PREDICTING ATTITUDES USING MORAL FOUNDATIONS THEORY Ciara K. Kidder*, Katherine R. G. White, & Stephen L. Crites, Jr. University of Texas at El Paso INTRODUCTION Moral Attitudes Morality: a belief system or ideology characterized by strong conviction; varies across individuals and cultures. Moral attitudes: distinct set of attitudes connected to our morals. Differ from non-moral attitudes [1]: Resistant to change and influences of authority Preference for greater physical and social distance from dissimilar others Less cooperation and conflict resolution in group settings Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) Moral domain is composed of five stable foundations[2]: Harm/Care Fairness/Reciprocity In-group/Loyalty Authority/Respect Purity/Sanctity Extent to which we rely on them influence attitude [3]: ↑ disapproval Animal Research = ↑ reliance on Harm ↑ disapproval Same-sex Marriage = ↑ reliance on Purity Issue Relatedness Attitudes are bases on multiple types of information [4]. Some issues may be related to multiple foundations. Person 1: High reliance on fairness & Gay marriage is related to fairness  Reliance predicts attitude Person 2: High reliance on fairness but Gay marriage is not related to fairness  Reliance does not predict attitude Current Study The goal of the current study is to replicate previous research [3] and examine how issue relatedness predicts attitude. HYPOTHESES Hypothesis 1: Replicate Koleva et al. (2012); moral foundations will predict attitudes Hypothesis 2: Extend by adding issue relatedness; issue relatedness will also predict attitudes Poster presented at the 14th Annual Meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. *Author contact: ckconnally@miners.utep.edu METHOD Participants: 302 undergraduates (211 Female), Mean Age = 20.17 (SD = 3.99), 86.8% Hispanic Measures and Procedure: Issue related measures toward 4 issues: making gay marriage legal, making abortion illegal, using torture in interrogations, using animals in medical research. Attitude: 9-item measure of attitude. Measured on a 1-7 scale; higher numbers indicating a more positive attitude. Issue relatedness: 10-item measure measuring extent to which participants view an issue as being related to each of the moral foundations. Measured on a 1-7 scale; higher numbers indicating greater relatedness. Individual difference measures were completed after the issue relatedness measures. Moral foundations questionnaire: 30-item measure of participant’s reliance on the five moral foundations; 6/foundation. Measured on a 1-7 scale; higher numbers indicating greater reliance RESULTS Replication of Koleva et al.: Replicated regressions used by Koleva et al. (2012): Block 1: age, gender, religious attendance, and political ideology Block 2: MFQ scores (reliance on the moral foundations) Block 2: Four foundations were predictors Harm- Neg. attitudes toward Torture and Animal Research Loyalty- Pos. attitudes toward Gay Marriage Authority- Pos. attitudes toward Torture and Animal Research Purity- Neg. attitudes toward Gay Marriage, Torture, & Animal Research, Pos. attitudes toward Abortion (illegal) Extension - Adding Issue Relatedness: Block 3: Issue-relatedness scores = significant ΔR2 Some MFQ predictors dropped out IR foundation predictors not seen in MFQ Fairness = Pos. attitudes toward Gay Marriage Harm = Pos. attitudes toward Abortion (illegal) Loyalty = Pos. attitudes toward Torture TABLE 1. BLOCK 3 OF REGRESSIONS   Torture Gay Marriage Abortion (Illegal) Animal Research Individual Differences Gender -.323 .138 -.300 Age Politics .242 Attendance -.196 .174 Reliance on Foundations MFQ Harm -.261 -.231 MFQ Fairness MFQ Loyalty X MFQ Authority .260 MFQ Purity -210 -.182 R2Δ .037* .264** .091** .043** Issue Relatedness Harm .191 .221 Fairness .483 Loyalty .177 .153 Authority Purity -.289 *X indicates that the MFQ predictor from block 2 did not remain significant DISCUSSION Replication of Koleva et al.: Partially replicate 7/9 of the MFQ predictors match previous [3] Some predictors from previous did not replicate Methodological differences: Attitude measure Sample size and characteristics Extension - Adding Issue Relatedness: Some aspects of moral attitude is captured by IR when not captured by MFQ e.g., Torture related to harm (MFQ) to person and loyalty (IR) to group/country Future Directions: Further exploration of relationship between MFQ and IR Model relationship between MFQ, IR, and attitude REFERENCES Skitka, L.J. (2010) The psychology of moral conviction. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 4(4), 267-281. doi: 10.111/j.1751-9004.2010.00254.x Haidt, J. & Graham, J. (2007). When morality opposes justice: Conservatives have moral intuitions that liberals may not recognize. Social Justice Research, 20(1), 98-116. doi: 10.1007/s11211-007-0034-z Koleva, S.P., Graham, J., Iyer, R., Ditto, P.H., Haidt, J. (2012). Tracing the threads: How five moral concerns (especially purity) help explain culture war attitudes. Journal of Research in Personality, 46(2), 184-194. doi: 10.1016/j.jrp.2012.01.006 Crites, S.L., & Aikman, S.N. (2005). Impact of nutrition knowledge on food evaluations. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 59, 1191-1200. doi: 10.1038/sj.ejcn.1602331