Moral expansiveness around the world:The role of societal factors across 36 countries

International audienceWhat are the things that we think matter morally, and how do societal factors influence this? To date, research has explored several individual-level and historical factors that influence the size of our ‘moral circles.' There has, however, been less attention focused on which societal factors play a role. We present the first multi-national exploration of moral expansiveness—that is, the size of people’s moral circles across countries. We found low generalized trust, greater perceptions of a breakdown in the social fabric of society, and greater perceived economic inequality were associated with smaller moral circles. Generalized trust also helped explain the effects of perceived inequality on lower levels of moral inclusiveness. Other inequality indicators (i.e., Gini coefficients) were, however, unrelated to moral expansiveness. These findings suggest that societal factors, especially those associated with generalized trust, may influence the size of our moral circles

High economic inequality is linked to greater moralization

Throughout the 21st century, economic inequality is predicted to increase as we face new challenges, from changes in the technological landscape to the growing climate crisis. It is crucial we understand how these changes in inequality may affect how people think and behave. We propose that economic inequality threatens the social fabric of society, in turn increasing moralization – that is, the greater tendency to employ or emphasize morality in everyday life – as an attempt to restore order and control. Using longitudinal data from X, formerly known as Twitter, our first study demonstrates that high economic inequality is associated with greater use of moral language online (e.g., the use of words such as ‘disgust’, ‘hurt’ and ‘respect’). Study 2 then examined data from 41 regions around the world, generally showing that higher inequality has a small association with harsher moral judgments of people’s everyday actions. Together these findings demonstrate that economic inequality is linked to the tendency to see the world through a moral lens

Moral expansiveness across cultures: The role of societal factors across 39 countries

International audienceWhat are the things that we think matter morally, and how do societal factors influence this? To date, research has explored several individual-level and historical factors that influence the size of our ‘moral circles.' There has, however, been less attention focused on which societal factors play a role. We present the first multi-national exploration of moral expansiveness—that is, the size of people’s moral circles across countries. We found low generalized trust, greater perceptions of a breakdown in the social fabric of society, and greater perceived economic inequality were associated with smaller moral circles. Generalized trust also helped explain the effects of perceived inequality on lower levels of moral inclusiveness. Other inequality indicators (i.e., Gini coefficients) were, however, unrelated to moral expansiveness. These findings suggest that societal factors, especially those associated with generalized trust, may influence the size of our moral circles

Multinational data show that conspiracy beliefs are associated with the perception (and reality) of poor national economic performance

While a great deal is known about the individual difference factors associated with conspiracy beliefs, much less is known about the country-level factors that shape people's willingness to believe conspiracy theories. In the current article we discuss the possibility that willingness to believe conspiracy theories might be shaped by the perception (and reality) of poor economic performance at the national level. To test this notion, we surveyed 6723 participants from 36 countries. In line with predictions, propensity to believe conspiracy theories was negatively associated with perceptions of current and future national economic vitality. Furthermore, countries with higher GDP per capita tended to have lower belief in conspiracy theories. The data suggest that conspiracy beliefs are not just caused by intrapsychic factors but are also shaped by difficult economic circumstances for which distrust might have a rational basis

Moral expansiveness around the world: The role of societal factors across 36 countries

What are the things that we think matter morally, and how do societal factors influence this? To date, research has explored several individual-level and historical factors that influence the size of our ‘moral circles’. There has, however, been less attention focused on which societal factors play a role. We present the first multi-national exploration of moral expansiveness – that is the size of people’s moral circles across countries. We found low generalized trust, greater perceptions of a breakdown in the social fabric of society, and greater perceived economic inequality were associated with smaller moral circles. Generalized trust also helped explain the effects of perceived inequality on lower levels of moral inclusiveness. Other inequality indicators (i.e., Gini coefficients) were, however, unrelated to moral expansiveness. These findings suggest societal factors, especially those associated with generalized trust, may influence the size of our moral circles