The paradox of the political maverick

Moral dilemmas-like the ''trolley problem'' or real-world examples like capital punishment-result from a conflict between consequentialist and deontological intuitions (i.e., whether ends justify means). The authors contend that people often resolve such moral conflict by aligning factual beliefs about consequences of acts with evaluations of the act's inherent morality (i.e., morality independent of its consequences). In both artificial (Study 1) and real-world (Study 2) dilemmas, the more an act was deemed inherently immoral, the more it was seen as unlikely to produce beneficial consequences and likely to involve harmful costs. Coherence between moral evaluations and factual beliefs increased with greater moral conviction, self-proclaimed topical knowledge, and political conservatism (Study 2). Reading essays about the inherent morality or immorality of capital punishment (Study 3) changed beliefs about its costs and benefits, even though no information about consequences was supplied. Implications for moral reasoning and political conflict are discussed.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Dilemma? Moral Evaluation Shapes Factual Belief

Liu

Ditto

2012

Social Psychological and Personality Science

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“…Most people would find this position morally admirable. Moral stands are inspiring when we see them (Ditto & Mastronarde, 2009;Eagly, Wood, & Chaiken, 1978), but this admiration flows, at least in part, because such stands occur so infrequently. While individuals can and do appeal to principle in some cases to support their moral positions, we argue that this is a difficult stance psychologically because it conflicts with well-rehearsed economic intuitions urging that the most rational course of action is the one that produces the most favorable cost-benefit ratio.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Dilemma? Moral Evaluation Shapes Factual Belief

Liu

Ditto

2012

SSRN Journal

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“…When one asserts “abortion is immoral,” one indicates willingness to coordinate with others to regulate abortion. Coalitions that generally oppose abortion (e.g., the modern Republican party) react negatively toward putative members who assert skepticism about prolife principles (Ditto & Mastronarde, 2009) because this attitude indicates an unwillingness to cooperate on that goal. If beliefs are held fervently, compel strong emotional displays, or are costly to hold, they might function as honest (and thus trustworthy) loyalty signals (Kurzban & Christner, 2011).…”

Section: Tribal Biasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tribalism Is Human Nature

Clark

Liu

Winegard

et al. 2019

Curr Dir Psychol Sci

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112

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Humans evolved in the context of intense intergroup competition, and groups comprised of loyal members more often succeeded than groups comprised of nonloyal members. Therefore, selective pressures have sculpted human minds to be tribal, and group loyalty and concomitant cognitive biases likely exist in all groups. Modern politics is one of the most salient forms of modern coalitional conflict and elicits substantial cognitive biases. The common evolutionary history of liberals and conservatives gives little reason to expect protribe biases to be higher on one side of the political spectrum than the other. This evolutionarily plausible null hypothesis has been supported by recent research. In a recent meta-analysis, liberals and conservatives showed similar levels of partisan bias, and several protribe cognitive tendencies often ascribed to conservatives (e.g., intolerance toward dissimilar other people) were found in similar degrees in liberals. We conclude that tribal bias is a natural and nearly ineradicable feature of human cognition and that no group—not even one’s own—is immune.

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The paradox of the political maverick

Cited by 32 publications

References 7 publications

What Dilemma? Moral Evaluation Shapes Factual Belief

What Dilemma? Moral Evaluation Shapes Factual Belief

What Dilemma? Moral Evaluation Shapes Factual Belief

Tribalism Is Human Nature

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