It was hypothesized that those with a conservative political orientation will rate all five foundations as being (approximately) equally relevant.
Social and political psychologists have conducted a variety of research to examine whether five moral foundations—harm, fairness, loyalty or ingroup, authority, and purity—can influence political attitudes of liberals and conservatives across a variety of issues.
Harm can be associated with how chemical signals can influence one’s feelings towards another in times of suffering. This is what differentiates humans from animals, as the empathy we feel towards one another can be considered what makes up part of one’s humanity. A mentally sound human will feel empathy towards an unfamiliar person if harm is a factor in the association. Human evolution has designed us to have an understanding to obtain happiness from one another. This endorsement is socially arranged in ideals, for example, generosity and sympathy, and furthermore in comparing indecencies, for example, brutality and hostility. (Graham & Haidt, 2007)
Throughout the history of the human race, partnership development and participation among disconnected people in numerous primate species has prompted the advancement of a suite of feelings that produce equal selflessness, these include resentment, blame, and appreciation. All societies have created ideals identified with decency and equity. These ideals can be abrogated by moral concerns and by the numerous self-serving preferences that prompt faults of social discernment (Graham & Haidt, 2007).
Ingroup refers to the innate loyalty and trust that humans have adopted from living in kin-based groups of people since the history of existence. Due to people placing value to their ingroups, they also value those who sacrifice for the ingroup, and they loathe those who betray or fail to come to the aid of the ingroup. Most cultures have constructed virtues of loyalty, patriotism, and heroism. According to ingroup-based moralities, dissention is not patriotic, rather, criticizing one’s ingroup while it is engaged in an armed conflict with another group is betrayal or even treason. (Graham & Haidt, 2007).
Many cultures have values related to good leadership and people often feel respect and admiration towards legitimate authoritative figures. This stems from our history of living in hierarchically-structured in-groups, as mention earlier, where dominant males and females get certain privileges but are also expected to provide certain protections or services.
The good leadership of these primates is thought to involve magnanimity, fatherliness, and wisdom. As societies value virtues related to subordination: respect, duty, and obedience; Individuals who question authority or protest civil disobedience when there is a bad or exploitative leader are not seen as heroic, they are labelled as antisocial. This ultimately affects an individual’s preference of who they elect. (Graham & Haidt, 2007).
Throughout human evolution, the human change to an intensely meat-based eating routine happened as of late (1– 3 million years prior; see Leakey, 1994). This leap in human evolution lead to the primates scouring to scavenge carcasses, this correlated with the extreme leap in the development of the human frontal cortex. These two are the main influence in the development of the emotion of disgust, as humans we are the only primate capable of this emotion. Nonetheless, in most human social orders disgust, has turned into a social feeling also, joined at any rate to those whose appearance (deformation, weight, or infected state), or occupation (the least standings in position based social orders are normally associated) influences individuals to feel this emotion. In many societies, disgust goes past such contaminant-related issues and backings an arrangement of ideals and indecencies connected to substantial exercises by and large, and religious exercises specifically. The individuals who appear to be governed via bodily interests (desire, intemperance, covetousness, and outrage) are viewed as corrupted, sullied, and not as much as human, while the individuals who live with the goal that the spirit is accountable for the body (pure) are viewed as lifted and purified.
These foundations collectively make up the moral foundations theory. In brief, the research involves applying the theory to political cultures such as those of liberals and conservatives (Graham, Haidt & Nosek, 2009). According to the ‘Journal of Personality and Social Psychology’ it is said that the link between politics and moral foundations will vary to some degree across cultural contexts. Identifying the social, economic, ecological, and historical factors that create such variations will enrich our understandings of morality, politics, and the connections between them (Graham, Haidt, &Nosek, 2009).
Research also proposes the idea that morality plays a stronger role in conservatives’ than liberals’ thoughts, feelings and behaviour. Conservatives are more likely than liberals, for example to see issues in terms of moral absolutes and to believe that morality is not, nor should be culturally determined. Liberals, in contrast, are more likely to endorse cultural relativism, that is, the idea that people’s conceptions of right and wrong are culturally variable and that cultural variability in morality is acceptable (Skitka, Morgan & Wisneski, 2014).
The thesis that I present in this report is that, through social ideologies; an individual’s political orientation is premeditated to an extent; this in turn leads to a united society voting for the same cause. Other factors, such as previous experiences and emotional connections also play a vital role in this position. Although this connection differs when information becomes available to justify and clarify another political view.
Participants
The study comprised of 227 individuals. 59 were men with a mean age of 23.42 years and standard deviation of 7.60, and 168 were women with a mean age of 21.41 years and a standard deviation of 5.47. The age of the male respondent were slightly more than the female respondents. The difference in age was found to be significant, t (225)=2.18 and p=0.011. All the respondents were aged between 18 to 55 years.
Materials
In politics, people consider themselves either as liberal or conservative. This study requires the usage of single item Political Orientation question and it has a scale with seven different options. The seven options are slightly liberal, moderately liberal, strongly liberal, neutral (moderate), strongly conservative, moderately conservative and slightly conservative. This survey question can effectively segregate the people exhibiting liberal and conservative psychology. Another questionnaire is also considered for the study purpose which is called Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ). This questionnaire is self-administered questionnaire that measures the individual choices and priorities in the decision making which is considered to be moral. The questionnaire deals with the five moral foundations; purity, authority, ingroup or loyalty, fairness and harm./care. The Moral Foundations Questionnaire consists of 2 parts among which the part 1 is used for this specific study. The two parts are moral judgements and moral relevance. However, moral relevance is only analysed for this study. This section begins with a question: when actually a person thinks and decide that something is right or wrong and the extent up to which a particular question is relevant. The questionnaire in the first part consists of 16 questions and a scale which clearly depicts the degree of both the relevancy and irrelevancy.
Procedure
The 59 men and the 168 women respondents of the study are told to respond to the single item political orientation question based on their personal inclination to a particular type of politics (liberal or conservative). The test is based on a single scale and the respondents provide their rating based on the 7-point scale which depicts the strongly liberal as 1 to strongly conservative as 7. The MFQ is a questionnaire which consists of 16 questions and are based on moral relevance. This questionnaire is given to all the respondents ranging from 18 to 55 years of age. The data collected from the responses are used for further analysis.
To measure the moral relevance from the MFQ, the moral relevance is measured as a function of political orientation. Data on the table shows the political orientation data in terms of standard deviation and mean along with the number of respondents that had opted for the particular category. The total number of respondents are present at the bottom row. Standard deviations as a rating provide the mean value. Only one respondent is found to be in the strongly conservative category. Thus, the standard deviation of the strongly conservative category cannot be calculated.
Overall a total of 239 surveys were conducted. Due to unavailability of data, twelve sets of responses were not considered for further analysis. Three respondents did not provide the political orientation question test, and the nine did not complete the moral foundation questionnaire. Thus finally 227 were utilized for further analysis.
Table 1: Mean and standard deviation of the moral relevance ratings from each of the moral foundation as a function of the political orientation.
Figure 1: Graph showing comparison moral foundations as function of political orientation
Figure 2: Graph showing comparison of the individuals that responded for each of the political orientation.
The maximum number of respondents are found to be more exhibiting the moderate or neutral psychology along with majority of the respondents having inclination towards the liberal psychology. Both moral foundations harm and fairness (reciprocity) is found to be showing higher occurrences in all the political orientation (figure 2). The other moral foundations like ingroup, authority and purity and its mean values are consistently found in all the political orientations. To specifically point out the number of individuals in each of the political orientation: the least number of respondents are found in the strongly liberal category with only 8 individuals; the moderate conservative political orientation consists of 14 individuals; the political orientation of slightly conservative is found to be exhibited by 20 individuals; the slightly liberal category brings up 40 individuals; however, the maximum number of individuals of 73 and 71 are found to in the neutral/moderate and moderately liberal political orientation respectively.
According to the figure 1, the mean values of harm and fairness (reciprocity) in all the political orientation shows high mean values. The mean values of fairness (reciprocity) are found to be similar in the neutral/moderate, slightly conservative and moderate conservative political orientations. The mean values of the ingroup in the strongly liberal, neutral/moderate and moderate conservative shows similar values. The mean of authority in neutral/moderate, slightly conservative and moderate conservative also depicts similar values. The mean of harm in the neutral/moderate, slightly conservative and moderate conservative also depict similar values. The similarity of the mean values in the moral foundation (harm) is at par with the fairness mean values of the neutral/moderate, slightly conservative and moderate conservative. The standard deviation of fairness (reciprocity) are similar in strongly liberal, moderately liberal and slightly liberal. Also, the standard deviation of fairness (reciprocity) is similar in the neutral /moderate, slightly conservative and moderate conservative.
The hypothesis states that people having conservative political orientation will vote all five foundations equally. However, this hypothesis is not totally in accordance with the collected data. From the data itself, it can be seen that mean values clearly depict both the fairness and harm moral foundations are equal in both the slightly conservative and moderate conservative political orientations. According to the hypothesis, the five moral foundations are not showing any equal relevance. The conservatives favour conventional and traditional thinking and psychology and are hesitant to any sort of radical change. The conservatives try to preserve the status quo and are critical to the changes and reforms that occur in a society (Weber & Federico, 2013). The conservatives accept change only when it occurs slowly, although others may prefer the values of the earlier times. The moral foundation of harm/care emphasize that, all the mammals in the animals which also include the humans care for the vulnerable offspring for an extended period of time. At the same time the human children are dependent upon the parents for usually long time. The evolution has entitled the humans with the ability to both dislike and feel other people’s feelings. Through this way, the conservative nature of thinking has developed gentleness, nurturance and kindness (Davies, Sibley & Liu, 2014). Thus, due to this psychology the people try to help each other instead of hurting others. Thus, the conservative people consider immorality in harming or killing others. All the social beings on earth get the opportunity to engage into relationships and exchanges. The people whose minds are more are advanced and have the craving of accruing more benefits form others belong to the cheating moral foundation. Whereas, the people who truly want to help other and in return want to get helped belongs to the fairness moral foundation. The moral foundations of fairness evoke certain values like the autonomy, rights and justice. Thus conservative people shows the tendency of treating the other person the way others treat them. Thus people expect that everyone must receive what they truly deserve (Day et al., 2014).
From the figure 1 and figure 2, although the number of individuals that responded to the harm and fairness moral foundations are maximum in conservatives. The same trend is even evident among the slightly liberals, moderately liberals, strongly liberals and the moderate/neutral. This proves that irrespective of the liberal or conservative political orientation, the people are more inclined towards the care and fairness moral foundations. The other similarities that can be drawn from the figure 1 and 2 are the ingroup, purity, authority moral foundations are consistently seen to be of less priority among the respondents. However, the moral foundation of ingroup is consistently seen to existing highly among the strongly liberal, moderately liberal and slightly liberal. Whereas, the opposite is seen among the moderate/neutral, slightly conservative and moderate conservative with high votes received for the moral foundation of authority.
The moral foundation of ingroup or loyalty are an exact ideology of the conservative people whereas it is oppositely seen among the liberals. Considering the long history of the prehistoric people, they used to stay in groups in order to survive and sustain. This moral foundation lays emphasis on the identity and cohesion in family, tribe, clan race, team, profession, club and reduction of the indifferences. The same tendency suits the patriotism, that focusses on the self-sacrifice for the sake of the country or ingroup and the famous line all or one and one for all fits perfectly (Leidner & Castano, 2012). The moral foundation of authority is seen to be more in accordance with the conservative mindset. Although, the same is below the priority of ingroup within the liberals. Since a long time, through the social interactions it was determined that people always look towards a leader who can guide them and be able take responsibility when the situation demands. This moral foundation is a conservative political orientation and the virtues like fellowship, respect towards the tradition, leadership and obedience towards the legitimate authority. However, the moral foundation of purity is consistently seen to be having lower preference among the both the liberals and the conservatives. Irrespective of the era, humans have always considered the polluted and dirty things as untouchable. Although on the other side, the humans possess the tendency to protect the sacred and holy institutions and objects (Graham et al., 2012).
According to the study, the data collected does not reflect the political orientation. The sample size could have been much more to increase its external validity. Because if the strongly conservative column is considered then, there is only one respondent. This finding cannot be generalized to a wider population. However, there are more than one variable (fairness, harm, in-group, purity and authority) and thus the study lacks the internal validity as well.
Considering the recent trends, Australia has become more liberal, socially progressive and also economically liberal as well. However, there are certain policies that are conservative in nature like the same sex marriage is not legalised in the country. Refugees that arrive by boat are sent back to the detention centres that are located offshore (Coleman, 2016). The data collected from the questionnaire also reveal the that majority of the respondents had an inclination towards the liberal tendencies. Thus, it can be concluded that Australia is gradually transformed into a liberal nation.
Reference
Coleman, W. (Ed.). (2016). Only in Australia: The history, politics, and economics of Australian exceptionalism. Oxford University Press.
Davies, C. L., Sibley, C. G., & Liu, J. H. (2014). Confirmatory factor analysis of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire. Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1027/1864-9335/a000201
Day, M. V., Downing, E. L., Fiske, S. T., & Trail, T. E. (2014). Shifting Liberal and Conservative Attitudes Using Moral Foundations Theory. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 15(1).doi10.1177/0146167214551152
Day, M. V., Fiske, S. T., Downing, E. L., & Trail, T. E. (2014). Shifting liberal and conservative attitudes using moral foundations theory. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40(12), 1559-1573. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167214551152
Ergun, D., Hunt, C., Federico, C. M., Weber, C. R. (2013). Mapping the Connections between Politics and Morality: The Multiple Sociopolitical Orientations Involved in Moral Intuition. Political Psychology,34(4). doi:10.1111/pops.12006
Graham, J., &Haidt, J. (2007). When morality opposes justice: Conservatives have moral intuitions that liberals may not recognize. Social Justice Research, 20(1), 98-116. doi10.1007/s11211-007-0034-z
Graham, J., Haidt, j., &Nosek, B. A. (2009). Liberals and conservatives rely on different sets of moral foundations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96(5), 1029-1046. doi10.1037/a0015141
Graham, J., Haidt, J., Koleva, S., Motyl, M., Iyer, R., Wojcik, S. P., & Ditto, P. H. (2012). Moral foundations theory: The pragmatic validity of moral pluralism. DOI: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2184440
Leidner, B., & Castano, E. (2012). Morality shifting in the context of intergroup violence. European Journal of Social Psychology, 42(1), 82-91. DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.846
Morgan, G. S., Skitka, L. J., Wisneski, D. C. (2014). Political Orientation and Moral Conviction: A Conservative Advantage or an Equal Opportunity Motivator of Political Engagement? Retrieved from https://www.sydneysymposium.unsw.edu.au/2014/chapters/SkitkaSSSP2014.pdf
Weber, C. R., & Federico, C. M. (2013). Moral foundations and heterogeneity in ideological preferences. Political Psychology, 34(1), 107-126. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9221.2012.00922.x
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