scholarly journals Developing brief versions of the Moral Foundations Vignettes using a Genetic Algorithm-based approach

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Damien Crone ◽  
Simon Laham ◽  
Joshua Ju-suk Rhee
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Algorithm ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Goodness Of Fit ◽  
Moral Foundations ◽  
Moral Foundations Theory ◽  
Close Correspondence ◽  
Minimal Loss ◽  
Two Samples ◽  
Item Scale ◽  
Adequate Reliability

The time-efficient assessment of moral values using systematically validated measures is a high priority in moral psychology research. However, few such options exist for researchers working with Moral Foundations Theory, one of the most popular theories in moral psychology. Across two samples totaling 1,336 participants (756 Australian undergraduates and 580 American Mechanical Turk workers), we used a Genetic Algorithm-based (GA) approach to construct and validate abbreviated versions of the Moral Foundations Vignettes (MFV), a 90-item scale comprising vignettes of concrete violations of each of the six moral foundations. We constructed 36- and 18-item versions of the MFV, demonstrating close correspondence with the complete MFV, and adequate reliability, predictive validity, and factor-analytic goodness of fit for both abbreviated versions. Overall, the abbreviated scales achieve substantially reduced length with minimal loss of information, providing a useful resource for moral psychology researchers.

Moral foundations theory in autism spectrum disorder: A qualitative investigation

Autism ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (8) ◽  
pp. 2202-2212
Author(s):  
Erin E Dempsey ◽  
Chris Moore ◽  
Annie E Richard ◽  
Isabel M Smith
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Moral Foundations ◽  
Moral Foundations Theory ◽  
Moral Thinking ◽  
Moral Judgements ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Autistic Adults ◽  
Moral Transgressions

Morality is important for how humans treat each other and non-human animals. Differences in moral reasoning have been found between autistic and neurotypical individuals. Research in this area has relied on accounts of moral psychology that suggest increasingly mature moral principles that develop from taking the perspectives of others. Yet, even autistic individuals, who sometimes differ in their ability to take others’ perspectives, make moral judgements that are similar to neurotypical individuals. Moral foundations theory suggests that moral psychology is not hierarchical but differs depending on culture. Moral foundations theory has not yet been investigated among autistic individuals. This qualitative study used interviews and qualitative analysis as a first attempt at understanding how moral foundations theory fits with autistic moral thinking. We found that all five moral foundations of moral foundations theory were represented in the interviews, yet certain foundations appeared more prominent than others. The autistic adults interviewed in our study discussed issues of care and fairness more than of loyalty, authority or purity when prompted to discuss moral transgressions. Future research should use quantitative methods to compare groups of autistic and neurotypical individuals to clarify similarities and differences in moral thinking between the groups. Lay abstract Morality is important for how humans treat each other and non-human animals. Differences in moral thinking have been found between autistic and neurotypical individuals. This research has relied on ways of thinking about moral psychology that suggest that mature morals develop as individuals learn to take the perspectives of others. Yet, even autistic individuals, who sometimes differ in their ability to take others’ perspectives, make moral judgements that are similar to neurotypical individuals. Moral foundations theory suggests that moral psychology is not hierarchical but differs depending on culture. This theory could therefore help make sense of similarities and differences in autistic and neurotypical moral thinking. Moral foundations theory has not yet been investigated among autistic individuals. In this study, we interviewed autistic adults as a first attempt at understanding how moral foundations theory fits with autistic moral thinking. We found that all five moral foundations of moral foundations theory were represented in the interviews, yet certain foundations appeared more prominent than others. The autistic adults interviewed in our study discussed issues of care and fairness more than of loyalty, authority or purity when prompted to discuss moral transgressions. Future research should use quantitative methods to compare groups of autistic and neurotypical individuals to clarify similarities and differences in moral thinking between the groups.

Validation of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire with three Chinese ethnic groups

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (8) ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Du
Keyword(s):  
Gender Difference ◽  
Ethnic Group ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Influential Factor ◽  
Moral Foundations ◽  
Moral Foundations Theory

Moral foundations theory is claimed to be universally applicable and is classified into 5 foundations of morality: care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, respect/subversion, and purity/degradation. This theory has not been tested in the Eastern cultural context. Therefore, in this study I addressed this lack in the context of China, where there are people of a number of different ethnicities. I adopted the Moral Foundations Questionnaire, which was completed by 761 Chinese of Han, Uygur, and Tibetan ethnicity. The results show that there was no gender difference in morality foundation scores, but the differences among ethnic groups were significant: Tibetans scored lower than did Han and Uygur in care and fairness, and Uygur scored higher than Han and Tibetans did in loyalty, respect, and purity. The interactions between gender and ethnic group were significant for care, fairness, and respect. These findings suggest that moral foundations theory is applicable to China, that the Moral Foundations Questionnaire can also be partially applied to Chinese, and that ethnicity is an influential factor when people make moral judgments.

Political Orientations and Morality Judgments in the Turkish Context: Considering the Roles of the Needs for Cognition and Recognition

2020 ◽  
pp. 003329411989990
Author(s):  
Burcu Tekeş ◽  
E. Olcay Imamoğlu ◽  
Fatih Özdemir ◽  
Bengi Öner-Özkan
Keyword(s):  
Need For Cognition ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
Moral Foundations ◽  
Moral Foundations Theory ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Group Loyalty ◽  
Political Orientations ◽  
Collectivistic Culture

The aims of this study were to test: (a) the association of political orientations with morality orientations, specified by moral foundations theory, on a sample of young adults from Turkey, representing a collectivistic culture; and (b) the statistically mediating roles of needs for cognition and recognition in the links between political orientation and morality endorsements. According to the results (a) right-wing orientation and need for recognition were associated with all the three binding foundations (i.e., in-group/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity); (b) right-wing orientation was associated with binding foundations also indirectly via the role of need for recognition; (c) regarding individualizing foundations, left-wing orientation and need for cognition were associated with fairness/reciprocity, whereas only gender was associated with harm/care; and (d) left-wing orientation was associated with fairness dimension also indirectly via the role of need for cognition. The cultural relevance of moral foundations theory as well as the roles of needs for cognition and recognition are discussed.

scholarly journals A SMOOTH TEST FOR THE EQUALITY OF DISTRIBUTIONS

2012 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 419-446 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anil K. Bera ◽  
Aurobindo Ghosh ◽  
Zhijie Xiao
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Goodness Of Fit ◽  
Age Distribution ◽  
Distribution Functions ◽  
Type I ◽  
Finite Sample ◽  
Community Rating ◽  
Smooth Test ◽  
Two Samples ◽  
Group Insurance

The two-sample version of the celebrated Pearson goodness-of-fit problem has been a topic of extensive research, and several tests like the Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Cramér-von Mises have been suggested. Although these tests perform fairly well as omnibus tests for comparing two probability density functions (PDFs), they may have poor power against specific departures such as in location, scale, skewness, and kurtosis. We propose a new test for the equality of two PDFs based on a modified version of the Neyman smooth test using empirical distribution functions minimizing size distortion in finite samples. The suggested test can detect the specific directions of departure from the null hypothesis. Specifically, it can identify deviations in the directions of mean, variance, skewness, or tail behavior. In a finite sample, the actual probability of type-I error depends on the relative sizes of the two samples. We propose two different approaches to deal with this problem and show that, under appropriate conditions, the proposed tests are asymptotically distributed as chi-squared. We also study the finite sample size and power properties of our proposed test. As an application of our procedure, we compare the age distributions of employees with small employers in New York and Pennsylvania with group insurance before and after the enactment of the “community rating” legislation in New York. It has been conventional wisdom that if community rating is enforced (where the group health insurance premium does not depend on age or any other physical characteristics of the insured), then the insurance market will collapse, since only older or less healthy patients would prefer group insurance. We find that there are significant changes in the age distribution in the population in New York owing mainly to a shift in location and scale.

Permitted to Build? Moral Foundations in Newspaper Framing of Mosque-Construction Controversies

2017 ◽  
Vol 95 (3) ◽  
pp. 782-810 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian J. Bowe
Keyword(s):  
Binary Logistic Regression ◽  
Moral Foundations ◽  
Legal Authority ◽  
Moral Foundations Theory ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Local Regulation ◽  
Public Spheres ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
American Media ◽  
Permitting Process

Recent proposals by American Muslims to build mosques have been met with technical and ideological opposition during the permitting process. This article examines the framing of these debates in newspaper stories between 2010 and 2013 to better understand the socially constructed position Muslims hold in American media and public spheres. Connecting framing and Moral Foundations Theory, this analysis identifies five frames: Local Regulation, Political Debate, Muslim Neighbors, Islamic Threat, and Legal Authority. These frames emphasized binding moral foundations related to in-group protection and deference to authority. A binary logistic regression found that moral evaluations were associated with mosque support, but not mosque opposition.

scholarly journals Shifting Liberal and Conservative Attitudes Using Moral Foundations Theory

2014 ◽  
Vol 40 (12) ◽  
pp. 1559-1573 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin V. Day ◽  
Susan T. Fiske ◽  
Emily L. Downing ◽  
Thomas E. Trail
Keyword(s):  
Moral Foundations ◽  
Moral Foundations Theory

scholarly journals Moral Foundations of Welfare Attitudes: The Role of Moral Intuition and Reasoning in Pursuing Social Justice

2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 72-83
Author(s):  
Andrej Findor
Keyword(s):  
Moral Foundations ◽  
Moral Foundations Theory ◽  
Welfare Policies ◽  
Related Research ◽  
Policy Attitudes ◽  
Research Programmes ◽  
Welfare Attitudes ◽  
Interdisciplinary Study

Abstract The article interconnects the research on welfare attitudes and welfare chauvinism with moral psychology in order to develop an interdisciplinary analytical approach designed for studying attitudes to welfare policies and potentially overcoming the divisions prevalent in many European democracies. It introduces Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) - an empirical approach to analysing intuitions, reasoning, and emotions constituting moral judgment - and outlines its understanding of competing versions of fairness and distributive justice. The potential contributions of MFT are exemplified on a case study situated in contemporary Slovakia which deals with two conflicting conceptions of fairness, as equity and as equality, embodied in the diverging attitudes towards an amendment to the Act on the Assistance in Material Need (2013). The article argues that MFT and related research programmes are irreplaceable components in an interdisciplinary study of the plurality of welfare policy attitudes. It also highlights the transformative potential of MFT and related research programmes in devising interventions aimed at changing (political) attitudes to welfare and reducing their polarisation.

scholarly journals Act versus Impact: Conservatives and liberals exhibit different structural emphases in moral judgment

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivar Hannikainen
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Cognitive Style ◽  
Distinctive Feature ◽  
Intrinsic Value ◽  
Cognitive Styles ◽  
Moral Foundations ◽  
Moral Foundations Theory ◽  
Trolley Problem ◽  
Expected Outcomes

Conservatives and liberals disagree sharply on matters of morality and public policy. We propose a novel account of the psychological basis of these differences. Specifically, we find that conservatives tend to emphasize the intrinsic value of actions during moral judgment, in part by mentally simulating themselves performing those actions, while liberals instead emphasize the value of the expected outcomes of the action. We then demonstrate that a structural emphasis on actions is linked to the condemnation of victimless crimes, a distinctive feature of conservative morality. Next, we find that the conservative and liberal structural approaches to moral judgment are associated with their corresponding patterns of reliance on distinct moral foundations. In addition, the structural approach uniquely predicts that conservatives will be more opposed to harm in circumstances like the well-known trolley problem, a result which we replicate. Finally, we show that the structural approaches of conservatives and liberals are partly linked to underlying cognitive styles (intuitive versus deliberative). Collectively, these findings forge a link between two important yet previously independent lines of research in political psychology: cognitive style and moral foundations theory.

scholarly journals Does Moral Foundations Theory Reveal that Teens Aren’t Entirely Split on P.C. Culture in Higher Education?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joaquín M Lara Midkiff
Keyword(s):  
Pacific Northwest ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
The United States ◽  
Moral Foundations ◽  
Moral Foundations Theory ◽  
Attitude Assessment ◽  
Political Issue ◽  
Psychometric Tool ◽  
The Relationship

The rise of Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) as a psychometric tool aimed at formalizing the study of political and moral psychology has led to many empirical studies and surveys over the last fifteen years. This present study documents the relationship between self-reported political identities, Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ)-determined political ideology, and a novel attitude assessment concerning political correctness (PC) in academia among randomly sampled high schoolers at a demographically representative and statistically unremarkable high school in the American Pacific Northwest. Contrary to the emerging consensus in this recent field of MFT psychology, evidence here suggests that teenagers of varying political allegiances may be in general agreement when it concerns a political issue that has predominated headlines in the United States: PC culture (and censorship broadly) found in American universities. Though largely a vindication of antecedent MFT surveys, does this unanticipated alignment indicate a possible acquiescence in the zeitgeist of an up-and-coming generation?

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