| dc.description.abstract | Two studies extended previous research on Moral Foundations Theory (MFT; Graham, Haidt, & Nosek, 2009) by examining the extent to which political ideology moderates the psychological reactions to various types of moral dilemmas. In Study 1, participants responded to moral dilemmas that asked them to trade-off between moral foundations related to individual rights (individualizing) and/or foundations related to social order and the restriction of behavior (binding). For trade-offs crossing individualizing with binding foundations, conservatives were more likely than liberals to experience negative affect, arousal, and difficulty making a decision while contemplating these trade-offs. Also, liberals were more likely than conservatives to clearly prefer the individualizing option. Study 2 tested whether affirming one's endorsement of individualizing or binding foundations could alleviate the threat induced by contemplating trade-offs between two moral values. Some participants were given the opportunity to credential themselves on either individualizing or binding foundations. and then responded to individualizing versus binding trade-offs. The manipulation had no consistent effect of any of the dependent variables. Although the hypotheses for Study 2 were not supported, both studies suggest that association between political ideology and moral foundations extend to complex and realistic dilemmas and might be driven by cultural conservatism or authoritarianism in particular. | |
