Personal relevance affects the perceived immorality of politically-charged threats.

ABSTRACT: Personal similarities to a transgressor makes one view the transgression as less immoral. We investigated whether personal relevance might also affect the perceived immorality of politically-charged threats. We hypothesized that increasing the personal relevance of a threat would lead participants to report the threat as more immoral, even for threats the participant might otherwise view indifferently. U.S. participants recruited online (N = 488) were randomly assigned to write about the personal relevance of either a liberal threat (pollution), conservative threat (disrespecting an elder), neutral threat (romantic infidelity), or given a control filler task. Participants then rated how immoral and personally relevant each political threat was, as well as reported their political ideology.

SUBMITTER: Dyer RL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10756535 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature