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Conservatives moral foundations are more densely connected than liberals’ moral foundations

Turner-Zwinkels,F.M.
; 
Johnson,B.B.
; 
Sibley,C.G.
; 
Brandt,M.J.
Abstract
We use network psychometrics to map a subsection of moral belief systems predicted by moral foundations theory (MFT). This approach conceptualizes moral systems as networks, with moral beliefs represented as nodes connected by direct relations. As such, it advances a novel test of MFT's claim that liberals and conservatives have different systems of foundational moral values, which we test in three large datasets (N-Sample1 = 854; N-Sample2 = 679; N-Sample3 = 2,572), from two countries (the United States and New Zealand). Results supported our first hypothesis that liberals' moral systems show more segregation between individualizing and binding foundations than conservatives. Results showed only weak support for our second hypothesis, that this pattern would be more typical of higher educated than less educated liberals/conservatives. Findings support a systems approach to MFT and show the value of modeling moral belief systems as networks.
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Funding The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement no. 759320). Collection of U.S. data (Sample 2) was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation under grant no. 1644853 to Dr. Johnson. The New Zealand Attitudes and Values Survey is supported by a grant from the Templeton Religion Trust (TRT0196).
Date
2021
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Tilburg University Research Output Collection
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ASSOCIATION, ATTITUDES, EDUCATION, IDEOLOGY, MOTIVES, NETWORK-THEORY, PSYCHOLOGY, VALIDITY, belief systems, moral foundations, networks, political ideology
Citation
Turner-Zwinkels, F M, Johnson, B B, Sibley, C G & Brandt, M J 2021, 'Conservatives moral foundations are more densely connected than liberals’ moral foundations', Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, vol. 47, no. 2, pp. 167-184. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167220916070
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https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14602/73789
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