Personality processes of everyday moral courage

INTRODUCTION

Moral courage manifests in acts intended to intervene to stop or redress witnessed moral norm violations, despite the risk of negative consequences for the intervener. We investigate moral courage in everyday life and ask what personality processes are involved. Based on an extended process model of moral courage, we derived hypotheses on cognitive and emotional processes that should facilitate or hinder intervention. Further, we identified candidate personality dispositions that should shape these processes and thereby predict who tends to intervene against others' norm violations and who does not.

METHODS

Using a quota-based sample of the German population (N = 1108), we conducted a personality assessment, followed by a 7-day experience sampling during which participants reported norm violations witnessed in their daily life as well as their cognitive, emotional, and behavioral reactions.

RESULTS

In total, 678 participants reported 1965 norm violations and intervened against 32% of them. Dispositional self-efficacy facilitated intervention by increasing a sense of efficacy when confronted with others' norm violations. Conversely, dispositional moral disengagement hindered intervention by reducing perceived own responsibility.

DISCUSSION

Our findings provide novel insights into the situations affording moral courage in everyday life, and the personality processes that uniquely guide this behavior.

The effect of wrongdoer's status on observer punishment recommendations: the mediating role of envy and the moderating role of belief in a just world

Our proposition postulates that the correlation between the wrongdoer's status and the punishment suggestions of onlookers is primarily influenced by group-oriented envy rather than the ascription of intentionality and is moderated by the belief in a just world. In three separate studies, 389 university students were asked to read scenarios describing a hit-and-run crime committed by either a rich or a poor individual and then report their opinions on intentionality attribution (Study 1 and Study 2), envy emotions (Study 2), punishment recommendations (all three studies), and belief in a just world (Study 3). Consistently, the findings indicated that those observing recommended harsher penalties to be imposed upon high-status perpetrators engaging in the same wrongdoing (such as hit-and-run) as their low-status equivalents. The effect of the rich receiving more severe punishment was predicted more strongly by envious emotions than by intentionality attributions to high-status wrongdoers and was only present for those observers who endorsed a lower belief in a just world.

Severity and deservedness determine signalled trustworthiness in third party punishment

Studies on third-party punishment (TPP) have shown it promotes cooperation and prosocial behaviour, albeit at a cost to the punisher. Contrary to the view that such punishment is entirely altruistic, recent research suggests that punishers gain reputational benefits from third-party punishing in the form of increased trustworthiness. Nevertheless, both how the signal is determined and the honesty of the signalling function of TPP have not been fully examined. Here we present the results of four experiments (n = 1695, prolific.co) in which we examined how TPP signalling varies as a function of its deservedness and severity. Experiments 1A and 1B use incentivized economic game paradigms to show how deservedness, impacts the trustworthiness signalled by the punisher. Experiment 2A expands on traditional dichotomous punishment decisions to show how signalled trustworthiness depends on different levels of TPP severity. Experiment 2B isolates the signalling effectiveness of severity by decoupling it from the corresponding incurred cost to punish and examines its impact on signalled trustworthiness. Overall, we found that punishment signalling is sensitive to deservedness and severity but not independent of other factors such as the cost to punish.

Rethinking Norm Psychology

Norms permeate human life. Most of people's activities can be characterized by rules about what is appropriate, allowed, required, or forbidden-rules that are crucial in making people hyper-cooperative animals. In this article, I examine the current cognitive-evolutionary account of "norm psychology" and propose an alternative that is better supported by evidence and better placed to promote interdisciplinary dialogue. The incumbent theory focuses on rules and claims that humans genetically inherit cognitive and motivational mechanisms specialized for processing these rules. The cultural-evolutionary alternative defines normativity in relation to behavior-compliance, enforcement, and commentary-and suggests that it depends on implicit and explicit processes. The implicit processes are genetically inherited and domain-general; rather than being specialized for normativity, they do many jobs in many species. The explicit processes are culturally inherited and domain-specific; they are constructed from mentalizing and reasoning by social interaction in childhood. The cultural-evolutionary, or "cognitive gadget," perspective suggests that people alive today-parents, educators, elders, politicians, lawyers-have more responsibility for sustaining normativity than the nativist view implies. People's actions not only shape and transmit the rules, but they also create in each new generation mental processes that can grasp the rules and put them into action.

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 contemplative practices make us more moral?

Contemplative practices are a staple of modern life and have historically been intertwined with morality. However, do these practices in fact improve our morality? The answer remains unclear because the science of contemplative practices has focused on unidimensional aspects of morality, which do not align with the type of interdependent moral functioning these practices aspire to cultivate. Here, we appeal to a multifactor construct, which allows the assessment of outcomes from a contemplative intervention across multiple dimensions of moral cognition and behavior. This offers an open-minded and empirically rigorous investigation into the impact of contemplative practices on moral actions. Using this framework, we gain insight into the effect of mindfulness meditation on morality, which we show does indeed have positive influences, but also some negative influences, distributed across our moral functioning.

Not revenge, but change is sweet: Experimental evidence of how offender change and punishment play independent roles in victims' sense of justice

What positive effects do victims gain by punishing their offenders? Previous research suggests that punishment increases victims' justice-related satisfaction only when the offender indicates that they changed their moral attitude and behaviour. However, offender change may increase justice-related satisfaction independently of punishment. So far, it is empirically unclear whether punishment affects satisfaction beyond offender change (e.g. by producing the change), and whether punishment has positive effects on victims that are independent of offender change, specifically how it empowers victims. In two studies, we use a full experimental design to test the unique influence of punishment and offender change on victims' justice-related satisfaction and empowerment. In a third study, we extend the design and additionally test for the effects of assigned versus self-selected punishment. Across three studies (N = 824) with different methodological approaches, we consistently found that offender change alone increased victims' justice-related satisfaction-and this effect was not moderated by punishment. Study 2, but not Study 3, showed that punishment alone empowered victim-and this effect was not moderated by offender change. This indicates that offender change and punishment have independent roles in producing positive effects on victims. Overall, it was offender change and not punishment that made victims feel that justice has been done.

Reducing economic inequality is 'just right': Moral conviction predicts support for redistributive government policies

Individuals may support economic redistribution because of practical considerations, but also because they perceive it as morally necessary according to their personal ethical beliefs. Across three studies, we investigated whether attitudes towards reducing economic inequality can be experienced with moral conviction (i.e. perceived as rooted in one's core beliefs about right and wrong) and motivate support for redistributive government policies. In Study 1 (N = 138), reducing economic inequality moral conviction scores were comparable to other highly moralized topics (e.g. euthanasia) and higher than lowly moralized topics (e.g. tattoos). In Study 2 (N = 325) and Study 3 (N = 271), the moral conviction for reducing economic inequality positively predicted support for several redistributive government policies. Additionally, while empathic concern (Study 2 and 3) provided mixed results, structural causal attributions (Study 3) mediated this effect. Therefore, our findings highlight the importance of personal moral significance in understanding what motivates support for redistributive policies.

Two Sides of the Same Coin: Punishment and Forgiveness in Organizational Contexts

Punishment and forgiveness are two very different responses to a moral transgression that both have been argued to restore perceptions of moral order within an organization. Unfortunately, it is currently unclear what motivates organizational actors to punish or forgive a norm transgressor. We build on social cognitive theory to argue that punishment and forgiveness of a transgressor are both rooted in self-regulatory processes. Specifically, we argue that organizational actors are more likely to respond to intentional transgressions with punishment, and to unintentional transgressions with forgiveness. However, these effects of transgressor intentionality should be found in particular among actors for whom moral identity is central (vs. peripheral). We find support for these predictions in a laboratory experiment and a field study among organizational leaders. By simultaneously studying punishment and forgiveness in organizational settings, we provide crucial insight in their shared motivational bases, as well as into important differences between the two.

Effect of Matching Between the Adopted Corporate Response Strategy and the Type of Hypocrisy Manifestation on Consumer Behavior: Mediating Role of Negative Emotions

Consumers may sense hypocrisy in corporate social responsibility (CSR) if they note inconsistency in enterprises’ words and deeds related to CSR. This inconsistency originates from the intentional selfish actions and unintentional actions of enterprises. Studies have revealed that consumers’ perception of hypocrisy has a negative influence on enterprise operation. However, studies have not examined how corporate responses to consumers’ hypocrisy perception affect consumers’ attitude and behavior. Therefore, the present study attempted to determine the measures that should be undertaken by enterprises to reduce consumers’ negative response to them when consumers perceive them to be hypocritical. We conducted a situational simulation experiment to explore the effect of the match between corporate hypocrisy manifestation (moral hypocrisy vs. behavioral hypocrisy) and the corporate response strategy (reactive CSR communication vs. proactive CSR communication) on consumers’ negative behaviors toward an enterprise and to test the mechanism influencing this effect. The results indicated that the interaction between the type of corporate hypocrisy and the corporate response strategy has a significant effect on consumers’ negative behaviors toward an enterprise. Consumers’ negative emotions have a mediating influence on the aforementioned effect. This study explored the response strategies of enterprises during a corporate hypocrisy crisis, classified corporate hypocrisy crises into two types (moral hypocrisy vs. behavioral hypocrisy) according to the different manifestations of corporate hypocrisy, and introduced situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) into research on corporate hypocrisy. The present results help expand knowledge on corporate hypocrisy.

The Importance of Unfair Intentions and Outcome Inequality for Punishment by Third Parties and Victims

Abstract. Retributive theories predominantly focus on third party’s motives for punishment, which are rather affected by the offender’s malicious intentions than the actual outcome of the offense. However, victims experience an offense from a different perspective. The value/status approach argues that an offense has two facets that produce different threats: the intentional violation of values and status imbalance between offender and victims. We suggested that third parties and victims punish unfair intentions, whereas victims also punish because of the outcome inequality. In the present study, we orthogonally crossed the factors offender’s intention with the actual outcome and perspective of punisher (third-party versus victim). Results show that victims punish harsher than third parties. However, there are no qualitative differences of third-party punishment and punishment by victims. Rather, both punish malicious intentions and outcome inequality. We discuss how the findings relate to retributivism and other psychological theories of punishment.

What Motivates Direct and Indirect Punishment?

Abstract. Punishment represents a key mechanism to deter norm violations and is motivated by retribution and/or general deterrence. Retribution-motivated punishment is tailored to offense severity, whereas deterrence-motivated punishment is tailored to different factors, including punishment observability. This study aimed to replicate and extend prior work by testing how offense severity and punishment observability motivate direct, confrontational punishment versus indirect, covert punishment. Participants ( N = 308) read vignettes describing offenses with varying severity (high vs. low) and punishment observability (high vs. low). We then assessed their punishment tendencies – overall, direct, and indirect – and their endorsement of retribution and deterrence motives. Findings supported a “strong version” of intuitive retributivism. Manipulating retribution-relevant information consistently influenced punishment: participants reported stronger overall, direct, and indirect punishment tendencies when severity was high (vs. low). Self-reported deterrence (but not retribution) motives positively related to overall, direct, and indirect punishment tendencies. However, manipulating deterrence-relevant information did not influence punishment.

When Good People Break Bad: Moral Impression Violations in Everyday Life

The present research investigated the emotional, interpersonal, and impression-updating consequences of witnessing events that violate the moral character impressions people hold of others. Across three studies, moral character violations predicted broad disruptions to participants’ sense of meaning, confidence judging moral character, and expectations of others’ moral characters. Participants who were in real life closer to perpetrators, directly victimized, and higher in preferences for closure and behavioral stability reported more negative outcomes. Moreover, experimental manipulations showed that character violations lead to worse outcomes than the comparable experience of encountering consistently immoral others. The authors discuss implications for research on moral perception and meaning, as well as on understanding responses to everyday revelations about people’s characters.

Direct punishment and indirect reputation-based tactics to intervene against offences

Punishment and reputation-based mechanisms play a major role in supporting the evolution of human cooperation. Theoretical accounts and field observations suggest that humans use multiple tactics to intervene against offences-including confrontation, gossip and ostracism-which have unique benefits and costs. Here, we draw a distinction between direct punishment tactics (i.e. physical and verbal confrontation) and indirect reputation-based tactics (i.e. gossip and ostracism). Based on this distinction, we sketch the common and unique social functions that different tactics are tailored to serve and describe information-processing mechanisms that potentially underlie decisions concerning how to intervene against offences. We propose that decision rules guiding direct and indirect tactics should weigh information about the benefits of changing others' behaviour versus the costs of potential retaliation. Based on a synthesis of existing evidence, we highlight the role of situational, relational and emotional factors in motivating distinct punishment tactics. We suggest that delineating between direct and indirect tactics can inform debates about the prevalence and functions of punishment and the reputational consequences of third-party intervention against offences. We emphasize the need to study how people use reputation-based tactics for partner recalibration and partner choice, within interdependent relationships and social networks, and in daily life situations. This article is part of the theme issue 'The language of cooperation: reputation and honest signalling'.

How prosocial is moral courage?

Moral courage, that is, defending moral beliefs despite personal risks, is often seen as a hallmark of prosocial behavior. We argue that prosociality in moral courage is, however, complex. While its prosociality is often evident at a higher societal level, it can be contested in some aspects of morally courageous acts. We review the literature on two such aspects and highlight that differences and conflicts in moral beliefs, as well as the confrontational nature of many morally courageous acts, call into question prosociality. We recommend that future research takes the complexity of prosociality in moral courage into account to obtain a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the psychological underpinnings of moral courage and its contributions to the functioning of societies.

To Punish or to Restore: How Children Evaluate Victims' Responses to Immorality

Punishment is important for deterring transgressions and maintaining cooperation, while restoration is also an effective way to resolve conflicts and undo harm. Which way do children prefer when evaluating others' reactions to immorality? Across four experiments, Chinese preschoolers (aged 4–6, n = 184) evaluated victims' different reactions to possession violations (i.e., punishing the perpetrator or restoring the belongings). Children evaluated restorative reactions more positively than punitive ones. This tendency to favor restoration over punishment was influenced by the degree of punishment, with more pronounced patterns observed when punishment was harsher (Experiments 1–3). Indeed, when different degrees of punishment were directly contrasted (Experiment 4), children viewed victims who imposed milder punishment (“steal one object, remove one or two objects”) more positively than those who imposed harsh punishment (“steal one object, remove three objects”). These patterns were especially manifested in preschoolers who chose restoration when being put in the victim's situation, suggesting a consistency between evaluations and behaviors. Taken together, the current study showed that children prioritize protecting the victim over harshly punishing the perpetrator, which suggests an early take on the preferred way to uphold justice.

Imagery Rescripting Helps Victims Cope With Experienced Injustice

Abstract. In clinical psychology, imagery rescripting (ImRs) is a promising intervention to target negative emotional memories after victimization experiences. The present research tested the effects of ImRs in “minor” cases of experienced injustice. After imagining being the victim of an injustice, participants ( N = 272) were randomly assigned to one of four conditions in a univariate design (treatment: active ImRs, passive ImRs; control: pleasant imagery, imagery rehearsal). Dependent variables were positive and negative affect; mediator variables were justice-related satisfaction and empowerment. Both justice-related satisfaction and empowerment increased positive and decreased negative affect, but empowerment was higher in the active than in the passive ImRs condition (while justice-related satisfaction was increased by both ImRs conditions). These results suggest that ImRs can be beneficial even in minor victimization experiences and that these beneficial effects are mediated by both empowerment and justice-related satisfaction.

Disgust uniquely predicts coping and interpersonal processes beyond anxiety and dysphoria in the context of naturalistic stressors

BACKGROUND

Disgust is theorized to serve a unique function of motivating avoidance of noxious stimuli and setting interpersonal boundaries to prevent contamination. Research has established the relevance of disgust to OCD, posttraumatic stress, and phobias, suggesting transdiagnostic features. However, research has not always accounted for overlap of disgust with other negative emotions, obscuring unique contributions. Moreover, studies have not disentangled between-person (mean levels) and within-person (state) effects. The present study examined within- and between-person relationships of disgust, anxiety, and dysphoria with responses to daily social stressors. We expected disgust would uniquely predict cognitive avoidance and boundary-setting interpersonal behavior.

METHOD

Individuals (N = 159) meeting ADIS-V anxiety/depressive disorder criteria (n = 55) and healthy controls (n = 104) completed online journals about naturalistic social stressors over five weeks (1,923 records), reporting disgust, anxiety, dysphoria, and responses to social stressors.

RESULTS

As expected, disgust uniquely predicted lower acceptance, greater thought suppression, greater self-assertion, and less prosocial behavior, above and beyond anxiety and dysphoria. Several disgust effects were present at both between- and within-person levels, suggesting the relevance of both mean disgust and state fluctuations.

CONCLUSIONS

Results demonstrate unique relevance of disgust for how individuals respond to social stressors.

Binding moral values gain importance in the presence of close others

A key function of morality is to regulate social behavior. Research suggests moral values may be divided into two types: binding values, which govern behavior in groups, and individualizing values, which promote personal rights and freedoms. Because people tend to mentally activate concepts in situations in which they may prove useful, the importance they afford moral values may vary according to whom they are with in the moment. In particular, because binding values help regulate communal behavior, people may afford these values more importance when in the presence of close (versus distant) others. Five studies test and support this hypothesis. First, we use a custom smartphone application to repeatedly record participants' (n = 1166) current social context and the importance they afforded moral values. Results show people rate moral values as more important when in the presence of close others, and this effect is stronger for binding than individualizing values-an effect that replicates in a large preregistered online sample (n = 2016). A lab study (n = 390) and two preregistered online experiments (n = 580 and n = 752) provide convergent evidence that people afford binding, but not individualizing, values more importance when in the real or imagined presence of close others. Our results suggest people selectively activate different moral values according to the demands of the situation, and show how the mere presence of others can affect moral thinking.

Effects of gender and personality on everyday moral decision-making after acute stress exposure

Exposure to acute psychosocial stress has been shown to affect moral decision-making, though little is known about potential gender differences or effects of personality. In two within-subjects design studies, 179 healthy men and women (N = 99 in Study 1, N = 80 in Study 2) were exposed to the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) and a non-stress control condition (resting period) on two testing days in random order. After stress/resting, moral decision-making was assessed by the Everyday Moral Conflict Situations (EMCS) Scale (Singer et al., 2019), which requests altruistic versus egoistic responses to everyday moral conflict scenarios with varying closeness of target persons. We investigated effects of acute stress, social closeness, participants' gender, and the a priori selected personality traits agreeableness, empathy, and social desirability on everyday moral decision-making. Despite high statistical power, we could neither confirm the hypothesized effects of acute stress nor social closeness on EMCS scores in both samples. However, our data revealed a prosocial impact of acute stress on everyday moral decisions rather in females than males as well as effects of agreeableness and social desirability. Salivary alpha-amylase (sAA) levels in Study 1 and cortisol levels in females in Study 2 were significantly correlated with higher EMCS scores after acute stress exposure. Additionally, lower anticipatory subjective stress responses were associated with more altruistic decisions. Moreover, we found positive relationships between hypothetical moral decision-making and real prosocial behavior (opportunity for a charitable donation). In sum, due to methodological differences compared to previous between-subjects design studies, it might not be justified to rule out effects of acute stress on everyday moral decision-making based on the current within-subjects results. Nevertheless, the present data suggest that specific personality traits like agreeableness might have a stronger impact on everyday moral decision-making than short term-exposure to acute stress.

Moral Judgments

Research on morality has increased rapidly over the past 10 years. At the center of this research are moral judgments-evaluative judgments that a perceiver makes in response to a moral norm violation. But there is substantial diversity in what has been called moral judgment. This article offers a framework that distinguishes, theoretically and empirically, four classes of moral judgment: evaluations, norm judgments, moral wrongness judgments, and blame judgments. These judgments differ in their typical objects, the information they process, their speed, and their social functions. The framework presented here organizes the extensive literature and provides fresh perspectives on measurement, the nature of moral intuitions, the status of moral dumbfounding, and the prospects of dual-process models of moral judgment. It also identifies omitted questions and sets the stage for a broader theory of moral judgment, which the coming decades may bring forth.

Virtuous violence from the war room to death row

Two surveys of United States public opinion found that support for killing enemy civilians and combatants disproportionately with nuclear or conventional weapons was deeply divided along partisan political lines. Those approving such excessively lethal attacks tended to be Republican and conservative. They felt socially distant from the enemy, dehumanized them, and believed that the victims were to blame for their fate. These same individuals also tended to support domestic policies that protect gun owners, restrict abortion, and punish immigrants and criminals (excessively). Understanding the origins and motives underlying the widespread support for such punitive behaviors is essential to mitigating violence that threatens millions of people and our democracy.

How likely is it that someone would approve of using a nuclear weapon to kill millions of enemy civilians in the hope of ending a ground war that threatens thousands of American troops? Ask them how they feel about prosecuting immigrants, banning abortion, supporting the death penalty, and protecting gun rights and you will know. This is the finding from two national surveys of Democrats and Republicans that measured support for punitive regulations and policies across these four seemingly unrelated issues, and a fifth, using nuclear weapons against enemy civilians (in survey 1) or approving of disproportionate killing with conventional weapons (in survey 2). Those who support these various policies that threaten harm to many people tend to believe that the victims are blameworthy and it is ethical to take actions or policies that might harm them. This lends support to the provocative notion of “virtuous violence” put forth by Fiske and Rai [A. P. Fiske, T. S. Rai, Virtuous Violence: Hurting and Killing to Create, Sustain, End, and Honor Social Relationships (2014)], who assert that people commit violence because they believe it is the morally right thing to do. The common thread of punitiveness underlying and connecting these issues needs to be recognized, understood, and confronted by any society that professes to value fundamental human rights and wishes to prevent important decisions from being affected by irrelevant and harmful sociocultural and political biases.

Disgust, Anger, and Aggression: Further Tests of the Equivalence of Moral Emotions

People often report disgust toward moral violations. Some perspectives posit that this disgust is indistinct from anger. Here, we replicate and extend recent work suggesting that disgust and anger toward moral violations are in fact distinct in terms of the situations in which they are activated and their correspondence with aggressive sentiments. We tested three hypotheses concerning emotional responses to moral violations: (1) disgust is associated with lower-cost, indirectly aggressive motives (e.g., gossip and social exclusion), whereas anger is associated with higher-cost, directly aggressive motives (e.g., physical violence); (2) disgust is higher toward violations affecting others than it is toward violations affecting the self, and anger is higher toward violations affecting the self than it is toward violations affecting others; and (3) abilities to inflict costs on or withhold benefits from others (measured via physical strength and physical attractiveness, respectively) relate to anger, but not to disgust. These hypotheses were tested in a within-subjects study in which 233 participants came to the lab twice and reported their emotional responses and aggressive sentiments toward self-targeting and other-targeting moral violations. Participants’ upper body strength and physical attractiveness were also measured with a dynamometer and photograph ratings, respectively. The first two hypotheses were supported – disgust (but not anger) was related to indirect aggression whereas anger (but not disgust) was related to direct aggression, and disgust was higher toward other-targeting violations whereas anger was higher toward self-targeting violations. However, physical strength and physical attractiveness were unrelated to anger or disgust or to endorsements of direct or indirect aggression.

Direct and indirect punishment of norm violations in daily life

Across societies, humans punish norm violations. To date, research on the antecedents and consequences of punishment has largely relied upon agent-based modeling and laboratory experiments. Here, we report a longitudinal study documenting punishment responses to norm violations in daily life (k = 1507; N = 257) and test pre-registered hypotheses about the antecedents of direct punishment (i.e., confrontation) and indirect punishment (i.e., gossip and social exclusion). We find that people use confrontation versus gossip in a context-sensitive manner. Confrontation is more likely when punishers have been personally victimized, have more power, and value offenders more. Gossip is more likely when norm violations are severe and when punishers have less power, value offenders less, and experience disgust. Findings reveal a complex punishment psychology that weighs the benefits of adjusting others' behavior against the risks of retaliation.

Distinct affective responses to second- and third-party norm violations

Social norm violations provoke strong emotional reactions that often culminate in punishment of the wrongdoer. This is true not only when we are the victims of the norm violation (second-party), but also when witnessing a complete stranger being victimized (third-party). What remains unclear, however, is whether second- and third-party punishments are associated with different emotions. To address this question, here we examine how subjects respond affectively to both second- and third-party norm violations in an economic game. Our results indicate that while second- and third-parties respond to norm violations by punishing wrongdoers similarly, they report experiencing distinct emotional states as a result of the violation. Specifically, we observed a cross-over interaction between anger and moral outrage depending on the party's context: while anger was more frequently reported for second- than for third-party violations, moral outrage was more evoked by third-party than second-party violations. Disgust and sadness were the most prevalently reported emotions, but their prevalence were unaffected by party contexts. These results indicate that while responses to second- and third-party violations result in similar punishment, they are associated with the expression of distinct affective palettes. Further, our results provide additional evidence that moral outrage is a critical experience in the evaluation of third-party wrongdoings.

The Moral Psychology of Raceless, Genderless Strangers

Moral psychology uses tightly controlled scenarios in which the identities of the characters are either unspecified or vague. Studies with raceless, genderless strangers help to highlight the important structural elements of moral acts (e.g., intention, causation, harm) but may not generalize to real-world judgments. As researchers have long shown, social judgments hinge on the identities (e.g., race, gender, age, religion, group affiliation) of both target and perceiver. Asking whether people generally condemn “shooting someone” is very different from asking whether liberals as opposed to conservatives condemn “a White police officer shooting a Black suspect.” We argue for the importance of incorporating identity into moral psychology. We briefly outline the central role of identity in social judgments before reviewing current theories in moral psychology. We then advocate an expanded person-centered morality—synthesizing moral psychology with social cognition—to better capture everyday moral judgments.

When and Why Do Third Parties Punish Outside of the Lab? A Cross-Cultural Recall Study

Punishment can reform uncooperative behavior and hence could have contributed to humans’ ability to live in large-scale societies. Punishment by unaffected third parties has received extensive scientific scrutiny because third parties punish transgressors in laboratory experiments on behalf of strangers that they will never interact with again. Often overlooked in this research are interactions involving people who are not strangers, which constitute many interactions beyond the laboratory. Across three samples in two countries (United States and Japan; N = 1,294), we found that third parties’ anger at transgressors, and their intervention and punishment on behalf of victims, varied in real-life conflicts as a function of how much third parties valued the welfare of the disputants. Punishment was rare (1–2%) when third parties did not value the welfare of the victim, suggesting that previous economic game results have overestimated third parties’ willingness to punish transgressors on behalf of strangers.

Punish or Protect? How Close Relationships Shape Responses to Moral Violations

People have fundamental tendencies to punish immoral actors and treat close others altruistically. What happens when these tendencies collide—do people punish or protect close others who behave immorally? Across 10 studies ( N = 2,847), we show that people consistently anticipate protecting close others who commit moral infractions, particularly highly severe acts of theft and sexual harassment. This tendency emerged regardless of gender, political orientation, moral foundations, and disgust sensitivity and was driven by concerns about self-interest, loyalty, and harm. We further find that people justify this tendency by planning to discipline close others on their own. We also identify a psychological mechanism that mitigates the tendency to protect close others who have committed severe (but not mild) moral infractions: self-distancing. These findings highlight the role that relational closeness plays in shaping people’s responses to moral violations, underscoring the need to consider relational closeness in future moral psychology work.

Decision-making in everyday moral conflict situations: Development and validation of a new measure

In everyday life, we are often confronted with morally conflicting social interaction situations. Therefore, the main objective of the present set of studies was the development and validation of a new measure to assess decision-making in everyday moral conflict situations. All vignettes required a decision between an altruistic versus an egoistic behavioral response alternative. In three independent surveys (N = 200), we developed a 40-items measure with preferable mean rates of altruistic decisions (Study 1), clear representation of altruistic and egoistic response classes (Study 2), unambiguousness of social closeness classifications (socially close vs. socially distant protagonists; Studies 1 and 2), and high similarity to reality ratings (Studies 1 and 2). Additionally, we developed two parallelized item sets for future use in within-subjects design studies and investigated the measurement properties of our new scale (Studies 1 and 3). Results of Rasch model analyses and classical test theory fit indices showed unidimensionality and confirmed the appropriateness of the fragmentation into two parallelized item sets. Notably, in our data, there were neither effects of social closeness nor gender on the percentage of altruistic decisions. In sum, we propose the Everyday Moral Conflict Situations (EMCS) Scale as a promising new measurement tool that may facilitate further research in different research areas due to its broad applicability.