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Kirkland K, Van Lange PAM, Gorenz D, Blake K, Amiot CE, Ausmees L, Baguma P, Barry O, Becker M, Bilewicz M, Boonyasiriwat W, Booth RW, Castelain T, Costantini G, Dimdins G, Espinosa A, Finchilescu G, Fischer R, Friese M, Gómez Á, González R, Goto N, Halama P, Hurtado-Parrado C, Ilustrisimo RD, Jiga-Boy GM, Kuppens P, Loughnan S, Mastor KA, McLatchie N, Novak LM, Onyekachi BN, Rizwan M, Schaller M, Serafimovska E, Suh EM, Swann WB, Tong EMW, Torres A, Turner RN, Vauclair CM, Vinogradov A, Wang Z, Yeung VWL, Bastian B. High economic inequality is linked to greater moralization. PNAS NEXUS 2024; 3:pgae221. [PMID: 38979080 PMCID: PMC11229818 DOI: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae221] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/29/2024] [Accepted: 05/16/2024] [Indexed: 07/10/2024]
Abstract
Throughout the 21st century, economic inequality is predicted to increase as we face new challenges, from changes in the technological landscape to the growing climate crisis. It is crucial we understand how these changes in inequality may affect how people think and behave. We propose that economic inequality threatens the social fabric of society, in turn increasing moralization-that is, the greater tendency to employ or emphasize morality in everyday life-as an attempt to restore order and control. Using longitudinal data from X, formerly known as Twitter, our first study demonstrates that high economic inequality is associated with greater use of moral language online (e.g. the use of words such as "disgust", "hurt", and "respect'). Study 2 then examined data from 41 regions around the world, generally showing that higher inequality has a small association with harsher moral judgments of people's everyday actions. Together these findings demonstrate that economic inequality is linked to the tendency to see the world through a moral lens.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kelly Kirkland
- Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, 3052, Australia
- School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, 4072, Australia
| | - Paul A M Van Lange
- Department of Experimental and Applied Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 1075 BT, The Netherlands
| | - Drew Gorenz
- Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA
| | - Khandis Blake
- Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, 3052, Australia
| | - Catherine E Amiot
- Department of Psychology, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montreal, Quebec, H2L 2C4, Canada
| | - Liisi Ausmees
- Institute of Psychology, University of Tartu, Tartu, 50090, Estonia
| | - Peter Baguma
- Department of Educational, Organizational and Social Psychology, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda
| | - Oumar Barry
- Department of Psychology, Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar, 10700, Senegal
| | - Maja Becker
- CLLE, CNRS, Université de Toulouse, Toulouse, 31058, France
| | - Michal Bilewicz
- Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, 00-183, Poland
| | | | - Robert W Booth
- Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Sabanci University, Istanbul, 34956, Turkey
| | - Thomas Castelain
- Serra Húnter Fellow, Department of Psychology, University of Girona, Girona, 17004, Spain
| | - Giulio Costantini
- Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, 20126, Italy
| | - Girts Dimdins
- Department of Psychology, University of Latvia, Riga, LV-1586, Latvia
| | - Agustín Espinosa
- Departamento Académico de Psicología, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, 15088, Peru
| | - Gillian Finchilescu
- Psychology Department, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2017, South Africa
| | - Ronald Fischer
- School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, 6012, New Zealand
| | - Malte Friese
- Department of Psychology, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, 66123, Germany
| | - Ángel Gómez
- Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, UNED, Madrid, 28040, Spain
| | - Roberto González
- Escuela de Psicología, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, 8331150, Chile
| | - Nobuhiko Goto
- Graduate School of Social Sciences, Hitotsubashi University, Kunitachi, 186-8601, Japan
| | - Peter Halama
- Centre of Social and Psychological Sciences, The Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, 814 38, Slovakia
| | - Camilo Hurtado-Parrado
- School of Psychological and Behavioral Sciences, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL 62901, USA
| | - Ruby D Ilustrisimo
- Department of Psychology, University of San Carlos, Cebu City, 6000, Philippines
| | | | - Peter Kuppens
- Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven, Leuven, 3000, Belgium
| | - Steve Loughnan
- School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
| | - Khairul A Mastor
- School of Liberal Studies, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, 43600, Malaysia
| | - Neil McLatchie
- Faculty of Science and Technology, Lancaster University, Lancaster, England, LA1 4YW, UK
| | - Lindsay M Novak
- Department of Psychology, University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, IL, 60607, USA
| | | | - Muhammad Rizwan
- Department of Clinical Psychology, National University of Medical Sciences, Rawalpindi, 46220, Pakistan
| | - Mark Schaller
- Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z4, Canada
| | - Eleonora Serafimovska
- Institute for Sociological Political and Juridical Research, Ss Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, Skopje, 1000, Macedonia
| | - Eunkook M Suh
- Department of Psychology, Yonsei University, Seoul, 03722, South Korea
| | - William B Swann
- Psychology Department, The University of Texas, Austin, TX, 78712, USA
| | - Eddie M W Tong
- Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, 119077, Singapore
| | - Ana Torres
- Departamento de Psicologia, Federal University of Paraíba, João Pessoa, 58051-900, Brazil
| | - Rhiannon N Turner
- School of Psychology, Queens University Belfast, Belfast, Northern Ireland, BT7 1NN, UK
| | - Christin-Melanie Vauclair
- Department of Social and Organizational Psychology, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), CIS-IUL, Lisbon, 1649-026, Portugal
| | - Alexander Vinogradov
- Faculty of Psychology, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Kyiv, 01033, Ukraine
| | - Zhechen Wang
- School of Social Development and Public Policy, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China
- School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, 4072, Australia
| | - Victoria Wai Lan Yeung
- Department of Psychology, Lingnan University, Tuen Mun, Hong Kong, China
- Wofoo Joseph Lee Consulting and Counselling Psychology Research Centre, Lingnan University, Tuen Mun, Hong Kong, China
| | - Brock Bastian
- Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, 3052, Australia
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