Liberals and Conservatives Rely on Different Sets of Moral Foundations

Graham, Jesse
Haidt, Jonathan
Nosek, Brian A.

¹Department of Psychology, University of Virginia

We thank Mark Berry for creating the supplemental text analysis program used in Study 4 and thank Yoav Bar-Anan, Pete Ditto, Ravi Iyer, Selin Kesebir, Sena Koleva, Allison Meade, Katarina Nguyen, Eric Oliver, Shige Oishi, Colin Tucker Smith, and Tim Wilson for helpful comments on earlier drafts. This research was supported by Institute for Education Sciences and Jacob Javits fellowships and a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (R01 MH68447). Supplemental information and analyses can be found at www.moralfoundations.org.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jesse Graham, Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, P.O. Box 400400, Charlottesville, VA 22904. E-mail: [email protected]

Received March 13, 2008

Revision received December 9, 2008

Accepted January 5, 2009

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 96(5):p 1029-1046, May 2009. | DOI: 10.1037/a0015141

How and why do moral judgments vary across the political spectrum? To test moral foundations theory (^;), the authors developed several ways to measure people's use of 5 sets of moral intuitions: Harm/care, Fairness/reciprocity, Ingroup/loyalty, Authority/respect, and Purity/sanctity. Across 4 studies using multiple methods, liberals consistently showed greater endorsement and use of the Harm/care and Fairness/reciprocity foundations compared to the other 3 foundations, whereas conservatives endorsed and used the 5 foundations more equally. This difference was observed in abstract assessments of the moral relevance of foundation-related concerns such as violence or loyalty (Study 1), moral judgments of statements and scenarios (Study 2), “sacredness” reactions to taboo trade-offs (Study 3), and use of foundation-related words in the moral texts of religious sermons (Study 4). These findings help to illuminate the nature and intractability of moral disagreements in the American “culture war.”