Morality shifting in the context of intergroup violence

Abstract

We propose morality shifting as a mechanism through which individuals can maintain a moral image of the ingroup. We argue that a shift from the moral principles of harm and fairness to those of loyalty and authority occurs when assessing a potentially threatening event, particularly among high ingroup glorifiers. Three studies confirmed this hypothesis using three different methodologies. Study 1 compared the use of language related to four moral foundations formulated in moral psychology in response to ingroup-and outgroup-committed wrongdoings. Results showed that loyalty-and authority-related words were used more, whereas harm-and fairness-related words were used less in response to ingroup-compared with outgroup-committed wrongdoings. Study 2 replicated this effect with regards to the cognitive accessibility of these moral principles. Study 3 confirmed that morality shifting is a motivated response to social identity threat, rather than a response to mere activation of social identity. Finally, as predicted, Study 3 demonstrated the effect of morality shifting to be moderated by ingroup glorification but not ingroup attachment. Implications and consequences for intergroup and individual wrongdoings, as well as for intergroup relations, are discussed.

Moral disengagement as a self-regulatory process in sexual harassment perpetration at work: A preliminary conceptualization

“…Bandura (1990Bandura ( , 1999 proposed that when engaging in detrimental conduct, people need to justify to themselves the social acceptability and morality of their actions. Individuals may, therefore, attempt to justify engaging in sexually harassing behavior on the basis of Ômoral foundationsÕ (Haidt & Graham, 2007;Leidner & Castano, 2012). These moral foundations include, for example, principles related to loyalty, authority, and fairness.…”

“…The moral foundation of loyalty, for example, reflects an individualÕs tendency to perceive a specific behavior or event as moral to the extent that it is advantageous to the in-group (Leidner & Castano, 2012). Using this theoretical reasoning, we would argue that perpetrators of sexual harassment may attempt to reinterpret and justify their actions on the basis of the moral foundation of loyalty.…”

“…Moral foundations such as loyalty guide evaluation of behavior (Leidner & Castano, 2012) Loyalty: Behavior is perceived as moral when it is considered advantageous to a social group.…”

Motive attribution asymmetry for love vs. hate drives intractable conflict

“…This attribution occurs despite evidence that intergroup aggression stems at least as much, if not more, from ingroup love (7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13). We hypothesized that whereas people can clearly identify ingroup love as the source of their own group's engagement in conflict (14), when attempting to explain their outgroup's actions, people focus on dislike (15) and "why they hate us" (16). Expanding on prior research, we propose a previously untested hypothesis: People will attribute ingroup engagement in conflict to love more than hate, but they will attribute outgroup engagement in conflict to hate more than love.…”

The Influence of War on Moral Judgments about Harm

“…People are more concerned about harm to their ingroups, than about harm to an outgroup (Cikara, Botvinick, & Fiske, 2011;Pratto & Glasford, 2008). Further, when a member of a bystander's ingroup is guilty of harming an outgroup member, the bystander will morally disengage from the act (Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara, & Pastorelli, 1996) -and thus judge it as less wrongby, for example, dehumanizing the outgroup (Castano & Giner-Sorolla, 2006), shifting their moral standards (Leidner & Castano, 2012;Leidner, Castano, Zaiser, & Giner-Sorolla, 2010) or by rationalizing the harm with an appeal to justice (Aquino, Reed, Thau, & Freeman, 2007). In war, harm usually occurs across group boundaries; indeed, war is by definition an intergroup activity (Horgan, 2013;Shue, 2008;Wimmer, 2014).…”