Moral "foundations" as the product of motivated social cognition: Empathy and other psychological underpinnings of ideological divergence in "individualizing" and "binding" concerns.

ABSTRACT: According to moral foundations theory, there are five distinct sources of moral intuition on which political liberals and conservatives differ. The present research program seeks to contextualize this taxonomy within the broader research literature on political ideology as motivated social cognition, including the observation that conservative judgments often serve system-justifying functions. In two studies, a combination of regression and path modeling techniques were used to explore the motivational underpinnings of ideological differences in moral intuitions. Consistent with our integrative model, the "binding" foundations (in-group loyalty, respect for authority, and purity) were associated with epistemic and existential needs to reduce uncertainty and threat and system justification

SUBMITTER: Strupp-Levitsky M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7654778 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature