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Galgali MS, Helm PJ, Arndt J. The Role of Moral Concerns and Institutional Trust in Conspiratorial Thinking. THE JOURNAL OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 2024:1-18. [PMID: 39033531 DOI: 10.1080/00224545.2024.2380839] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/29/2024] [Accepted: 07/11/2024] [Indexed: 07/23/2024]
Abstract
Conspiracy theories often feature moral concerns and thrive when societal institutions are perceived as untrustworthy. However, limited research exists exploring whether moral concerns are associated with conspiracy thinking and if this link is strengthened when institutional trust is low. Two studies employing correlational (N = 423) and experimental (N = 381) designs found that liberty moral concerns, and to a lesser extent binding concerns, are associated with increased conspiratorial thinking, particularly when institutional trust is low. Moral concerns about liberty may contribute to increased conspiratorial thinking and low institutional trust may play a key role in exacerbating this link.
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Nowakowska I, Rönnlund M. Future of nature, our future. A preregistered report on future time perspective, social value orientation, and pro-environmental outcomes based on data from Poland and Sweden. Front Psychol 2023; 14:1217139. [PMID: 38106389 PMCID: PMC10722237 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1217139] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/04/2023] [Accepted: 10/30/2023] [Indexed: 12/19/2023] Open
Abstract
Introduction The objective of the study was to examine the role of social value orientation and future time perspective to account for individual differences in pro-environmental behaviors, intentions, and opinions about the link between pro-environmental action and pandemic threat (three separate models) in Polish and Swedish samples expected to differ in rate of pro-environmental behaviors (higher in Sweden). We hypothesized that for Poland, future time perspective would be linked to pro-environmental outcomes only when social value orientation is average or high. In contrast, for Sweden, we expected a significant link between these variables regardless of social value orientation. Methods In total, 301 (150 Polish, 151 Swedish) participants completed online surveys via Prolific.co research panel. We controlled for individualizing/binding moral foundations, present time perspectives, and selected demographic variables in the analyses. Results In line with expectations, the individualizing moral foundations were a significant predictor across all three models. The data did not support our focal hypothesis regarding the interaction between future time perspective and social value orientation. For pro-environmental behaviors in the past 6 months, the future time perspective was a predictor only when social value orientation was low. Discussion The results suggest that when encouraging more competitive (compared to altruistic) people to behave in a green way, it might be crucial to underline the future consequences and benefits, consistent with the future time perspective. The pro-environmental campaigns could, therefore, highlight how green behavior may bring personal gains in the future, which are typically valued by individualistic people, such as savings or social status.
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Affiliation(s)
- Iwona Nowakowska
- Institute of Psychology, Maria Grzegorzewska University, Warsaw, Poland
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Tin J, Stevens H, Rasul ME, Taylor LD. Incivility in COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate Discourse and Moral Foundations: Natural Language Processing Approach. JMIR Form Res 2023; 7:e50367. [PMID: 38019581 PMCID: PMC10719818 DOI: 10.2196/50367] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/28/2023] [Revised: 10/11/2023] [Accepted: 10/29/2023] [Indexed: 11/30/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Vaccine hesitancy poses a substantial threat to efforts to mitigate the harmful effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. To combat vaccine hesitancy, officials in the United States issued vaccine mandates, which were met with strong antivaccine discourse on social media platforms such as Reddit. The politicized and polarized nature of COVID-19 on social media has fueled uncivil discourse related to vaccine mandates, which is known to decrease confidence in COVID-19 vaccines. OBJECTIVE This study examines the moral foundations underlying uncivil COVID-19 vaccine discourse. Moral foundations theory poses that individuals make decisions to express approval or disapproval (ie, uncivil discourse) based on innate moral values. We examine whether moral foundations are associated with dimensions of incivility. Further, we explore whether there are any differences in the presence of incivility between the r/coronaviruscirclejerk and r/lockdownskepticism subreddits. METHODS Natural language processing methodologies were leveraged to analyze the moral foundations underlying uncivil discourse in 2 prominent antivaccine subreddits, r/coronaviruscirclejerk and r/lockdownskepticism. All posts and comments from both of the subreddits were collected since their inception in March 2022. This was followed by filtering the data set for key terms associated with the COVID-19 vaccine (eg, "vaccinate" and "Pfizer") and mandates (eg, "forced" and "mandating"). These key terms were selected based on a review of existing literature and because of their salience in both of the subreddits. A 10% sample of the filtered key terms was used for the final analysis. RESULTS Findings suggested that moral foundations play a role in the psychological processes underlying uncivil vaccine mandate discourse. Specifically, we found substantial associations between all moral foundations (ie, care and harm, fairness and cheating, loyalty and betrayal, authority and subversion, and sanctity and degradation) and dimensions of incivility (ie, toxicity, insults, profanity, threat, and identity attack) except for the authority foundation. We also found statistically significant differences between r/coronaviruscirclejerk and r/lockdownskepticism for the presence of the dimensions of incivility. Specifically, the mean of identity attack, insult, toxicity, profanity, and threat in the r/lockdownskepticism subreddit was significantly lower than that in the r/coronaviruscirclejerk subreddit (P<.001). CONCLUSIONS This study shows that moral foundations may play a substantial role in the presence of incivility in vaccine discourse. On the basis of the findings of the study, public health practitioners should tailor messaging by addressing the moral values underlying the concerns people may have about vaccines, which could manifest as uncivil discourse. Another way to tailor public health messaging could be to direct it to parts of social media platforms with increased uncivil discourse. By integrating moral foundations, public health messaging may increase compliance and promote civil discourse surrounding COVID-19.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jason Tin
- Department of Public Health Sciences, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, United States
| | - Hannah Stevens
- Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, Worcester, MA, United States
| | - Muhammad Ehab Rasul
- Department of Communication, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, United States
| | - Laramie D Taylor
- Department of Communication, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, United States
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Abstract
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.
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Affiliation(s)
- Artur Nilsson
- Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden
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Lockhart C, Lee CHJ, Sibley CG, Osborne D. The sanctity of life: The role of purity in attitudes towards abortion and euthanasia. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY 2023; 58:16-29. [PMID: 36097848 PMCID: PMC10086843 DOI: 10.1002/ijop.12877] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/17/2021] [Accepted: 08/22/2022] [Indexed: 01/11/2023]
Abstract
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.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Carol H J Lee
- School of Psychology, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
| | - Chris G Sibley
- School of Psychology, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
| | - Danny Osborne
- School of Psychology, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
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Zafeiris A. Opinion Polarization in Human Communities Can Emerge as a Natural Consequence of Beliefs Being Interrelated. ENTROPY (BASEL, SWITZERLAND) 2022; 24:e24091320. [PMID: 36141206 PMCID: PMC9498196 DOI: 10.3390/e24091320] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/22/2022] [Revised: 09/06/2022] [Accepted: 09/14/2022] [Indexed: 05/28/2023]
Abstract
The emergence of opinion polarization within human communities-the phenomenon that individuals within a society tend to develop conflicting attitudes related to the greatest diversity of topics-has been a focus of interest for decades, both from theoretical and modelling points of view. Regarding modelling attempts, an entire scientific field-opinion dynamics-has emerged in order to study this and related phenomena. Within this framework, agents' opinions are usually represented by a scalar value which undergoes modification due to interaction with other agents. Under certain conditions, these models are able to reproduce polarization-a state increasingly familiar to our everyday experience. In the present paper, an alternative explanation is suggested along with its corresponding model. More specifically, we demonstrate that by incorporating the following two well-known human characteristics into the representation of agents: (1) in the human brain beliefs are interconnected, and (2) people strive to maintain a coherent belief system; polarization immediately occurs under exposure to news and information. Furthermore, the model accounts for the proliferation of fake news, and shows how opinion polarization is related to various cognitive biases.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anna Zafeiris
- MTA-ELTE Statistical and Biological Physics Research Group, Pázmány Péter Stny. 1/A, 1117 Budapest, Hungary;
- MTA-ELTE ‘Lendület’ Collective Behaviour Research Group, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Eötvös University, 1117 Budapest, Hungary
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Turner-Zwinkels FM, Brandt MJ. Belief system networks can be used to predict where to expect dynamic constraint. JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 2022. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2021.104279] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
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Bruchmann K, LaPierre L. Moral Foundations Predict Perceptions of Moral Permissibility of COVID-19 Public Health Guideline Violations in United States University Students. Front Psychol 2022; 12:795278. [PMID: 35185693 PMCID: PMC8847225 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.795278] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/14/2021] [Accepted: 12/17/2021] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
In the United States, the COVID-19 pandemic has become highly politicized and highly moralized. The current study explored whether participants’ (N = 118) endorsements of binding (promoting group cohesion) versus individualizing (promoting care for individuals) moral foundations explained partisan differences in views and behaviors regarding COVID-19. Participants completed the Moral Foundations Questionnaire before they indicated how morally permissible they thought it was to violate COVID-19 mandates, report others’ violations, or not get vaccinated. Additionally, they indicated their own prevention behaviors. Results show that endorsement of both individualizing and binding foundations explain partisan differences in moral permissibility ratings. Political conservatism predicted greater endorsement of binding foundations which in turn predicted seeing COVID-19 violations and not getting vaccinated as more morally permissible, and predicted fewer self-reported prevention behaviors. Endorsement of individualizing foundations predicted seeing violations as less morally permissible and reporting others’ violations as more morally permissible.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kathryn Bruchmann
- Department of Psychology, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA, United States
| | - Liya LaPierre
- Department of Mathematics, Seattle University, Seattle, WA, United States
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Sam Nariman H, Nguyen Luu LA, Hadarics M. Exploring inclusiveness towards immigrants as related to basic values: A network approach. PLoS One 2021; 16:e0260624. [PMID: 34855829 PMCID: PMC8638986 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0260624] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/30/2021] [Accepted: 11/13/2021] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Using the 9th round of European Social Survey (ESS), we explored the relationship between Europeans' basic values and their attitudes towards immigrants. Employing a latent class analysis (LCA), we classified the respondents based on three items capturing the extent to which participants would support allowing three groups of immigrants to enter and live in their countries: immigrants of same ethnic groups, immigrants of different ethnic groups, and immigrants from poorer countries outside Europe. Four classes of Europeans with mutually exclusive response patterns with respect to their inclusive attitudes towards immigrants were found. The classes were named Inclusive (highly inclusive), Some (selective), Few (highly selective), and Exclusive (highly exclusive). Next, using a network technique, a partial correlation network of 10 basic human values was estimated for each class of participants. The four networks were compared to each other based on three network properties namely: global connectivity, community detection, and assortativity coefficient. The global connectivity (the overall level of interconnections) between the 10 basic values was found to be mostly invariant across the four networks. However, results of the community detection analysis revealed a more complex value structure among the most inclusive class of Europeans. Further, according to the assortativity analysis, as expected, for the most inclusive Europeans, values with similar motivational backgrounds were found to be interconnected most strongly to one another. We further discussed the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hadi Sam Nariman
- Doctoral School of Psychology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
- Institute of Psychology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
| | - Lan Anh Nguyen Luu
- Faculty of Education and Psychology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
| | - Márton Hadarics
- Department of Social Psychology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
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Brandt MJ, Sleegers WWA. Evaluating Belief System Networks as a Theory of Political Belief System Dynamics. PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY REVIEW 2021; 25:159-185. [PMID: 33655780 DOI: 10.1177/1088868321993751] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
A theory of political belief system dynamics should incorporate causal connections between elements of the belief system and the possibility that belief systems are influenced by exogenous factors. These necessary components can be satisfied by conceptualizing an individual's belief system as a network of causally connected attitudes and identities which, via the interactions between the elements and the push of exogenous influences, produces the disparate phenomena in the belief systems literature. We implement this belief systems as networks theory in a dynamic Ising model and demonstrate that the theory can integrate at least six otherwise unrelated phenomenon in the political belief systems literature, including work on attitude consistency, cross-pressures, spillover effects, partisan cues, and ideological differences in attitude consensus. Our findings suggest that belief systems are not just one thing, but emerge from the interactions between the attitudes and identities in the belief system. All code is available: https://osf.io/aswy8/?view_only=99aff77909094bddabb5d382f6db2622.
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