Different relational models underlie prototypical left and right positions on social issues

Simpson, Ain; Laham, Simon M.

doi:10.1002/ejsp.2074

Cited by 20 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…The present findings suggest there is some predictive validity to incorporating Equity and, to a lesser extent, Proportionality, but much work remains to investigate whether including Proportionality or Equity would enhance MFT’s ability to predict other meaningful phenomena such as religious beliefs or altruistic social action. Although we cannot speak to whether our results hold in other cultures, there is reason to believe Proportionality concerns are not particular to the United States (Simpson & Laham, 2015). The Protestant work ethic (PWE, the belief that hard work leads to success) appears in a range of cultures (Furnham et al, 1993) but relates to policy attitudes and prejudice in different ways depending on the culture (Rosenthal, Levy, & Moyer, 2011).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 75%

“…Little work has explored the utility of Proportionality in distinguishing political partisans, but in one such study, Simpson and Laham (2015) used relational models theory, an alternative framework of moral motives, to predict conservatives’ and liberals’ stances on various social issues. The authors found mixed support for Market Pricing, an equivalent to the concept of Proportionality, in distinguishing conservatives’ and liberals’ positions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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All Things Being Equal: Distinguishing Proportionality and Equity in Moral Reasoning

Skurka

Winett

Jarman-Miller

et al. 2019

Social Psychological and Personality Science

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Moral foundations theory (MFT) has been a useful framework for understanding moral judgment and its relationship to political leaning. However, some have argued that MFT omits key domains of moral reasoning. We explored the utility of two candidate foundations (Proportionality and Equity) with a national sample of U.S. adults recruited through Nielsen’s Harris Panel, randomly split into calibration ( n = 1,499) and replication samples ( n = 1,499). We find that Proportionality and Equity are conceptually distinct from the original foundations (as measured in the Moral Foundations Questionnaire [MFQ]) but relate to them in predictable ways. Equity consistently predicted political leaning above and beyond covariates and the original foundations, but Proportionality only distinguished conservatives from liberals in the calibration sample, which suggests Proportionality may be highly relevant to moral judgments regardless of political ideology. Our findings also indicate potential bias when using one of the MFQ’s screener items to filter out unengaged participants.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 75%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

All Things Being Equal: Distinguishing Proportionality and Equity in Moral Reasoning

Skurka

Winett

Jarman-Miller

et al. 2019

Social Psychological and Personality Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…One item was used each for measuring political interest (1 = no interest at all to 5 = high interest) and political orientation (1 = left to 10 = right), while the latter was used to calculate political extremity by coding those at both scale end points as high extremity and the middle point as low extremity. We also assessed participants’ personal moral foundations (based on the Moral Foundations Questionnaire; [ 46 , 47 ]), reaching acceptable reliabilities for individualizing (12 items: Cronbach’s α = .77) and binding foundations (18 items; Cronbach’s α = .84).…”

Section: Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

“You’re still worth it”: The moral and relational context of politically motivated unfriending decisions in online networks

et al. 2021

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Political disagreements in social media can result in removing (i.e., “unfriending”) a person from one’s online network. Given that such actions could lead to the (ideological) homogenization of networks, it is pivotal to understand the psychological processes intertwined in unfriending decisions. This requires not only addressing different types of disagreements but also analyzing them in the relational context they occur. This article proposes that political disagreements leading to drastic measures such as unfriending are attributable to more deeply rooted moral dissents. Based on moral foundations theory and relationship regulation research, this work presents empirical evidence from two experiments. In both studies, subjects rated political statements (that violated different moral foundations) with regard to perceived reprehensibility and the likelihood of unfriending the source. Study 1 (N = 721) revealed that moral judgments of a political statement are moderately related to the unfriending decision. Study 2 (N = 822) replicated this finding but indicated that unfriending is less likely when the source of the morally reprehensible statement is relationally close to the unfriender and provides emotional support. This research extends unfriending literature by pointing to morality as a new dimension of analysis and offers initial evidence uncovering the psychological trade-off behind the decision of terminating digital ties. Drawing on this, our findings inform research on the homogenization of online networks by indicating that selective avoidance (in the form of politically motivated unfriending) is conditional upon the relational context and the interpersonal benefits individuals receive therein.

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“…Hence, the very same moral action should be judged differently, depending on the moral motive implicated in the relational context. Beyond substantial empirical validation of RRT's precursor, Relational Models Theory (see Haslam, 2004), RRT itself has received some preliminary empirical support (Simpson & Laham, 2015a, 2015b.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Wrongness in different relationships: Relational context effects on moral judgment

Simpson

Laham

Fiske

2016

The Journal of Social Psychology

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Morality primarily serves socio-relational functions. However, little research in moral psychology investigates how relational factors impact moral judgment, and a theoretically grounded approach to investigating relational context effects on moral judgment is lacking.We used Relationship Regulation Theory (Rai & Fiske, 2011) and Moral Foundations Theory (Graham et al., 2011) to explore how varying the relationship between actors and victims impacts judgment of different types of moral violations. Across three studies, using a diverse range of moral violations and varying the experimental design, relational context substantially influenced third-party judgment of moral violations, and typically explained variability in moral judgment independent of several factors that have consistently been shown to strongly correlate with moral judgment (e.g., political ideology; moral value endorsements). Results lend novel but mixed support to Relationship Regulation Theory, and provide some novel implications for Moral Foundations Theory. These studies highlight the importance of relational factors in developing a comprehensive understanding of moral psychology, and provide guidelines for exploring how relational factors might shape moral judgment.Keywords: moral foundations; moral judgment; moral motives; relational context; relationship regulation theory The notion that the relational context of a moral act (e.g., who is doing the action and to whom) should influence how wrong we judge that act is hardly surprising. Indeed, it is easy to think of actions that one may find permissible when done by one person but objectionable when done by someone else: for example, my sibling can take my belongings without asking, but my officemate must ask first; also, one might feel worse after ridiculing another person's weight gain if that person is a spouse rather than a casual acquaintance. It would seem, therefore, that relational context is inherently important in understanding variability in moral judgment. Indeed, several major scholars have stressed this point (e.g., Bloom, 2011;Fiske, 1991;Greenwood, 2011;Rai & Fiske, 2011). Yet oddly enough, relational context is given scant attention in the field of moral psychology (and also in moral philosophy; e.g., Kant, 1785Kant, /1989). This is a problem which Bloom (2011) refers to as "the crisis in moral psychology". Bloom notes that although most real-world moral judgments are about actions occurring in specific relational contexts (e.g., between mother and child), most research in the field focuses "on how people judge…the interactions of unrelated strangers…lead [ing] us to ask the wrong questions, design the wrong studies, and develop the wrong theories." (p.27). One novel theory that places relational factors at the forefront of moral psychology isRelationship Regulation Theory (RRT; Rai & Fiske, 2011). RRT stresses that judgments of right and wrong are inherently embedded into four cognitively distinct frameworks that guide human social interaction (i.e., the four rel...

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Different relational models underlie prototypical left and right positions on social issues

Cited by 20 publications

References 41 publications

All Things Being Equal: Distinguishing Proportionality and Equity in Moral Reasoning

All Things Being Equal: Distinguishing Proportionality and Equity in Moral Reasoning

“You’re still worth it”: The moral and relational context of politically motivated unfriending decisions in online networks

Wrongness in different relationships: Relational context effects on moral judgment

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