Intergroup Morality: Strategic Moralization for "Us" and "Them"
Restricted (Penn State Only)
- Author:
- Scheffer, Julian
- Graduate Program:
- Psychology
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- June 04, 2021
- Committee Members:
- Christopher Cameron, Chair & Dissertation Advisor
Jose Soto, Major Field Member
Peter Hatemi, Outside Unit & Field Member
Karen Gasper, Major Field Member
Kristin Buss (She/Her), Program Head/Chair - Keywords:
- Moralization
Politics
Effort
Motivation
Social Psychology - Abstract:
- How do people moralize the negative actions of others based on their group affiliations? Prior work has shown mixed evidence of people’s preferences to focus on and respond more harshly to out-group or in-group negative actions. However, whether this is due to differences in how these actions are moralized is currently unclear. To further the study of intergroup psychology and moral judgments, I adapted free choice methods to examine whether people would differentially choose to moralize negative actions of in-group or out-group members, and whether people would report mental effort differences between the two. I studied supporters of the Democratic and Republican parties during the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. In Study 1, I examined whether people preferred to moralize negative actions of political out-group or in-group members more, and whether effort differences would be reported between the two. In Study 2, I conducted a conceptual replication of Study 1 using topical negative actions from politicians. In Study 3, I altered the nature of the choice task, such that rather than providing participants with choices to moralize, I provided participants with choices of whether they wanted to focus on negative actions of either political in-group or out-group members. Across Studies 1 and 2, people preferred to moralize actions no matter the perpetrator’s group affiliation, and participants reported that non-moral frames for evaluations were more mentally effortful. Further, in Study 3, participants preferred to focus on out-groups versus in-groups, and reported in-group focus as more mentally effortful. To better understand when and why people appear to be disproportionately punitive towards out-group or in-group members, selective moralization and effort avoidance may be two possible mechanisms.