Moral identity and the experience of moral elevation in response to acts of uncommon goodness.

Four studies using survey and experimental designs examined whether people whose moral identity is highly self-defining are more susceptible to experiencing a state of moral elevation after being exposed to acts of uncommon moral goodness. Moral elevation consists of a suite of responses that motivate prosocial action tendencies. Study 1 showed that people higher (vs. lower) in moral identity centrality reported experiencing more intense elevating emotions, had more positive views of humanity, and were more desirous of becoming a better person after reading about an act of uncommon goodness than about a merely positive situation or an act of common benevolence. Study 2 showed that those high in moral identity centrality were more likely to recall acts of moral goodness and experience moral elevation in response to such events more strongly. These experiences were positively related to self-reported prosocial behavior. Study 3 showed a direct effect on behavior using manipulated, rather than measured, moral identity centrality. Study 4 replicated the effect of moral identity on the states of elevation as well as on self-reported physical sensations and showed that the elevation mediates the relationship between moral identity, witnessing uncommon goodness, and prosocial behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Moral agency and the sexual transmission of HIV.

Sexual transmission of HIV occurs because an infected person has unprotected sex with a previously uninfected person. The majority of HIV infections are transmitted by individuals who are unaware of their infection, and most persons who are diagnosed with HIV significantly reduce or eliminate risk behaviors once they learn they have HIV. However, a minority of known-infected individuals engage in transmission risk behavior, sometimes without disclosure to their partners. Such behavior may involve a breakdown or temporary suspension of moral mechanisms, such as personal responsibility beliefs and anticipatory self-evaluative reactions to one’s behavior. The present article reviews the literature on sexual transmission risk behavior within A. Bandura’s (1999) theoretical framework of moral agency. The article first reviews evidence for the operation of moral agency in transmission risk behavior and HIV status disclosure. Next, suggestive evidence is presented for the operation of mechanisms of moral disengagement described by Bandura. Finally, the article reviews a small number of interventions that have been shown to be effective in reducing transmission risk behavior, through the lens of moral agency, and make recommendations for future intervention research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Testing a social-cognitive model of moral behavior: The interactive influence of situations and moral identity centrality.

This article proposes and tests a social-cognitive framework for examining the joint influence of situational factors and the centrality of moral identity on moral intentions and behaviors. The authors hypothesized that if a situational factor increases the current accessibility of moral identity within the working self-concept, then it strengthens the motivation to act morally. In contrast, if a situational factor decreases the current accessibility of moral identity, then it weakens the motivation to act morally. The authors also expected the influence of situational factors to vary depending on the extent to which moral identity was central to a person’s overall self-conception. Hypotheses derived from the framework were tested in 4 studies. The studies used recalling and reading a list of the Ten Commandments (Study 1), writing a story using morally laden terms (Study 4), and the presence of performance-based financial incentives (Studies 2 and 3) as situational factors. Participants’ willingness to initiate a cause-related marketing program (Study 1), lie to a job candidate during a salary negotiation (Studies 2 and 3), and contribute to a public good (Study 4) were examined. Results provide strong support for the proposed framework. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of motives in the content and structure of autobiographical memory.

Findings from 4 studies suggest that differentiation and integration are used by individuals high in agency and communion to structure motive-related information in episodic memory. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated that agentic and communal individuals recalled more emotional experiences related to their motives, and that agentic individuals used more differentiation whereas communal individuals used more integration to structure these memories. Study 3 showed that agentic and communal individuals used more differentiation and integration to structure memories about social separation and connection, respectively. Study 4 demonstrated a similar pattern of recall in an experimentally controlled retrieval task. For a motive-congruent topic, agentic individuals recognized more differentiated information and had fewer differentiation recognition errors, and communal individuals freely recalled more integration. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some self-reported correlates of runaway behavior in adolescent females.

The responses of 52 White female runaways (aged 14 yrs 5 mo to 17 yrs 11 mo) were contrasted with those of 51 White age-matched female nonrunaways on measures of family interaction, social self-esteem, and desirable and undesirable agentic and communal traits. As predicted, nonrunaways described their parents as supportive and restrictive and themselves as having social self-esteem to a significantly greater extent than did their runaway peers. Runaways endorsed socially undesirable agentic traits to a significantly greater degree and socially desirable communal traits to a significantly lesser degree than did nonrunaway counterparts. (4 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Exposure to Benevolent Sexism and Complementary Gender Stereotypes: Consequences for Specific and Diffuse Forms of System Justification.

Many have suggested that complementary gender stereotypes of men as agentic (but not communal) and women as communal (but not agentic) serve to increase system justification, but direct experimental support has been lacking. The authors exposed people to specific types of gender-related beliefs and subsequently asked them to complete measures of gender-specific or diffuse system justification. In Studies 1 and 2, activating (a) communal or complementary (communal + agentic) gender stereotypes or (b) benevolent or complementary (benevolent + hostile) sexist items increased support for the status quo among women. In Study 3, activating stereotypes of men as agentic also increased system justification among men and women, but only when women's characteristics were associated with higher status. Results suggest that complementary stereotypes psychologically offset the one-sided advantage of any single group and contribute to an image of society in which everyone benefits through a balanced dispersion of benefits. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The influence of implicit motives on memory processes.

Four studies tested the hypothesis that agentic and communal motives act as a channel for new knowledge and are linked to specific ways of organizing information that facilitate its accessibility. In Study 1, agentic and communal participants read an agentic or a communal vignette consisting of differentiated and integrated statements, performed a distraction task, then completed written recall and recognition tasks. Agentics recalled and recognized more differentiation in the agentic story; communals recalled and recognized more integration in the communal story. A computerized replication with randomized recognition items (Study 2) found the same pattern of recognition results. Studies 3 and 4 used implicit motive primes and found similar results in both written and computerized recognition tasks. These ways of organizing information have powerful implications for the encoding of autobiographical knowledge and its long-term organization. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Measurement of moral values: A review and critique.

A historical review of the literature on efforts to assess strength of moral values led to the conclusion that existing instruments have weaknesses which limit their utility for psychological research. The most important of these weaknesses are: (1) questionable assumptions about the relationship of moral values and moral behavior, (2) a focus on moral abstractions rather than moral behavior in realistic contexts, (3) reliance on subjective and inferential scoring procedures which stress "correct" moral values, and (4) inadequate standardization. It is concluded that moral values are best conceptualized as subjective and individual attitudes whose measurement is most meaningfully achieved independent of a concern with moral behavior and conventional standards of moral evaluation. (2 p. ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Situational influences on gender differences in agency and communion.

Gender differences were examined in the context of situational effects. Participants monitored interpersonal behavior for 20 days, using an event-sampling strategy. The monitored behaviors reflected dominance and submissiveness (components of agency) and agreeableness and quarrelsomeness (components of communion). The situations reflected differences in the status of work roles: interactions with boss, co-worker, and supervisee. Status influenced agency. Individuals were most agentic when with a supervisee and least agentic when with a boss. Gender did not influence agency but did influence communal behaviors. Women were more communal regardless of social role status; women were especially communal with other women, compared with men with men. Findings about agency supported a social role theory interpretation of gender differences. Results for communion were consistent with accounts of the influence of sex segregation on interpersonal relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cross-situational generality and the interpersonal circumplex.

Four traits of the interpersonal circumplex, dominance, submissiveness, agreeableness, and quarrelsomeness, were measured using experience sampling. Participants monitored their behavior for 20 days. For each social interaction, they recorded behaviors and information about the situation. Two sets of situations, agentic and communal, were defined on the basis of information about the relationship of the other person with the participant. Results suggested general guidelines for expectations about magnitudes of cross-situational generality. For these broad traits of the interpersonal circumplex, there was modest to low generality across agentic situations in which individuals varied in power and status (supervisor and co-worker). Cross-situational generality was moderately high across communal situations (acquaintances and friends). Behavior toward a romantic partner was distinct from behavior toward close friends and acquaintances. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relation of multicultural experiences to moral judgment and mindsets.

Multicultural experience is considered to be beneficial, but it remains a difficult construct to measure. We tested the validity of a new assessment tool, the Multicultural Experiences Questionnaire (MEQ), using an undergraduate sample (N = 164), and examined the relation of multicultural experience to moral judgment, closed-mindedness, growth, and fixed mindsets. We expected that greater multicultural experience would be related to lower levels of closed-mindedness and higher levels of moral judgment and growth mindsets. Higher MEQ scores were correlated with decreased closed-mindedness and higher moral judgment scores. In regression analyses, controlling for age and sex, higher MEQ scores positively predicted participant scores on postconventional moral judgment and growth mindsets, but negatively predicted use of less developed moral judgment and fixed mindsets. Overall, these results support the validity of the MEQ and suggest that multicultural experiences are positively linked to measures of moral judgment and growth mindsets. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A little thanks goes a long way: Explaining why gratitude expressions motivate prosocial behavior.

Although research has established that receiving expressions of gratitude increases prosocial behavior, little is known about the psychological mechanisms that mediate this effect. We propose that gratitude expressions can enhance prosocial behavior through both agentic and communal mechanisms, such that when helpers are thanked for their efforts, they experience stronger feelings of self-efficacy and social worth, which motivate them to engage in prosocial behavior. In Experiments 1 and 2, receiving a brief written expression of gratitude motivated helpers to assist both the beneficiary who expressed gratitude and a different beneficiary. These effects of gratitude expressions were mediated by perceptions of social worth and not by self-efficacy or affect. In Experiment 3, we constructively replicated these effects in a field experiment: A manager's gratitude expression increased the number of calls made by university fundraisers, which was mediated by social worth but not self-efficacy. In Experiment 4, a different measure of social worth mediated the effects of an interpersonal gratitude expression. Our results support the communal perspective rather than the agentic perspective: Gratitude expressions increase prosocial behavior by enabling individuals to feel socially valued. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Agentic women and communal leadership: How role prescriptions confer advantage to top women leaders.

The authors contribute to the ongoing debate about the existence of a female leadership advantage by specifying contextual factors that moderate the likelihood of the emergence of such an advantage. The investigation considered whether the perceived role incongruence between the female gender role and the leader role led to a female leader disadvantage (as predicted by role congruity theory) or whether instead a female leader advantage would emerge (as predicted by double standards and stereotype content research). In Study 1, it was only when success was internally attributed that women top leaders were evaluated as more agentic and more communal than men top leaders. Study 2 showed that the favorable ratings were unique to top-level positions and further showed that the effect on agentic traits was mediated by perceptions of double standards, while the effect on communal traits was mediated by expectations of feminized management skills. Finally, Study 2 showed that top women leaders were evaluated most favorably on overall leader effectiveness, and this effect was mediated by both mediators. Our results support the existence of a qualified female leadership advantage. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sex differences in the evaluation and performance of dominant acts.

D. Bakan (see PA, Vol 41:2200) conceptualizes 2 major modes of existence: agency and communion. In the agentic (masculine) mode, the individual is concerned with self-protection, self-assertion, and self-enhancement. Communion involves concern with the larger group of which one is a part. Two studies were conducted to explore these distinctions in the domain of dominance. In the 1st, 57 undergraduates evaluated 100 acts, previously and independently nominated as dominant, on their social desirability. Male raters judged self-enhancing and self-asserting acts (e.g., flattering someone to get one's way) as relatively more desirable than did female raters, who judged group-oriented, communal acts (e.g., introducing a speaker at a meeting) as more desirable. In the 2nd study, 83 Ss examined sex differences in the behaviors that express dominance. Dominant men tended to express their dominance through both communal and agentic acts, whereas dominant women tended to express dominance primarily through group-oriented actions. Results lend support to the agency/communion conceptualization and suggest sex-linked differentiation of dominant behavior. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Moral disengagement among serious juvenile offenders: A longitudinal study of the relations between morally disengaged attitudes and offending.

The present study investigates the relation between moral disengagement—one's willingness to conditionally endorse transgressive behavior—and ongoing offending in a sample of adolescent male felony offenders (N = 1,169). In addition, the study attempts to rule out callous–unemotional traits as a third variable responsible for observed associations between moral disengagement and offending. A bivariate latent change score analysis suggests that reduction in moral disengagement helps to speed decline in self-reported antisocial behavior, even after adjusting for the potential confound of callous–unemotional traits. Declines in moral disengagement are also associated with declining likelihood of offending, based on official records. Given that both moral disengagement and offending tend to decrease over time, these findings suggest that changing attitudes toward antisocial behavior contribute to desistance from offending among delinquent youth. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Abstraction, Inference, and Acceptance in Children's Processing of an Adult Model's Moral Judgments.

The effects of a common dimension within a model's performance on different aspects of observational learning were examined in two experiments. Children observed an adult female make a series of choices between alternative solutions to hypothetical moral dilemma situations. In the common-dimension conditions, the model either selected behavioral options that consistently reflected some form of social responsibility or picked solutions that consistently reflected the motive of avoiding harm to self. In the no-common-dimension condition, the model chose half social responsibility and half harm-avoidance answers. In Experiment 1 we tested children's ability to recall the model's moral judgments given the presence or absence of a common dimension. In Experiment 2 we examined children's attributions concerning the unobserved behavior of the model and their acceptance of the rule governing her responses as a guide for their own choices. As predicted, the presence of a common dimension facilitated recall of the model's choices, led children to infer that similar consistency would be found in her judgments about other moral issues, and resulted in modifications of the children's own responses to a test of moral reasoning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ecological moral realism: An alternative theoretical framework for studying moral psychology.

The authors propose that the empirical study of human moral behavior as undertaken by positive psychologists, psychologists interested in the study of values, and experimental ethicists can be normative at its core, yet also remain truly scientific. To do this, those interested in the empirical study of human moral behavior should consider the concept of affordances, which is central to the Gibsonian ecological psychology tradition, as an approach to studying virtues and strengths. From this perspective, virtues can be better defined as part of moral analogues of affordances (MAAs). Just as the affordance "being-climbable" is a relation between climbing ability and height, so one can similarly define a MAA as an opportunity for moral behavior. Virtues, on this account, would be defined as abilities to behave appropriately in morally relevant situations. If one studies virtues as components of MAAs, virtues are only comprehensible in terms of morally relevant situations. Similarly, morally relevant situations are comprehensible only in terms of abilities to behave appropriately in them, that is, in terms of virtues. We believe that such an approach holds many advantages. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mapping the moral domain.

The moral domain is broader than the empathy and justice concerns assessed by existing measures of moral competence, and it is not just a subset of the values assessed by value inventories. To fill the need for reliable and theoretically grounded measurement of the full range of moral concerns, we developed the Moral Foundations Questionnaire on the basis of a theoretical model of 5 universally available (but variably developed) sets of moral intuitions: Harm/Care, Fairness/Reciprocity, Ingroup/Loyalty, Authority/Respect, and Purity/Sanctity. We present evidence for the internal and external validity of the scale and the model, and in doing so we present new findings about morality: (a) Comparative model fitting of confirmatory factor analyses provides empirical justification for a 5-factor structure of moral concerns; (b) convergent/discriminant validity evidence suggests that moral concerns predict personality features and social group attitudes not previously considered morally relevant; and (c) we establish pragmatic validity of the measure in providing new knowledge and research opportunities concerning demographic and cultural differences in moral intuitions. These analyses provide evidence for the usefulness of Moral Foundations Theory in simultaneously increasing the scope and sharpening the resolution of psychological views of morality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of moral judgment and moral identity on moral behavior: An empirical examination of the moral individual.

Recognizing limitations in classic cognitive moral development theory, several scholars have drawn from theories of identity to suggest that moral behavior results from both moral judgments and moral identity. The authors conducted 2 survey-based studies with more than 500 students and managers to test this argument. Results demonstrated that moral identity and moral judgments both independently influenced moral behavior. In addition, in situations in which social consensus regarding the moral behavior was not high, moral judgments and moral identity interacted to shape moral behavior. This interaction effect indicated that those who viewed themselves as moral individuals pursued the most extreme alternatives (e.g., never cheating, regularly cheating)--a finding that affirms the motivational power of a moral identity. The authors conclude by considering the implications of this research for both theory and practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Violence with a conscience: Religiosity and moral certainty as predictors of support for violent warfare.

Objective: Emerging research on the moral licensing effect implies that increasing a person's moral certainty may decrease concerns about the moral consequences of violent warfare. Therefore, if religion increases moral certainty, then it may also contribute to support for violent warfare. The present experiment tested the extent to which religion's contribution to moral certainty explains participants' support for the United States' war in the Middle East. Method: Ninety-three predominantly Catholic and Protestant participants from a university setting completed the present study. The study was completed across two separate days. On the first day of the experiment, individual differences in a variety of types of religiosity (e.g., prayer), and moral certainty were measured. On the second day of the experiment, the perception that the United States' war in the Middle East is a religious or geopolitical conflict was experimentally manipulated, and support for violent warfare was measured. Results: Regression analyses and an analysis of variance yielded support for the moral certainty hypothesis. As predicted, greater religiosity relates to greater moral certainty, and greater moral certainty strengthens the (positive) relation between religiosity and support for violent warfare. Furthermore, moral certainty is a stronger predictor of support for violent warfare in religious conflict than it is in geopolitical conflict. Conclusion: The results support the moral certainty hypothesis and suggest that stronger moral certainty (1) predicts greater support for violent warfare, (2) is an underlying moderator of the relation between religiosity and support for violent warfare, and (3) is particularly influential in religious conflict. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)