Liberals and conservatives

class: center, middle, inverse, title-slide

# Liberals and conservatives
## Week 10 - Moral Psychology

---

# Week 10
This week, we will be discussing how understanding studying morality can inform political disagreement and bridge divides.

.highlight-blue[In week 10:]

- **Why do conservatives and liberals disagree on so many moral issues?**
- What is similar about the moral minds of liberals and conservatives?
- Is it possible to compromise on political issues?

---

# Activity

.pull-left[ 
**Instructions**: For each issue on the right, consider the following:

1. In the US, where do liberals and conservatives typically stand on the issue?

2. Are the stances *moral* ones on both sides?

After you're done...

3. What unites these platforms?

]
.pull-right[
<center>
 
**.red[`Issues`]**

Abortion

Taxes

Immigration

Gay marriage

Climate Change

Gun reform]

---
# Republicans and Democrats

.pull-left[.tiny-picture-center[![](images/rep elephant.jpg)] <center>
Pro-life

Lower taxes

Build a wall

Traditional marriage

Doubts climate change is real

Right to bear arms
]

.pull-right[.tiny-picture-center[![](images/dem donkey.jpg)] <center>
Pro-choice

Tax to pay for social programs

Expand paths to citizenship

Marriage is a right for all

Climate change is a real and present threat

Reform gun laws
]

---
#Four perspectives

Today, we are going to talk about four perspectives on why liberals and conservatives tend to take opposing stances on moral issues

- Moral intuitions 
 
- Moral motives

- Moral metaphors

- Moral circles 
---

# Moral intuitions
.footnote[Haidt & Joseph (2007); Koleva et al. (2012)]

**Moral foundations theory** posits that there are (at least) six moral intuitions
.smaller[- **Harm/care** - We should care for and not harm vulnerable others.
- **Fairness/cheating** - We should get back what we put forward; we should not cheat.
- **Ingroup/ betrayal** - We should be loyal to our groups (e.g., family, nation).
- **Authority/ subversion** - We should respect authority and tradition.
- **Purity/ Degradation** - We should not violate norms of decency and purity by doing certain things with our bodies.
- **Liberty/ Oppression** - People should not restrict the freedom of others.

]

---
# Moral intuitions
#### The moral foundations questionaire
.footnote[Graham, Haidt, & Nosek (2009)]
When you decide whether something is right or wrong, to what extent are the following considerations relevant to your thinking? 1 = not at all relevant TO 5 = extremely relevant

.smaller[
1. Whether or not someone suffered emotionally. (Care) 
2. Whether or not someone acted unfairly. (Fairness) 
3. Whether or not someone did something to betray his or her group. (Ingroup) 
4. Whether or not someone showed a lack of respect for authority. (Authority) 
5. Whether or not someone violated standards of purity and decency. (Purity)
]
---
# Moral intuitions 
.footnote[Graham, Haidt, & Nosek (2009)]

####Results

.smallish-centered-picture[![](images/mft lib cons.JPG)]

---
# Moral intuitions
.footnote[Graham, Haidt, & Nosek (2009)]

####Moral trade-offs

> Try to imagine actually doing the following things, and indicate how
much money someone would have to pay you (anonymously and
secretly) to be willing to do each thing. For each action, assume that
nothing bad would happen to you afterwards. Also assume that you
cannot use the money to make up for your action.

**Options**: $0 (I’d do it for free), $10, $100, $1,000, $10,000, $100,000, a million dollars, and
never for any amount of money.
---
# Moral intuitions 
.footnote[Graham, Haidt, & Nosek (2009)]

#### Moral trade-offs

.left-column-black-text[.blue[
$0 (I’d do it for free) $10 $100 $1,000 $10,000 $100,000 a million dollars 
never for any amount of money]]

.right-column-black-text[.smallish[Kick a dog in the head, hard. ________

Say no to a friend’s request to help him move into a new apartment, after he helped you move the month before. ________

Burn your country’s flag, in private (nobody else sees you) ________

Slap your father in the face (with his permission) as part of a
comedy skit. ________

Attend a performance art piece in which all participants (including
you) have to act like animals for 30 minutes, including crawling
around naked and urinating on stage. ________]]

???

Give them time to fill it out
---
# Moral intuitions
.footnote[Graham, Haidt, & Nosek (2009)]

####Results

.smallish-centered-picture[![](images/mft libs cons 2.JPG)]

???

Average amount required to violate foundation-related taboo trade-offs across political identity,
Study 3. Response scale was as follows: 1 = $0 (I’d do it for free), 2 = $10, 3 = $100, 4 = $1,000, 5 = $10,000,
6 = $100,000, 7 = a million dollars, 8 = never for any amount of money

---
# Disgust sensitivity
.footnote[Inbar, Pizarro, & Bloom (2009); Haidt et al. (1994)]

*Please indicate how much you agree with each of the following statements, or how true it is about you.*

1. I might be willing to try eating monkey meat, under some circumstances.

2. If I see someone vomit, it makes me sick to my stomach.

3. Seeing a cockroach in someone else’s house does not bother me. (Reverse coded)

4. Even if I was hungry, I would not drink a bowl of my favourite soup if it had been stirred by
a used but thoroughly washed fly swatter.

---
# Disgust sensitivity
.footnote[Inbar, Pizarro, & Bloom (2009); Haidt et al. (1994)]

*How disgusting would you find each of the following experiences?*

5. You see maggots on a piece of meat in an outdoor garbage pail.

6. While you are walking through a tunnel under a railroad track, you smell urine.

7. A friend offers you a piece of chocolate shaped like dog-doo.

8. You see a bowel movement left unflushed in a public toilet.

---

# Disgust  and conservatism
.footnote[Inbar et al. (2012)]
#### Results

.smaller-picture[![](images/disgust sensitivity liberal conserv.JPG)]

---

# Purity  and conservatism
.footnote[Inbar, Pizarro, & Bloom (2009)]

.left-column-small[

#### Results
- Disgust sensitivity predicted responses to purity related issues, such as abortion and gay marriage but not for issues not related to purity, like gun control or unions 
]
.right-column-big[
![](images/results disgust sensitivity consv.JPG)]

???
Tax cuts were a surprising significant result (people high in disgust sensitivity want to cut taxes)
---
# Moral intuitions

####Discussion questions

1. These results suggest that conservatives are hypersensitive to disgust. Why do you think conservatives tend to be more disgust sensitive? Do you think that it is innate or learned?

2. Why do you think conservatives might moralize authority and loyalty more than liberals?

???

City living vs. rural living? Political ideology/ moral values tends to be inherited.

Religion? 
---
# Moral motives
.footnote[Schweder et al. (1997)]

.left-column-med[.smaller[
- **The ethic of autonomy**
Some actions are wrong because they infringe upon the rights of others

- **The ethic of community** Some actions are wrong because they infringe upon ones duties to their community

- **The ethic of divinity**: Some actions are wrong because they disrespect God, or otherwise degrade the body/soul 
]]

.right-column-med[
<center>

**Schweder's Big Three and MFT**

![](images/mft_three_ethics.png)]

---
# Moral motives
.footnote[Schweder et al. (1997); Haidt & Joseph (2007); Koleva et al. (2012)]

.left-column-med[

- Person-focused care and fairness  are sometimes called **individualizing** foundations

- Group-focused loyalty, authority, and purity are sometimes called **binding** foundations

- One criticism of the moral foundations approach is that it concludes that liberals **do not have group concerns**

]

.right-column-med[
<center>

**Schweder's Big Three and MFT**

![](images/mft_three_ethics ind binding.png)]

???

What if liberal community and purity concerns just look different than conservative and purity community concerns?

---

# Moral motives
.footnote[Schweder et al. (1997); Haidt & Joseph (2007); Koleva et al. (2012)]

.left-column-med[

- Person-focused care and fairness  are sometimes called **individualizing** foundations

- Group-focused loyalty, authority, and purity are sometimes called **binding** foundations

- One criticism of the moral foundations approach is that it concludes that liberals **do not have group concerns**

]
.right-column-med[
<center>

**Schweder's Big Three and MFT**

![](images/mft_three_ethics ind binding.png)

.red[Do liberals really not care about duties that they have to their community? ]]

---

# Moral motives

#### The Model of Moral Motives
.smaller[
- All moral motives can be classified by the two **motivational systems** (approach or avoid) and the **focus of moral concern** (the self, another person, or the group)

- **Motivational systems**: our approach motivational system designates moral beliefs about what we *ought to do* (called prescriptive morality) and our avoidance motivational system designates moral beliefs about what we *ought not to do* (called proscriptive morality)
  
  - **Focus of moral concern**: we have moral beliefs concerning what is virtuous for the self, for another person, and for the group]

.footnote[Janoff-Bulman & Carnes (2013)]
---
# Moral motives

#### The Model of Moral Motives