scholarly journals Designing for Engaging with News using Moral Framing towards Bridging Ideological Divides

2022 ◽  
Vol 6 (GROUP) ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Jessica Z. Wang ◽  
Amy X. Zhang ◽  
David R. Karger

Society is showing signs of strong ideological polarization. When pushed to seek perspectives different from their own, people often reject diverse ideas or find them unfathomable. Work has shown that framing controversial issues using the values of the audience can improve understanding of opposing views. In this paper, we present our work designing systems for addressing ideological division through educating U.S. news consumers to engage using a framework of fundamental human values known as Moral Foundations. We design and implement a series of new features that encourage users to challenge their understanding of opposing views, including annotation of moral frames in news articles, discussion of those frames via inline comments, and recommendations based on relevant moral frames. We describe two versions of features---the first covering a suite of ways to interact with moral framing in news, and the second tailored towards collaborative annotation and discussion. We conduct a field evaluation of each design iteration with 71 participants in total over a period of 6-8 days, finding evidence suggesting users learned to re-frame their discourse in moral values of the opposing side. Our work provides several design considerations for building systems to engage with moral framing.

2021 ◽  
pp. 003329412110278
Author(s):  
Alessandro Ansani ◽  
Marco Marini ◽  
Christian Cecconi ◽  
Daniele Dragoni ◽  
Elena Rinallo ◽  
...  

An online survey (N = 210) is presented on how the perceived utility of correct and exaggerated countermeasures against Covid-19 is affected by different pronominalization strategies (impersonal form, you, we). In evaluating the pronominalization effect, we have statistically controlled for the roles of several personal characteristics: Moral Disengagement, Moral Foundations, Health Anxiety, and Embracing of Fake News. Results indicate that, net of personal proclivities, the you form decreases the perceived utility of exaggerated countermeasures, possibly due to simulation processes. As a second point, through a Structural Equation Model, we show that binding moral values (Authority, Ingroup, and Purity) positively predict both fake news embracing and perceived utility of exaggerated countermeasures, while individualizing moral values (Harm and Fairness) negatively predict fake news embracing and positively predict the perceived utility of correct countermeasures. Lastly, fake news embracing showed a doubly bad effect: not only does it lead people to judge exaggerated countermeasures as more useful; but, more dangerously, it brings them to consider correct countermeasures as less useful in the struggle against the pandemic.


1998 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 355-371 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Mendus

THE QUESTION OF WHETHER MORAL VALUES CAN OR SHOULD BE taught has caused controversy and divided opinion almost since the beginning of time, and certainly since the very earliest days of philosophy. As is well-known, Socrates was condemned to death on charges of impiety and of corrupting the minds of the Athenian youth. Although the latter accusation was never fully spelled out, it was certainly connected with the perceived moral subversiveness of his philosophy and, in particular, with his denial that those who purported to teach moral values were qualified to do any such thing. This denial was construed by many as dangerous and as an attack on the moral foundations of Athenian society for which, famously, Socrates paid a high price.


2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 494-513 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Fernandes

This article examines the motivations of liberals and conservatives to boycott and buycott. Nine studies demonstrate that although both liberals and conservatives engage in consumer political actions, they do so for different reasons influenced by their unique moral concerns: Liberals engage in boycotts and buycotts that are associated with the protection of harm and fairness moral values (individualizing moral values), whereas conservatives engage in boycotts and buycotts that are associated with the protection of authority, loyalty, and purity moral values (binding moral values). In addition, the individualizing moral values lead to a generally more positive attitude toward boycotts, which explains why liberals are more likely to boycott and buycott. Liberals’ greater concern for the suffering of others and unfair treatment makes them more likely to engage in consumer political actions. Conservatives, in turn, engage in consumer political actions in relatively rarer cases in which their binding moral values are affected by corporate activity.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michal Smetana ◽  
Marek Albert Vranka

We present the results of two survey experiments on public support for nuclear, chemical, and conventional strikes. We examined how moral values of individuals interact with the approval of different kinds of strikes and with the effects of information about the ingroup and out-group fatalities. Our results show that while the public is more averse to the employment of chemical weapons than to the conduct of nuclear or conventional strikes, the overall relationship between strike approval and the individuals’ moral values does not differ across the three experimental treatments. In addition, we found that individuals’ scores in so-called “binding” moral values affect the sensitivity of the public for in-group fatalities. Findings of our paper contribute to the broader debates in the field about the strength and nature of the norms against the use of nuclear and chemical weapons, and about the role of morality in the public attitudes to the use of military force.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Edgcumbe

Abstract:Performance on Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) is thought to predict moral judgments concerning the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ). This relationship is hypothesised to be mediated by the tendency toward thinking dispositions such as actively open-minded thinking (AOT), rational (REI-R) and experiential thinking (REI-E), and religiosity. The relationship between cognitive reflection, intuitive thinking and moral judgments with thinking dispositions are examined. As the MFQ measures five types of moral judgments which include ‘individualising values’ – harm and fairness, and ‘binding values’ - loyalty, authority and purity it was hypothesised that performance on these moral foundations would be influenced by thinking dispositions and cognitive reflection. Results indicate that the relationship between cognitive reflection and moral judgments were mediated differently by thinking dispositions. Religious participants and intuitive thinkers alike scored highly on binding moral values. Analytic thinkers and non-religious participants scored highly on individualising moral values. The data is consistent with religiosity and intuition being inherently linked and suggests that moral values are influenced by individual differences in thinking dispositions and cognitive style.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
Peter A. Gloor ◽  
Andrea Fronzetti Colladon ◽  
Erkin Altuntas ◽  
Cengiz Cetinkaya ◽  
Maximilian F. Kaiser ◽  
...  

Can we really “read the mind in the eyes”? Moreover, can AI assist us in this task? This paper answers these two questions by introducing a machine learning system that predicts personality characteristics of individuals on the basis of their face. It does so by tracking the emotional response of the individual’s face through facial emotion recognition (FER) while watching a series of 15 short videos of different genres. To calibrate the system, we invited 85 people to watch the videos, while their emotional responses were analyzed through their facial expression. At the same time, these individuals also took four well-validated surveys of personality characteristics and moral values: the revised NEO FFI personality inventory, the Haidt moral foundations test, the Schwartz personal value system, and the domain-specific risk-taking scale (DOSPERT). We found that personality characteristics and moral values of an individual can be predicted through their emotional response to the videos as shown in their face, with an accuracy of up to 86% using gradient-boosted trees. We also found that different personality characteristics are better predicted by different videos, in other words, there is no single video that will provide accurate predictions for all personality characteristics, but it is the response to the mix of different videos that allows for accurate prediction.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryo Oda ◽  
Kanako Hayashi

Assortative mating must be important for maintaining morality in a population, as moral principles are shared by most people in a group. Breeding by a pair with similar morals results in genetic and cultural transmission of these morals to the next generation, which maintains the moral norms of the group. In this study, we investigated absolute and relative mate preferences in relation to particular moral foundations, as represented by five general moral values. In both sexes, correlations between ratings for self and an ideal romantic partner on these factors were rather high (.67  ≤ r ≤ .84). Differences between self-ratings and ratings for the ideal romantic partner did not deviate significantly from zero for any of these factors.


Author(s):  
Б.В. Кунавин

ктуальность предпринятого исследования обусловлена обострившимся в последнее время интересом к проблемам филологической регионалистики, предметом исследования которой является язык регионов, характеризующийся своеобразной территориальной окраской. Между тем, в существующей научной литературе такие понятия, как региолект, регионализм не получили однозначного толкования и четко не отграничены от смежных понятий. Не выясненным остается вопрос об отношении региональных вариантов языка к общеязыковой норме, не определено отношение региолекта к литературному языку, не выявлен состав региолекта. Много спорных вопросов связано с регионализмами, представляющими собой локальные заимствования и функционирующими в ткани художественного произведения. И в этом смысле актуальность данной статьи представляется очевидной. Целью статьи является исследование функций общекавказских и осетинских регионализмов в романе А. Цаликова «Брат на брата». Основными методами исследования являются описательный, стилистический и когнитивный. Научная новизна работы заключается в уточнении понятий региолекта, регионализма, в раскрытии функций регионально маркированных единиц в романе Цаликова «Брат на брата», в постижении творческой индивидуальности автора, в описании структуры повествования в романе и раскрытии способов репрезентации в нем локальных заимствований. Основными результатами работы являются следующие. Выявлена важнейшая функция регионализмов в романе, используемая для романтизации патриархальной осетинской жизни в ее противопоставлении цивилизации, нивелирующей многие национальные явления, разрушающей народные нравственные основы. Именно эта функция осетинских регионализмов является основополагающей в романе, ибо они наиболее адекватно передают содержание когнитивной структуры и способствуют воссозданию национальной картины мира; кроме того выделены тематические группы указанного разряда региональной лексики в тексте произведения; рассмотрены способы их включения в ткань романа; проанализировано их взаимодействие с другими элементами текста. Сделан вывод о том, что помимо передачи колорита осетинской жизни, транслирования традиционной осетинской культуры, анализируемые регионализмы служат передаче эмоционального состояния героев, особенно главного героя, страстно протестующего против негативных сторон цивилизации и романтизирующего патриархальный уклад жизни.  The recently intensified interest in the problems of philological regionalism, the subject of which is the language of the regions, characterized by a kind of territorial coloring, accounts for the relevance of the present study. Meanwhile, in the existing scientific literature, such concepts as regionalect, regionalism, have not received clear interpretation and are not clearly separated from related concepts. The question of the relation of the regional options language to the common language norm is not defined, nor the ratio of regiolect to the literary language, the composition of regiolect has not been identified. Many controversial issues are related to regionalism, which is a local borrowing and is functioning in the fabric of the work of art. In this sense, the relevance of this article is obvious. The aim of the article is to study the functions of the Caucasian and Ossetian regionalisms in A. Tsalikov’s novel «Brother Against Brother». The main research methods are descriptive, stylistic and cognitive. The scientific novelty of the work is to clarify the concepts of regionalect, regionalism, to reveal the functions of regionally marked units in the novel by A. Tsalikov «Brother Against Brother», in the comprehension of the creative individuality of the author, in the description of the structure of the narrative in the novel and the disclosure of ways of representation of local borrowings in it. The main results of the work are the following: the most important function of regionalisms in the novel, used for the romanticization of the Patriarchal Ossetian life in its opposition to civilization, leveling many national phenomena, destroying the people’s moral foundations, is revealed. It is this function of Ossetian regionalisms that is fundamental in the novel, because they most adequately convey the contents of the cognitive structure and contribute to the reconstruction of the national picture of the world; in addition, the thematic groups of this category of regional vocabulary are highlighted in  the text of the work; the ways of their inclusion in the fabric of the novel are considered; their interaction with other elements of the text is analyzed. It is concluded that in addition to the transfer of the color of Ossetian life, broadcasting traditional Ossetian culture, the analyzed regionalisms serve to convey the emotional state of the characters, especially the main character, passionately protesting against the negative aspects of civilization and romanticizing the patriarchal way of life.


Author(s):  
Richard Eibach

Ideology is a recurrent feature of human societies. Ideologies provide people with frameworks to evaluate the relative legitimacy of different approaches to social order. Such ideologies often involve an opposition between right-leaning ideologies, which tend to justify and maintain the traditional order, and left-leaning ideologies, which advocate for systemic reforms to reduce hierarchies. Social psychological investigations of ideology explore the root motivations and moral foundations of people’s attraction to left versus right ideologies. In particular, such work focuses on understanding the motivational dynamics of ideologies that justify the status quo, promote authoritarian control, and rationalize social dominance hierarchies. Social psychological research also investigates information-processing biases that increase the polarization between left and right. These insights can be applied to bridge divides within ideologically polarized communities.


Author(s):  
Ralph Henham

The book argues that the promotion of social justice should become a key objective of sentencing policy. It rejects the idea that current forms of justice delivery can respond adequately to the social realities of social exclusion, discrimination, and poverty and their impact on criminality and victimization. Rather, it argues that a deeper understanding of the moral values that underpin punishment by the state is necessary, one that engages more convincingly with the justice needs and expectations of citizens and communities. It concludes that meaningful normative change is only possible where the moral foundations that underpin penal ideology and inform the sentencing policies and practices of the courts reflect a ‘real’ sharing of values about the social utility of sentencing and its outcomes. This aspiration is not portrayed as some kind of vague utopian notion, but as a fundamental necessity for the future legitimacy of penal governance. The book explores how sentencing might contribute more effectively to the achievement of social justice by engaging with some controversial and difficult problems, such as the sentencing of irregular migrants, offences of serious public disorder, sentencing for financial crime, and the sentencing of women. It concludes by proposing some practical reforms to sentencing in England and Wales based on the arguments developed in the earlier chapters, including an expanded role for the Sentencing Council in the development of a more regional and community-focused sentencing policy.


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