Mapping the Connections between Politics and Morality: The Multiple Sociopolitical Orientations Involved in Moral Intuition

According to moral foundations theory (Haidt & Joseph, 2004), five foundations are central to moral intuition. The two individualizing foundations—harm/care and fairness/reciprocity—hinge on the rights of the individual, whereas the three binding foundations—in-group/loyalty, authority/respect,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Political psychology 2013-08, Vol.34 (4), p.589-610
Main Authors: Federico, Christopher M., Weber, Christopher R., Ergun, Damla, Hunt, Corrie
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attitudes
Conformity
Conservatism
Equality
Ethics
Fairness
Ideology
Individualization
Inequality
Intuition
Liberalism
Loyalty
Modeling
Morality
Political Attitudes
Political behavior
Political behaviour
Political psychology
Preferences
Right Wing Politics
right-wing authoritarianism
social dominance orientation
Social psychology
Sociopolitical factors
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Summary:According to moral foundations theory (Haidt & Joseph, 2004), five foundations are central to moral intuition. The two individualizing foundations—harm/care and fairness/reciprocity—hinge on the rights of the individual, whereas the three binding foundations—in-group/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity—focus on communal bonds. Recent work suggests that reliance on the various foundations varies as a function of sociopolitical orientation: liberals consistently rely on the individualizing foundations, whereas conservatives rely on both the individualizing and binding foundations. In an effort to further explore the relationship between sociopolitical orientation and morality, we argue that only certain types of sociopolitical attitudes and beliefs should relate to each cluster of foundations. Drawing on dual-process models of social and political attitudes, we demonstrate that the individualizing foundations are aligned with attitudes and beliefs relevant to preferences for equality versus inequality (i.e., SDO and competitive-jungle beliefs), whereas the binding foundations are aligned with attitudes and beliefs relevant to preferences for openness versus social conformity (i.e., RWA and dangerous-world beliefs). We conclude by discussing the consequences of these findings for our understanding of the relationship between sociopolitical and moral orientations.
ISSN:0162-895X
1467-9221
DOI:10.1111/pops.12006