scholarly journals Moral Foundations in the 2015-16 U.S. Presidential Primary Debates: The Positive and Negative Moral Vocabulary of Partisan Elites

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 233
Author(s):  
Paul G. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Moral Foundations ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Moral Foundations Theory ◽  
Verbal Responses ◽  
Negative Valence ◽  
Presidential Primary ◽  
Moral Rhetoric ◽  
Mass Publics ◽  
Political Left ◽  
Left And Right

Moral foundations theory (MFT) suggests that individuals on the political left draw upon moral intuitions relating primarily to care and fairness, whereas conservatives are more motivated than liberals by authority, ingroup, and purity concerns. The theory of conservatism as motivated social cognition (CMSC) suggests that conservatives are more attuned than liberals to threat and to negative stimuli. Because evidence for both accounts rests on studies of mass publics, however, it remains unclear whether political elites of the left and right exhibit these inclinations. Thus, this analysis uses the 2015-16 United States presidential primary season as an occasion to explore partisan differences in candidates’ moral rhetoric. The analysis focuses on verbal responses to questions posed during party primary debates, a setting that is largely unscripted and thus potentially subject to intuitive influences. The Moral Foundations Dictionary is employed to analyze how frequently candidates used words representing various moral foundations, distinguishing between positive and negative references to each. Consistent with CMSC, the Republican candidates were more likely to use negative-valence moral terminology, describing violations of moral foundations. The direction of some partisan differences contradicts the expectations of MFT. Donald Trump, a novice candidate, was an exception to the typical Republican pattern, making markedly lower overall use of moral-foundations vocabulary.

scholarly journals Resolving the Progressive Paradox: The Effects of Moral Reframing on Support for Economically Progressive Candidates

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan G. Voelkel ◽  
Joe Mernyk ◽  
Robb Willer
Keyword(s):  
Moral Values ◽  
Moral Foundations ◽  
Moral Foundations Theory ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Presidential Debates ◽  
Total N ◽  
Moral Rhetoric ◽  
Economic Ideology ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
The U.S

While progressive economic policies are popular, economically progressive candidates rarely win elections in the U.S., a pattern we call the “progressive paradox.” In the current paper, we examine whether the electoral disadvantage of economically progressive candidates results in part from the moral rhetoric these candidates commonly use to frame their policy platforms. Using a Moral Foundations Theory perspective, we combine previously validated machine learning based measures of economic ideology and new text-based measures of candidates’ moral rhetoric to analyze transcripts of 137 primary and general election presidential debates since 2000. We find economically progressive candidates, compared to economically conservative candidates, rely less on “binding” moral foundations (loyalty, respect for authority, and purity) relative to “individualizing” foundations (care and fairness). In addition, we conducted two experiments (total n = 4,138), including one nationally representative, pre-registered experiment, to test whether economically progressive candidates can build support beyond their liberal base by framing their economic policy platform in terms of binding moral values. Results show that a presidential candidate who used binding framing for his progressive economic platform as opposed to individualizing or a neutral framing, was supported significantly more by conservatives and, unexpectedly, by moderates as well. These results suggest that moral reframing offers an under-utilized solution to the longstanding puzzle regarding the gap between support for economically progressive policies and candidates.

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 Personal Norms for Dealing with Climate Change: Results from a Survey Using Moral Foundations Theory

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (6) ◽  
pp. 381-395 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan Jansson ◽  
Ellen Dorrepaal
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Moral Foundations ◽  
Moral Foundations Theory ◽  
Personal Norms

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.

Stepping Outside the Echo Chamber: Is Intellectual Humility Associated with Less Political Myside Bias?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shauna Marie Bowes ◽  
Thomas H Costello ◽  
Caroline Lee ◽  
Stacey McElroy-Heltzel ◽  
Don E. Davis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Salient Feature ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
The Political ◽  
Intellectual Humility ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Political Left ◽  
Echo Chamber ◽  
Left And Right ◽  
Myside Bias ◽  
Psychological Features

In recent years, an upsurge of polarization has been a salient feature of political discourse in America. A small but growing body of research has examined the potential relevance of intellectual humility (IH) to political polarization. In the present investigation, we extend this work to political myside bias, testing the hypothesis that IH is associated with less bias in two community samples (N1 = 498; N2 = 477). In line with our expectations, measures of IH were negatively correlated with political myside bias across paradigms, political topics, and samples. These relations were robust to controlling for humility. We also examined ideological asymmetries in the relations between IH and political myside bias, finding that IH-bias relations were statistically equivalent in members of the political left and right. Notwithstanding important limitations and caveats, these data establish IH as one of a small handful psychological features known to predict less political myside bias.

More than “Fake News”?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrícia Rossini ◽  
Jennifer Stromer-Galley ◽  
Ania Korsunska
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Fake News ◽  
The Public ◽  
Presidential Primary ◽  
The Media ◽  
Scholarly Attention

Abstract While the debate around the prevalence and potential effects of fake news has received considerable scholarly attention, less research has focused on how political elites and pundits weaponized fake news to delegitimize the media. In this study, we examine the rhetoric in 2020 U.S. presidential primary candidates Facebook advertisements. Our analysis suggests that Republican and Democratic candidates alike attack and demean the news media on several themes, including castigating them for malicious gatekeeping, for being out of touch with the views of the public, and for being a bully. Only Trump routinely attacks the news media for trafficking in falsehoods and for colluding with other interests to attack his candidacy. Our findings highlight the ways that candidates instrumentalize the news media for their own rhetorical purposes; further constructing the news media as harmful to democracy.

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

Extreme Political Beliefs Predict Dogmatic Intolerance

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 292-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan-Willem van Prooijen ◽  
André P. M. Krouwel
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Political Beliefs ◽  
Political Left ◽  
Left And Right ◽  
Political Right

Dogmatic intolerance—defined as a tendency to reject, and consider as inferior, any ideological belief that differs from one’s own—is often assumed to be more prominent at the political right than at the political left. In the present study, we make two novel contributions to this perspective. First, we show that dogmatic intolerance is stronger among left- and right-wing extremists than moderates in both the European Union (Study 1) as well as the United States (Study 2). Second, in Study 3, participants were randomly assigned to describe a strong or a weak political belief that they hold. Results revealed that compared to weak beliefs, strong beliefs elicited stronger dogmatic intolerance, which in turn was associated with willingness to protest, denial of free speech, and support for antisocial behavior. We conclude that independent of content, extreme political beliefs predict dogmatic intolerance.

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