1. 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:
METHOD
Participants: 302 undergraduates (211 Female), Mean Age = (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), doi: /j x
Haidt, J. & Graham, J. (2007). When morality opposes justice: Conservatives have moral intuitions that liberals may not recognize. Social Justice Research, 20(1), doi: /s 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), doi: /j.jrp
Crites, S.L., & Aikman, S.N. (2005). Impact of nutrition knowledge on food evaluations. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 59, doi: /sj.ejcn