., Canadian, and European Prolific workers, French business school students, Dutch community members), yielded results consistent with the hypotheses. Nostalgia keeps one's moral compass in check. The findings enrich the emotions and morality literatures.

The Dimensionality of the Moral Foundations: Contributions from the Moral Foundations Sacredness Scale in Four Societies

Moral Foundations Theory proposes that five innate modules offer an intuitive response that drives our moral judgments. Various instruments were developed to measure the five moral foundations, including the MFV and the MFQ-30 which focus on deliberative moral reasoning. This approach is limited because intuitions are more basic and affect-laden. The Moral Foundations Sacredness Scale (MFSS) was designed to elicit responses that more closely resemble these phenomena. However, studies have not converged on a factorial structure for the MFSS, and measurement invariance has never been assessed. Our study sought to evaluate these properties across four adult samples, via Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling, and the associations between the MFSS's scales and relevant constructs. We found that a two-factor solution, reflecting the individualizing and binding foundations, had a reasonable fit, and had invariance (configural, metric, and scalar) across gender, age groups, and (configural) four international samples. The scales were reliable, had construct validity with the MFQ-30, and criterion-related validity with the binding moderately predicting belief in God/spirit and religious behaviors. The convergence we found regarding the MFSS's factorial structure across groups has important implications for the dimensionality of these constructs, and - ultimately - for the development of Moral Foundations Theory.

When the Confounding Effect of Optimism Meets the Collider Effect of Motivation: Prospective teachers' Moral Motives and Moral Stances

Previous studies clearly indicate the importance of exploring factors that influence teachers'/prospective teachers' moral stances on teaching-related ethical concerns. However, none of these studies have specifically examined the moral motives of teachers/prospective teachers based on the activation of their moral regulation systems in personal, interpersonal, and social settings, while considering both the collider effect of motivation strength and the confounding effect of dispositional optimism. Such an investigation could provide deeper insights into teachers' moral stances regarding critical incidents that give rise to ethical concerns within educational environments, particularly during the initial stages of their teaching careers (i.e., teacher education). Therefore, in the current study, prospective teachers' moral motives were examined as predictors of their perceptions regarding unethical teacher behaviors, considering the collider effect of motivation strength and the confounding effect of dispositional optimism. 701 prospective teachers participated in the study. Comprehensive analyses, including preliminary exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM) and a main analysis (i.e., set-ESEM), were implemented to investigate the relationships between the research variables thoroughly. The results revealed that the moral motives of 'self-restraint' and 'not harming' had a significant negative effect on the moral stances of prospective teachers regarding the adoption of unethical teacher behaviors. In contrast, the 'social order' moral motive had a significant positive effect on their moral stances toward adopting unethical teacher behaviors. In particular, these effects were not due to the collider effect of motivation strength or the confounding effect of dispositional optimism. Theoretical and practical implications were also discussed in the study.

What We Do When We Define Morality (And Why We Need to Do It)

All psychological research on morality relies on definitions of morality. Yet the various definitions often go unstated. When unstated definitions diverge, theoretical disagreements become intractable, as theories that purport to explain "morality" actually talk about very different things. This article argues for the importance of defining morality and considers four common ways of doing so: The linguistic, the functionalist, the evaluating, and the normative. Each has encountered difficulties. To surmount those difficulties, I propose a technical, psychological, empirical, and distinctive definition of morality: obligatory concerns with others' welfare, rights, fairness, and justice, as well as the reasoning, judgment, emotions, and actions that spring from those concerns. By articulating workable definitions of morality, psychologists can communicate more clearly across paradigms, separate definitional from empirical disagreements, and jointly advance the field of moral psychology.

Moral Foundations Questionnaire and Moral Foundations Sacredness Scale: Assessing the Factorial Structure of the Dutch Translations

The Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ) and the Moral Foundations Sacredness Scale (MFSS) have been proposed to advance conceptualizations of morality. This study assesses the factor structure of the Dutch translations of the short version of the MFQ (20 items) and the full MFSS. The five-factor model posited by Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) is compared against alternative models of morality. Correlational analyses are performed between the best-fitting models. A multi-group confirmatory factor analysis of the optimal model is tested across gender. Data are taken from an online survey of a student sample (N = 1496). Results suggest that the Dutch translation of the MFQ20 does not converge on the proposed five-factor model. Conversely, MFSS subscales show good model fit, but intercorrelations among the five subscales are high. Weak invariance is retained for MFSS but not for MFQ20. Overall, the present study shows that the Dutch version of the MFSS scale performs better than the MFQ20 in terms of scale reliability, fit indices, and measurement invariance testing. More methodological inquiries on MFSS are welcomed, whereas the use of the MFQ20 should be discouraged. Instead, researchers on moral foundations are encouraged to empirically test the psychometric properties of the recently revised MFQ-2, developed by the authors of MFT as a more accurate instrument for the conceptualization of morality.

Measurement Invariance of Moral Foundations across Population Strata

A representative sample (n = 2282) of Swedish adults completed the Moral Foundations Questionnaire, which measures moral intuitions concerning care, fairness, loyalty, authority, and purity. A subset (n = 607) completed a measure of intuitions about liberty. Measurement invariance was estimated across sex, age, education, income, left-right placement, religiosity, and party preference groups, based on multigroup confirmatory factor analyses of two-, three-, five-, six-, and eight-factor models, as well as bifactor models (with methods factors or a general factor). Acceptable configural, metric, and scalar invariance was obtained for most group comparisons, particularly based on the more complex models. The clearest exceptions were (1) configural non-invariance in comparisons involving participants with very low education or income, and (2) scalar non-invariance in comparisons of ideological groups based on three- and six-factor models but not the eight-factor model, which distinguished lifestyle liberty from government liberty.

Adaptation of the Penal Attitudes Scale for use in Turkey

Penal attitudes represent how people justify punishment assigned to offenders or what they perceive punishment's function to be. The purpose of this study is to adapt the Penal Attitudes Scale (PENAS) for use in Turkey in Turkish and to test the resultant psychometric properties of the translated scale. For adaptation, a translation/back-translation method was applied. Respondents (N = 389) voluntarily participated in this study and completed the PENAS, Moral Foundations Questionnaire and Perceptions Toward Criminals Scale. The results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses showed that the six-structure PENAS is reliable and valid in the Turkish sample. Finally, the penal attitudes scale demonstrated good construct validity, showing statistically significant correlations with moral foundations and perceptions about the morality and social networks of criminals. Ultimately, the PENAS is a reliable, valid and highly useful instrument for the Turkish population.

The sanctity of life: The role of purity in attitudes towards abortion and euthanasia

Although abortion and euthanasia are highly contested issues at the heart of the culture war, the moral foundations underlying ideological differences on these issues are mostly unknown. Given that much of the extant debate is framed around the sanctity of life, we argued that the moral foundation of purity/sanctity-a core moral belief that emphasises adherence to the "natural order"-would mediate the negative relationship between conservatism and support for abortion and euthanasia. As hypothesised, results from a nation-wide random sample of adults in New Zealand (N = 3360) revealed that purity/sanctity mediated the relationship between conservatism and opposition to both policies. These results demonstrate that, rather than being motivated by a desire to reduce harm, conservative opposition to pro-choice and end-of-life decisions is (partly) based on the view that ending a life, even if it is one's own, violates God's natural design and, thus, stains one's spiritual purity.

Of Germs and Culture; Parasite Stress as the Origin of Individualism-Collectivism

Among four proposed origins of individualism-collectivism, modernization theory, rice versus wheat theory, climato-economic theory, and pathogen stress theory, the latter has gained more attention in cross-cultural and evolutionary psychology. Since the parasite stress theory of values and sociality makes a connection between infectious diseases and cultural orientations, it gained even more popularity during the COVID pandemic. But despite extensive research on parasite stress theory, it is not still clear what kind of infectious disease contributes more to the emergence of cultures, what are the possible mechanisms through which pathogenic threat gives rise to cultural systems, and how parasite stress might affect vertical vs. horizontal dimensions of individualism-collectivism. This review summarizes and integrates major findings of parasite stress theory related to individualism-collectivism and its closely related variables and discusses future directions that researchers can take to answer the remaining questions.

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.

Influence of individualism and collectivism on talent management practices

As the world becomes more globalized, it is increasingly necessary to be aware of the limitations of a universalistic approach to talent management. Talent management practices are considered to be among the three most important topics explored in talent management literature. However, there is a dearth of studies investigating the influence of national culture on talent management practices. The current article seeks to make a conceptual contribution to talent management practice literature through reviewing previous talent management practices, individualist, and collectivist literature then synthesizes the literature to provide a framework for examining the different talent management practices in individualistic and collectivistic societies. Talent management practices originated in Anglo-Saxon countries and align with their individualistic culture, which leads to the question of whether these practices can be implemented effectively in collectivistic societies. This study attempts to answer this question by exploring talent management practices in individualist and collectivist cultures and providing a framework for effective talent management practices in both. This research opens the door for more research to explore the gaps between what happens in talent management practices and what should happen according to talent management practices theory.

Modelo sociocultural del dominio moral en adolescentes mexicanos

Para favorecer el desarrollo de la adolescencia es fundamental fomentar un dominio moral que tenga en cuenta las características de la cultura y la dinámica familiar, pues ambas permiten comprender los principios que conforman el juicio moral. Teniendo esto en cuenta, la presente investigación tuvo como objetivo determinar si el colectivismo, las premisas histórico-sociales-culturales y el funcionamiento familiar predicen el dominio moral en adolescentes mexicanos. Para ello, se contó con una muestra de 459 adolescentes que participaron de manera voluntaria en la aplicación de la Escala de Dominio Moral para Adolescentes, una adaptación de la Escala de Premisas Histórico-Socioculturales, y la Escala de Individualismo y Colectivismo, en secundarias o preparatorias públicas de Ciudad de México y municipios del Estado de México. El análisis de los resultados se realizó con ecuaciones estructurales, tras lo cual se obtuvo un modelo en el que el colectivismo, las normas tradicionales de la cultura mexicana y el funcionamiento familiar predicen el dominio de una moral prescriptiva y restrictiva en adolescentes mexicanos (χ2 = 0.496, gl = 1, p = .481, χ2/gl = 0.496, agfi = .992, srmr = .006, rmsea < .001). En conclusión, la evidencia obtenida demuestra que una parte importante de las variaciones del dominio moral en adolescentes se debe a factores culturales y de socialización en el entorno familiar.

Deciding between moral priorities and COVID-19 avoiding behaviors: A moral foundations vignette study

Novel moral norms peculiar to the COVID-19 pandemic have resulted in tension between maintaining one's preexisting moral priorities (e.g., loyalty to one's family and human freedoms) and avoiding contraction of the COVID-19 disease and SARS COVID-2 virus. By drawing on moral foundations theory, the current study questioned how the COVID-19 pandemic (or health threat salience in general) affects moral decision making. With two consecutive pilot tests on three different samples (ns ≈ 40), we prepared our own sets of moral foundation vignettes which were contextualized on three levels of health threats: the COVID-19 threat, the non-COVID-19 health threat, and no threat. We compared the wrongness ratings of those transgressions in the main study (N = 396, M age = 22.47). The results showed that the acceptability of violations increased as the disease threat contextually increased, and the fairness, care, and purity foundations emerged as the most relevant moral concerns in the face of the disease threat. Additionally, participants' general binding moral foundation scores consistently predicted their evaluations of binding morality vignettes independent of the degree of the health threat. However, as the disease threat increased in the scenarios, pre-existing individuating morality scores lost their predictive power for care violations but not for fairness violations. The current findings imply the importance of contextual factors in moral decision making. Accordingly, we conclude that people make implicit cost-benefit analysis in arriving at a moral decision in health threatening contexts.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-021-01941-y.

Validation of Morality as Cooperation Questionnaire in Turkey, and Its Relation to Prosociality, Ideology, and Resource Scarcity

Abstract. The theory of morality as cooperation (MAC) argues that there are seven distinct and evolved universal moral foundations. Curry, Chesters, and Van Lissa (2019) developed a scale to test this theoretical approach and showed that the Relevance subscale of the MAC questionnaire (MAC-Q) fits data well, unlike the Judgment and full-form. However, an independent test of the validity of this questionnaire has not been hitherto conducted, and its relation with ideology is unknown. In the first study, we attempted to validate the Turkish form of MAC-Q and then examined the relationship with prosociality and political ideology. The results showed that the fit indices of MAC-Q Relevance are above the standard criteria, unlike the Judgment and full form ( n = 445), and significant relationships with prosociality and political ideology provided additional evidence for the validity. We used the MAC-Q Relevance in Study 2 ( n = 576, Turkey) and Study 3 ( n = 921, US), and investigated whether manipulating resource scarcity influences the endorsement of MAC. Although there was no effect of the manipulation, correlational findings provided some support for the predictive validity of MAC-Q. Overall, MAC-Q Relevance performs well in representing the lay notions of morality in both Turkey and the US, unlike full-form.

Reanalysing the factor structure of the moral foundations questionnaire

The moral foundations theory (MFT) is an influential multifactorial model that posits how decision-making in the moral context originates from a set of six intuitive moral foundations: care, fairness, authority, loyalty, purity, and liberty. The established measure of these foundations-the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ)-has been used extensively in a range of empirical projects. However, recent analyses of its factor structure and the internal consistency of each of the foundation clusters have called its validity into question. In this paper, data from a large sample of British voters were used to re-examine the factor structure of the MFQ. As opposed to a 6-factor structure, only three meaningful clusters emerged in an exploratory principal factors analysis (Study 1; N = 428): traditionalism, compassion, and liberty. This structure was broadly confirmed in an independent sample (Study 2; N = 322). Concurrent validity was established via correlations with measures of 'social change' and 'systemic inequality' insecurities (Study 1) and voting behaviour and preferences (Study 2). Significant differences on each of the three factors of the revised MFQ (MFQ-r) were observed between the voters of different political parties (Study 1) and sides of the Brexit issue (Study 2). Implications for moral foundations theory and its measurement are discussed.

Sex differences in moral judgements across 67 countries

Most of the empirical research on sex differences and cultural variations in morality has relied on within-culture analyses or small-scale cross-cultural data. To further broaden the scientific understanding of sex differences in morality, the current research relies on two international samples to provide the first large-scale examination of sex differences in moral judgements nested within cultures. Using a sample from 67 countries (Study 1; n = 336 691), we found culturally variable sex differences in moral judgements, as conceptualized by Moral Foundations Theory. Women consistently scored higher than men on Care, Fairness, and Purity. By contrast, sex differences in Loyalty and Authority were negligible and highly variable across cultures. Country-level sex differences in moral judgements were also examined in relation to cultural, socioeconomic, and gender-equality indicators revealing that sex differences in moral judgements are larger in individualist, Western, and gender-equal societies. In Study 2 (19 countries; n = 11 969), these results were largely replicated using Bayesian multi-level modelling in a distinct sample. The findings were robust when incorporating cultural non-independence of countries into the models. Specifically, women consistently showed higher concerns for Care, Fairness, and Purity in their moral judgements than did men. Sex differences in moral judgements were larger in individualist and gender-equal societies with more flexible social norms. We discuss the implications of these findings for the ongoing debate about the origin of sex differences and cultural variations in moral judgements as well as theoretical and pragmatic implications for moral and evolutionary psychology.

Studying Religiosity and Spirituality: A Review of Macro, Micro, and Meso-Level Approaches

This paper seeks to advance the global study of religiosity and spirituality by conducting a meta-analysis of major approaches in the field. While the field, and thus the collected publications, are dominated by Western approaches, particular attention is paid in this analysis to publications from geographies that are not from the United States or Western Europe, especially these world regions: Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Similarly, while the study of religiosity is considerably centered around Christianity, this analysis extends beyond Christianity, to the extent possible in extant studies, to include publications investigating other world religious traditions, such as African spirituality, African witchcraft, Afro-Caribbean religious traditions, Buddhism, Confucianism, folk religions, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Mormonism, Neo-paganism, New Religious Movements (NRMs), Shamanism, Sikhism, Spiritism, Taoism, and spirituality generally. A total of 530 publications were reviewed, and the studies are categorized by unit of analysis into: Macro, micro, and meso-level. Measurement constructs include religious demography, culture, belonging, behaving, believing, bonding, religious salience, spiritual identities, religious networks, occupations, congregations, denominations, and faith-based organizations. Non-Western sources and approaches are analyzed toward furthering future research in under-studied world regions. Implications are drawn for the field, such as the need to geo-code publications at the country level.

Cross-Cultural Values: A Meta-Analysis of Major Quantitative Studies in the Last Decade (2010–2020)

Since 2010, scholars have made major contributions to cross-cultural research, especially regarding similarities and differences across world regions and countries in people’s values, beliefs, and morality. This paper accumulates and analyzes extant multi-national and quantitative studies of these facets of global culture. The paper begins with a summary of the modern history of cross-cultural research, then systematically reviews major empirical studies published since 2010, and next analyzes extant approaches to interpret how the constructs of belief, morality, and values have been theorized and operationalized. The analysis reveals that the field of cross-cultural studies remains dominated by Western approaches, especially studies developed and deployed from the United States and Western Europe. While numerous surveys have been translated and employed for data collection in countries beyond the U.S. and Western Europe, several countries remain under-studied, and the field lacks approaches that were developed within the countries of interest. The paper concludes by outlining future directions for the study of cross-cultural research. To progress from the colonialist past embedded within cross-cultural research, in which scholars from the U.S. and Western Europe export research tools to other world regions, the field needs to expand to include studies locally developed and deployed within more countries and world regions.

The Characteristics of Moral Judgment of Psychopaths: The Mediating Effect of the Deontological Tendency

Purpose

Many studies explore the relationship between moral judgment and psychopathy in western culture, but the mechanism underlying this relationship remains unclear. By far, no research about this topic in the background of Chinese culture exists. In the current study, we adopt one of the creative process-dissociation approaches to explore the relationship between the psychopath and moral judgment.

Methods

Adopt the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathic Scale, the Chinese version of Interpersonal Reactivity and Process-dissociation approach to explore the relationship between the psychopath and moral judgment.

Results

Traditional utilitarian moral score of the high psychopathy group are significantly higher than that of low psychopathy group (t= 2.97, p<0.05), people with high psychopathy utilitarian tendency U factor score and people with low psychopathy have no significant difference (F= 0.85, p = 0.36).

Conclusion

Individuals with high psychopathy tend to make fewer deontological moral judgments because of their decreased deontological tendencies rather than their increased utilitarian tendencies. They may make more acceptance choices not to increase the well-being of the majority of people, but because of their increased acceptance of hurting others in the moral dilemma.

Desarrollo moral: Tres comprensiones

Este artículo de reflexión presenta teóricamente las comprensiones del desarrollo moral estructuralista, pluralista y del instinto moral, con base en los criterios de indagación fáctica de la moralidad, a partir de las concepciones basadas en la justicia, en la cultura y en el instinto.  Para lo cual, se realiza un recorrido teórico y conceptual, presentando diferentes investigaciones y trabajos en este campo de estudio. Como conclusión se afirma la necesidad de comprender lo moral como un fenómeno complejo que reviste diferentes marcos de sentido e interpretación, dando énfasis al carácter universal del fenómeno.

Does an Abstract Mind-Set Increase the Internal Consistency of Moral Attitudes and Strengthen Individualizing Foundations?

Recent research suggests that experimentally inducing an abstract (vs. a concrete) mind-set enhances political sophistication by increasing the consistency in political attitudes; it also enhances individualizing moral foundations and decreases binding moral foundations. However, the evidence is mixed regarding whether abstract mind-set increases or decreases the strength of moral convictions in general. In this context, the aim of this study was 2-fold. In two preregistered studies on U.S. American and Turkish samples (aggregate N = 694), we tested (1) whether abstract mind-set increases the consistency in moral convictions, similar to the case of political attitudes, and (2) whether inducing an abstract mind-set increases individualizing and decreases binding foundations. The results did not provide support for any of the hypotheses and the past findings were not reproduced. Potential implications of these findings for construal level theory literature are discussed.

Development and validation of the Japanese Moral Foundations Dictionary

The Moral Foundations Dictionary (MFD) is a useful tool for applying the conceptual framework developed in Moral Foundations Theory and quantifying the moral meanings implicated in the linguistic information people convey. However, the applicability of the MFD is limited because it is available only in English. Translated versions of the MFD are therefore needed to study morality across various cultures, including non-Western cultures. The contribution of this paper is two-fold. We developed the first Japanese version of the MFD (referred to as the J-MFD) using a semi-automated method-this serves as a reference when translating the MFD into other languages. We next tested the validity of the J-MFD by analyzing open-ended written texts about the situations that Japanese participants thought followed and violated the five moral foundations. We found that the J-MFD correctly categorized the Japanese participants' descriptions into the corresponding moral foundations, and that the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ) scores correlated with the frequency of situations, of total words, and of J-MFD words in the participants' descriptions for the Harm and Fairness foundations. The J-MFD can be used to study morality unique to the Japanese and also multicultural comparisons in moral behavior.

The link between intuitive thinking and social conservatism is stronger in WEIRD societies

While previous studies reveal mixed findings on the relationship between analytic cognitive style (ACS) and right-wing (conservative) political orientation, the correlation is generally negative. However, most of these studies are based on Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) societies, and it is not clear whether this relationship is a cross-culturally stable phenomenon. In order to test cross-cultural generalizability of this finding, we re-analyzed the data collected by the Many Labs 2 Project from 30 politically diverse societies (N = 7,263). Social conservatism is measured with the binding foundations scale, comprising of loyalty (patriotism), authority (respect for traditions), and sanctity (respect for the sacred), as proposed by the moral foundations theory, while ACS is measured by the three-item modified cognitive reflection task. The level of WEIRDness of each country was calculated by scoring how much a culture is Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic. Although social conservatism is negatively associated with ACS in the aggregate, analysis indicates that the relationship is significantly stronger among WEIRD and remains negligible among non-WEIRD cultures. These findings show the cross-cultural variability of this relationship and emphasize the limitations of studying only WEIRD cultures.

Validity evidence of a Brazilian version of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire

Abstract Morality is a human phenomenon that involves sensitivity and skills developed by the individual throughout their social life. Considering the importance of measuring the moral concerns of adults, this paper sought validity evidence for a Brazilian version of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire. Two studies were conducted, using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. In the first study, 341 adults (63% women) responded to the on-line questionnaire translated and adapted to Brazilian Portuguese. The results indicated a two-factor structure, and reduced items. In the second study, 371 adults (61% women) participated. Results confirmed the two-factor structure (binding morality and individualizing morality). We conclude that the QFM has satisfactory psychometric properties for use in research.

Spiritual Leadership in Collectivist Cultures

Besides financial freedom, the need for finding meaning and inner satisfaction at work has made people search for more spiritual organizations and leaders. A spiritual leadership style is a holistic leadership approach wherein the leader strives to encourage a sense of significance and interconnectedness among employees. In this sense, spiritual leadership can be considered as a meaningful management approach that can answer the search for meaning for employees. This particular form of leadership, which incorporates group focus, vision, and hope, can be regarded as a form of leadership that fits the nature of collectivist cultures. Giving importance to spirituality, brotherhood, altruism, hope, and hardwork, the Turkish interpretetion of Islamic Sufi tradition also composes a proper ground for cultivating spiritual leadership in collectivist and conservative Turkish organizations.

Testing Measurement Invariance of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire Across 27 Countries

It has become clear that there are multiple “moralities”: diverse bases that guide people’s judgments of right and wrong. The widely known Moral Foundations Theory stipulates that there are at least five such moralities, measurable via questionnaire, and tends to assume that these distinct foundations are rooted deep in humanity’s evolutionary past. Were this true, we should find that the structure of five foundations is cross-culturally generalizable. Such assumptions are best tested in a diverse range of global populations with no built-in Western bias. Here, we test the measurement invariance of the short-form Moral Foundations Questionnaire across 27 countries spanning the five largest continents. We find that it is difficult to specify Moral Foundations Questionnaire items in a quantitative five-factor model that will converge nonproblematically across a wide variety of populations.

Moral foundations explain unique variance in political ideology beyond resistance to change and opposition to equality

Moral foundations theory (MFT), while inspiring much empirical work, has been the target of both methodological and theoretical criticism. One important criticism of MFT is that, in its attempt to explain variability in political ideology, it only repackages the core motives (resistance to change and opposition to equality) and does not actually provide additional explanatory potential. Indeed, some previous studies show that moral foundations do not explain variability in ideology beyond other relevant variables, and that the relation between moral foundations and political orientation is mediated by other ideological variables. In the present research, we examined whether moral foundations can explain variability beyond the core motives in samples from Turkey and the United States. Contrary to some previous findings, we found that moral foundations explain unique variance in general, social, and economic conservatism. These findings suggest that the moral foundations proposed by MFT cannot be reduced to other variables that have been used in the literature to measure ideological proclivities.

Individual differences in the early recognition of moral information in lexical processing: An event-related potential study

Previous studies have shown that intuitive moral cognition occurs at an early stage. However, inconsistent findings indicate that moral information is recognized at a relatively late stage. This study uses the recognition potential (RP) as a neural index and simultaneously measures individuals' moral preferences using the Moral Foundation Questionnaire. We aim to investigate how individual differences in moral preferences modulate the processing of morality in the pre-semantic stage and provide some insights to explain the variation in rapid information processing linked to morality. The participants performed an implicit task in which recognizable words depicting geographical names or behaviors related to moral, disgusting or neutral content alternated with background stimuli at high rates of presentation. The results showed that the early recognition of moral information manifested in the RP depended on an individual's moral concerns. Participants with a higher level of endorsement of the harm/care foundation exhibited a greater net moral effect, namely, greater mean amplitudes of the moral-neutral RP difference waves. Meanwhile, only the group that was more sensitive to the harm/care foundation showed a distinctively larger RP for the moral words than for the neutral words. Overall, these findings suggest that the early processing of moral cognition may hinge on individual differences in moral concerns about other people's suffering.

Culture and Unmerited Authorship Credit: Who Wants It and Why?

Unmerited authorship is a practice common to many countries around the world, but are there systematic cultural differences in the practice? We tested whether scientists from collectivistic countries are more likely to add unmerited coauthors than scientists from individualistic countries. We analyzed archival data from top scientific journals (Study 1) and found that national collectivism predicted the number of authors, which might suggest more unmerited authors. Next, we found that collectivistic scientists were more likely to add unmerited coauthors than individualistic scientists, both between cultures (Studies 2-3) and within cultures (Study 4). Finally, we found that priming people with collectivistic self-construal primes made them more likely to endorse questionable authorship attitudes (Study 5). These findings show that culture collectivism is related to unmerited authorship.

An attempt to clarify the link between cognitive style and political ideology: A non-western replication and extension

Previous studies relating low-effort or intuitive thinking to political conservatism are limited to Western cultures. Using Turkish and predominantly Muslim samples, Study 1 found that analytic cognitive style (ACS) is negatively correlated with political conservatism. Study 2 found that ACS correlates negatively with political orientation and with social and personal conservatism, but not with economic conservatism. It also examined other variables that might help to explain this correlation. Study 3 tried to manipulate ACS via two different standard priming procedures in two different samples, but our manipulation checks failed. Study 4 manipulated intuitive thinking style via cognitive load manipulation to see whether it enhances conservatism for contextualized political attitudes but we did not find a significant effect. Overall, the results indicate that social liberals tend to think more analytically than conservatives and people’s long term political attitudes may be resistant to experimental manipulations.