Liberals and Conservatives Favor Their Own Groups When Applying Moral Principles

A great deal has been written about how liberal and conservative people are guided by different moral principles. Moral principles are universal, normative rules that prescribe how people ought to behave that should apply to all times and situations. For example, if you endorse equality as a moral principle, you should want everyone to be treated equally – in the place where you live, in a neighboring country, and even among the as-of-now undiscovered creatures living in another universe. After all, equality is for everyone, even aliens.

According to some research, liberals tend to endorse and be guided by moral values such as care and equality more than conservatives. Conversely, conservatives tend to endorse and be guided by moral values such as loyalty, respect for authority, and purity more than liberals. Thus, both groups see themselves as being on the high road when discussing important issues (such as securing the U. S. southern border) because each group focuses on different moral principles.  Our research was interested in whether these are really universal moral principles that are applied to everyone or whether liberals and conservatives apply them selectively -- when they benefit their own groups.

Most people, including both liberals and conservatives, have a remarkably consistent preference for members of their own groups (that is, ingroups) over members of other groups (outgroups). This preference is shown in people’s reports of who they want to befriend and who they want their own children to marry, as well as in behavior such as dividing money between a member of the ingroup and a member of the outgroup. These findings suggest that rather than applying universal moral principles to everyone, liberals might endorse moral values more when they favor liberal people, whereas conservatives would endorse these moral values more if the benefiting groups are conservatives.

To test this idea, we ran two studies in which we examined how much liberals and conservatives endorsed moral principles depending on whether they were applying those principles to liberals or conservatives. For example, a question used to assess endorsement of respect for authority was worded so that the situation involved either a liberal (“You see a student stating that her liberal professor is a fool during an afternoon class”) or a conservative (“You see a student stating that her conservative professor is a fool during an afternoon class”). Would participants apply this moral principle the same no matter who the target is?

The results clearly showed that the target group often matters. Liberals and conservatives do not simply universally endorse moral principles more or less than the other group. Instead, whether liberals or conservatives endorse moral principles more often depends on the target group. For example, conservatives endorse the moral principle of respect of authority more strongly than liberals when the target is a conservative authority. However, when the target is a liberal authority, the groups do not endorse the principle of respect for authority differently.

Similarly, liberals endorse the moral principle of caring for someone who is harmed more strongly than conservatives when the target is a liberal victim. However, when the target is a conservative victim, we found either no differences in the degree to which the groups endorse the principle of caring or that conservatives endorse the care principle more than liberals do, depending on the study. Although the precise pattern is sometimes different, people adjust their moral values depending on the target to whom it is being applied. This does not mean that there are no ideological differences in moral values, but both liberals and conservatives show clear ingroup favoritism when applying their moral principles.

What do we make out of these results? They suggest that morality is groupish in many ways. For example, as research shows, different groups (such as liberals versus conservatives) have different moral principles. But beyond that, people seem to derive their idea of what is right and wrong at least partly from the group memberships of the people involved. In other words, not only do people disagree on which moral principles should be universal, they also apply moral principles selectively depending on how much they like or dislike the groups involved.

These results may seem discouraging, showing us how far we human beings are from being a consistently moral species. But they can also motivate us to learn how to become more moral and show us where to start. One place to start might be applying our moral principles equally to our outgroups and ingroups. After all, it does not require much moral virtue to support fairness or loyalty towards people we already care about.  But such considerations mean much more when it comes to judging moral violations towards the people we dislike.


For Further Reading:

Voelkel, J. G., & Brandt, M. J. (2019). The effect of ideological identification on the endorsement of moral values depends on the target group. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 45(6), 851-863. doi:10.1177/0146167218798822 [Link for free download]

Brandt, M. J., Reyna, C., Chambers, J. R., Crawford, J. T., & Wetherell, G. (2014). The ideological-conflict hypothesis: Intolerance among both liberals and conservatives. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 23(1), 27-34. doi:10.1177/0963721413510932. [Link for free download]

Haidt, J. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. New York, NY: Pantheon.

 

Jan G. Voelkel is a PhD student in sociology at Stanford University. His research aims to identify factors that divide ideologically dissimilar groups, design and test interventions that enable more constructive discourse about moral and political issues, and examine new ways to increase the reproducibility of scientific findings.

Mark J. Brandt is an Associate Professor at Tilburg University. His research aims to understand ideological and moral beliefs – such as political ideology, religious fundamentalism, and moral conviction – and how they structure attitudes and behaviors, how they provide people with meaning, and why people adopt them in the first place.

New Research Sheds Light on Factors Influencing Trust and Bias in Societies

People with more positive perceptions of their nation's institutions are more likely to show favoritism toward fellow citizens, according to new research in Social Psychological and Personality Science. This research suggests that support for national institutions could pose a challenge for establishing trust across borders.

Researchers also found that people who identify strongly with their own nation are likely to favor their fellow citizens, which aligns with previous studies. The possible role of trust in national institutions, however, was an unexpected development for researchers.

"We observed greater favoritism in trust toward fellow citizens (as opposed to foreigners) from participants who yielded more positive perceptions of institutions as trustworthy, benevolent, and able to provide security," says author Dr. Giuliana Spadaro, of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Researchers asked more than 3,200 participants in 17 societies to play a game that measured the level of trustworthiness they expect from a fellow citizen, someone not from their country, and an unidentified stranger.

Previous research has shown that institutions offering more support and security can guarantee safe interactions with others outside of a person's in-group. Based on these findings, Dr. Spadaro's team hypothesized that people with a more positive opinion of their country's institutions would be less likely to show favoritism toward other citizens. Researchers were surprised to find that people with more faith in institutions were more likely to favor their fellow citizens.

"Trust among strangers is an essential feature of functioning societies," says Dr. Spadaro. "Our findings can inform citizens about the potential factors that might be associated to discrimination, such as national identification or being embedded in well-functioning institutions."

Dr. Spadaro emphasized that these findings do not show the cause of in-group favoritism, but rather that it is associated with positive opinions of national institutions. As a result, these findings should be considered preliminary and an encouragement for further investigation.

Looking ahead, Dr. Spadaro also believes that researchers should examine how people's attitudes toward institutions within their own local communities play a role in favoritism.

"More attention should be paid to perceptions of local (compared to national) institutions, as citizens have a higher chance to interact first hand with local institutional representatives (e.g., police, municipalities, bureaucrats), and might actively rely on these perceptions," says Dr. Spadaro.

-- Press may request an embargoed copy at [email protected].

Study: Spadaro, Giuliana; Liu, James; Zhang, Robert; Gil de Zúñiga, Homero; Ballet, Daniel. Identity and institutions as foundations of ingroup favoritism: An investigation across 17 countries. Social Psychological and Personality Science.

What Does 'Diversity' Mean to You? The Answer May Depend on Your Race

Diversity in the workplace has been a contentious issue for many employers. In May 2014, Google disclosed that 70% of its employees are male, and in terms of racial diversity, the company is 61% White, 30% Asian, 3% Hispanic and 2% Black. Does that breakdown sound diverse to you? If not, what would an ideal diverse team look like? A study publishing in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin sheds light on the complexity in defining diversity.

Previous research has shown that higher levels of diversity are associated with more trust, increased feelings of safety and social satisfaction, and heightened expectations that people can expect to be treated fairly and have the same opportunities as others in an organization. Researchers from the University of California at Irvine, the University of Virginia, and the University of California at Los Angeles collaborated to study how Whites, Asian Americans, and African Americans evaluate diversity. The research included three studies, and participants were asked to rate the diversity of various groups of people that were presented as a team at work.

Differing Perceptions of Diversity

Studies 1 and 2 found that in-group representation—that is, seeing members of one's own race included in the group— increased perceived diversity, even when the number of racial groups and number of racial minority group members was held constant. Asian Americans perceived more diversity in a group that included Whites and Asian Americans than a group that included Whites and African Americans. African Americans rated a group with Whites and African Americans as more diverse than one with Whites and Asian Americans.

Studies 2 and 3 showed that concerns about discrimination play a role in why racial minority group members are especially attuned to whether their race is represented. Study 2 showed that in-group representation had a larger effect on diversity judgments made by Asian Americans who considered national statistics about discrimination against Asian Americans before judging diversity than those who did not. Also, the in-group representation effect disappeared when Asian Americans first considered national statistics about discrimination against African Americans; these individuals rated a team of Whites and African Americans as equally diverse as a team of Whites and Asians. Study 3 measured concerns about diversity and showed that it mediated the relation between team composition and diversity judgments.

Importance of Diversity

The studies identified differences in how Asian Americans and African Americans judge diversity. In-group representation was generally more important to African Americans than Asian Americans, and in-group representation was equally important for African Americans regardless of whether they considered discrimination against African Americans, Asian Americans, or did not consider discrimination before judging diversity. Therefore, people—especially scholars, managers, and policy makers—should be careful not to assume that all racial minority groups approach questions about diversity in the same way. Lead researcher Christopher Bauman notes that, "More research needs to consider the unique perspective of each racial group. A lot of valuable insights have come from research that contrasted majority and minority groups, but finer grained analysis will become increasingly important as the country continues to become more diverse."

The research illustrates that people from different races may view the same team or organization and judge it differently in terms of whether or not it's diverse. "Racial minority group members care whether or not members of their own race are part of a team. While the presence of other minority groups is better than no diversity at all, it's not the same as having someone of your own race present," Dr. Bauman says, "You can't lump racial minority groups together and treat them as a monolithic whole. Each racial group has its own history and faces unique challenges, and it should not be surprising that they approach situations differently." Understanding how individuals experience diversity in the workplace is a much more complex issue than simply knowing the percentage of each race present in a team or organization.

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Bauman, C.W., Trawalter, S., Unzueta, M.M. (2014). Diverse According to Whom? Racial Group Membership and Concerns about Discrimination Shape Diversity Judgments. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40(10). http://psp.sagepub.com/content/40/10/1354.abstract

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (PSPB), published monthly, is an official journal of the Society of Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP). SPSP promotes scientific research that explores how people think, behave, feel, and interact. The Society is the largest organization of social and personality psychologists in the world. Follow us on Twitter, @SPSPnews and find us at facebook.com/SPSP.org