Conveying one's agreeableness: Agreeable people alter their moral judgments to convey a moral identity

Hart, William; Tortoriello, Gregory K.; Kinrade, Charlotte

doi:10.1016/j.paid.2021.111066

Cited by 3 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 16 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Prior antagonism confirmation research observed cross-over interactive effects that were moderate in size (f 2 = 0.09; Hart, Richardson, et al, 2022); however, the present work took a more conservative approach to estimating the interaction. Similar to prior conceptually related research (see Hart, Tortoriello, et al, 2021;Kwang & Swann, 2010), we estimated that the simple slope of sadism in each experimental condition would be on par with average effect sizes in individual difference research (r = 0.20 when displeasure is moral; r = −0.20 when sadistic pleasure is moral; Gignac & Szodorai, 2016). The difference between these simple slopes converted to Cohen's f 2 provides an estimated small-to-moderate interactive effect of 0.04.…”

Section: Participantsmentioning

confidence: 84%

“…To examine whether sadistic pleasure is based in antagonism confirmation, participants completed measures of sadism and read vignettes about situations that involved the pain of a transgressing target (adapted from Hart, Tortoriello, et al [2021] and Trémolière & Djeriouat [2016]). After reading each situation, participants indicated their feelings of pleasure from the target's pain.…”

Section: Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some of this data arises in the context of agreeableness, which is conceptualized as the polar opposite of antagonism (Lynam & Miller, 2019). In one study (Hart, Tortoriello, et al, 2021), when participants were led to believe that antagonistic (vs. agreeable) people were more punitive toward a transgressor (i.e., punitiveness signals antagonism), higher antagonism (i.e., lower agreeableness) related to enhanced punitive judgments toward the transgressor (i.e., punitiveness); however, when participants were led to believe that antagonistic (vs. agreeable) people were less punitive toward a transgressor (i.e., tolerance signals antagonism), higher antagonism (i.e., lower agreeableness) related to reduced punitive judgments (i.e., tolerance). This shows that antagonistic people will make their social decisions to convey symbolic ideas that confirm their antagonistic identity: the data cannot be understood as reflecting some deficiency in social-cognitive processing.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Is “sadistic pleasure” a contrived process of signaling one's antagonism?

Kinrade

Hart

Lambert

et al. 2023

Journal of Personality

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

ObjectiveSadistic pleasure presumably incorporates processes that support an authentic enjoyment of others' pain. However, antagonism confirmation theory, grounded in social‐psychological theorizing on identity maintenance and the notion of ego‐syntonicity, suggests that individuals higher in sadism report greater pleasure in response to others' pain because such reports are immoral responses that confirm their self‐views. This alternative conception has yet to be tested.MethodIn two preregistered experiments (total N = 968), participants completed measures of sadism, read about situations involving others' pain, and rated their pleasure. We manipulated the extent to which pleasure from others' pain could be used to signal morality or antagonism.ResultsWe found that relatively sadistic people indicated greater pleasure across the studies but, like relatively non‐sadistic people, they altered their pleasure ratings to signal greater morality or less antagonism.ConclusionsThe findings fail to support antagonism confirmation theory, but they support recent perspectives on sadism that suggest that sadistic people may occasionally care about seeming moral (or not seeming antagonistic) and that sadism may be somewhat ego‐dystonic in this respect.

show abstract

Section: Participantsmentioning

confidence: 84%

Section: Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Is “sadistic pleasure” a contrived process of signaling one's antagonism?

Kinrade

Hart

Lambert

et al. 2023

Journal of Personality

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…However, to the extent that moral signaling explains moral behavior, it should covary with moral personality features (i.e., chronic tendencies to engage in moral actions). Evidence pertaining to this matter is, unfortunately, very limited; for example, some evidence suggested that people higher in agreeableness will indicate moral decisions to conform to contextualized definitions of how to express agreeableness (Hart et al, 2021). Hence, the present data provide needed incremental support for conceptualizing aspects of moral personality features as having some basis in the signaling of moral identity.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Task 2 was presented as an opportunity for participants to learn about themselves and how they think relative to their peers (for conceptually similar methods, Hart et al, 2021). Participants read three hypothetical moral dilemmas in the vein of “trolley problems” (adapted from Moore et al, 2008).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrity and Moral Flexibility

Hart

Kinrade

Lambert

et al. 2024

Journal of Individual Differences

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

People with high integrity should stubbornly insist on maintaining their moral stances regardless of how their stances will make them appear. However, we examined whether people who claim to be high in integrity will express different moral stances to appear high in integrity. Participants ( N = 433) self-reported their integrity and then read and responded to hypothetical moral dilemmas that introduced tension between utilitarian and deontological moral principles. Participants reported their willingness to choose the utilitarian (vs. deontological) option in each dilemma under conditions in which choosing the utilitarian option signaled high integrity (utilitarian-signals-high-integrity condition) or choosing the deontological option signaled high integrity (deontological-signals-high-integrity condition). Generally, participants reported greater willingness to choose the utilitarian (vs. deontological) option in the utilitarian-signals-high-integrity (vs. deontological-signals-high-integrity) condition, but this effect was greater amongst people higher in self-proclaimed integrity. Additional analyses produced similar effects after accounting for participant sex, other moral personality traits, and experimenter demand. Broadly, the findings support the possibility that self-proclaimed integrity may be partly based on a self-presentation process.

show abstract

Attitudes towards the penal system, ideology and dark traits

Clemente,

Espinosa,

Cerezo

et al. 2024

Legal Criminol Psychol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

BackgroundThis study examines the relationship between dark personality traits and attitudes towards punishment.AimsConsidering the evidence, we propose two hypotheses to be tested in this study: Of four dark tetrad traits, Machiavellianism will be the most strongly related to punitiveness (deterrence, incapacitation, desertion and moral balance); high scores in conservatism/right‐wing ideology will be positively related to deterrence, incapacitation, desert and moral balance attitudes. People with a liberal/left‐wing ideology will score higher in restorative justice and rehabilitation.Materials and MethodsThe study sample was composed of 1552 participants from Spain and Latin America (Mexico, Colombia and Peru). Participants responded to an adaptation of penal attitudes scale, the Short Dark‐Tetrad Questionnaire and a political ideology scale.ResultsThe results indicated that among demographic characteristics, ideology was the best predictor of penal justice attitudes, whereas Machiavellianism surpassed other dark traits as a predictor.DiscussionNo previous research examined how De Keiser et al. scale of attitudes towards criminal justice relates to dark personality and ideology. This research shows that dark personality predicts punitiveness and how Machiavellianism plays a relevant role. Future research could also combine Big‐Five ‘bright personality’ variables and since Dark Personality variables.ConclusionOf the four dark personality traits, Machiavellianism is the strongest predictor of all punitiveness penal attitudes (deterrence, incapacitation, desertion and moral balance). Conservative/right‐wing ideology is related to punitive attitudes; however, rehabilitation and restorative justice were unrelated to ideology.

show abstract

Conveying one's agreeableness: Agreeable people alter their moral judgments to convey a moral identity

Cited by 3 publications

References 16 publications

Is “sadistic pleasure” a contrived process of signaling one's antagonism?

Is “sadistic pleasure” a contrived process of signaling one's antagonism?

Integrity and Moral Flexibility

Attitudes towards the penal system, ideology and dark traits

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About