Where does moral conviction fit?: A factor analytic approach examining antecedents to attitude strength

Uncertain Facts or Uncertain Values? Testing the Distinction Between Empirical and Normative Uncertainty in Moral Judgments

People can be uncertain in their moral judgments. Philosophers have argued that such uncertainty can either refer to the underlying empirical facts (empirical uncertainty) or to the normative evaluation of these facts itself (normative uncertainty). Psychological investigations of this distinction, however, are rare. In this paper, we combined factor-analytical and experimental approaches to show that empirical and normative uncertainty describe two related but different psychological states. In Study 1, we asked N = 265 participants to describe a case of moral uncertainty and to rate different aspects of their uncertainty about this case. Across this wide range of moral scenarios, our items loaded onto three reliable factors: lack of information, unclear consequences, and normative uncertainty. In Study 2, we confirmed this factor structure using predefined stimulus material. N = 402 participants each rated eight scenarios that systematically varied in their degree of uncertainty regarding the consequences of the described actions and in the value conflict that was inherent to them. The empirical uncertainty factors were mainly affected by the introduction of uncertainty regarding consequences, and the normative uncertainty factor was mainly affected by the introduction of value conflict. Our studies provide evidence that the distinction between empirical and normative uncertainty accurately describes a psychological reality. We discuss the relevance of our findings for research on moral judgments and decision-making, and folk metaethics.

When Objective Ambivalence Predicts Subjective Ambivalence: An Affect-Cognition Matching Perspective

Understanding when people are likely to feel ambivalent is important, as ambivalence is associated with key attitude outcomes, such as attitude-behavior consistency. Interestingly, the presence of conflicting positive and negative reactions (objective ambivalence) is weakly related to feeling conflicted (subjective ambivalence). We tested a novel situation that can influence the correspondence between objective and subjective ambivalence: whether a message and a recipient's topic match in affective versus cognitive orientation. When a person encounters a message with an affective or cognitive match to the topic, conflicting reactions may be more accessible, increasing feelings of ambivalence. Across five studies, greater objective-subjective ambivalence correspondence occurred with an affective-cognitive match between message and topic orientation. Studies 4 and 5 also demonstrated that this primarily occurred when the message was counterattitudinal. This work contributes to the literature explaining the gap between measures of objective and subjective ambivalence as well as how messages can influence attitude strength properties.

Understanding the Magnitude of Hypocrisy in Moral Contradictions: The Role of Surprise at Violating Strong Attitudes

Although two people could both enact similar forms of hypocrisy, one person might be judged as more hypocritical than the other. The present research advances a novel, theoretical explanation for a paradigmatic instance of this: the increased hypocrisy ascribed to contradicting a morally (vs. nonmorally) based attitude. In contrast to prior explanations, the present research shows that people infer targets holding morally (vs. nonmorally) based attitudes are more difficult to change. Consequently, when people are hypocritical on these stances, it elicits greater surprise, which amplifies the perceived hypocrisy. Through both statistical mediation and experimental moderation, we provide evidence for this process and show how our explanation generalizes to understanding heightened hypocrisy in other contexts, too (i.e., violating nonmoral attitudes held with certainty vs. uncertainty). Altogether, we provide an integrative, theoretical lens for predicting when moral and nonmoral acts of hypocrisy will be perceived as particularly hypocritical.

Values and attitude certainty: The case for attitude clarity and correctness

Three studies examined how the perception that one's attitudes are based in values affects attitude clarity and correctness. Specifically, perceiving that one's attitude is based in important values increases attitude clarity (the subjective sense that one knows one's attitude) but not attitude correctness (the subjective sense that the attitude is correct). To test this, participants read a counterattitudinal message and were given feedback about the basis of their attitude. Relative to participants who learned that their attitudes were weakly based in values, participants who were told that their attitudes were strongly based in values reported greater attitude clarity than correctness (Study 1). Similarly, increases in attitude clarity from having an attitude based in values increased the perception that participants effortfully processed the message (Studies 2 and 3), the belief that participants more successfully resisted the message, and participants' intentions to act on the attitude.

Understanding the intention-behavior gap: The role of intention strength

This manuscript overviews recent research on the intention-behavior gap, focusing on moderators of the intention-behavior relationship. The manuscript draws on the concept of intention strength to make two important points. First, strong intentions provide better predictions of behavior, thereby reducing the intention-behavior gap. However, strong intentions have the additional features of being more stable over time, less pliable in the face of interventions to change them, and more likely to bias information processing about engaging in the behavior. These four features of intention strength are not independent. For example, stable intentions are likely to provide better predictions of behavior. Second, various predictors of strength (e.g., importance, certainty, extremity) may also constitute important, but little studied, moderators of the intention-behavior relationship. Moreover, the effects of these moderators of the intention-behavior relationship may be mediated through intention stability (and perhaps other features of intention strength). Future research on the intention-behavior gap would benefit from a more systematic consideration of a broad range of moderators of the intention-behavior relationship both individually and in combination. In addition, future research could usefully explore how these moderating effects might be explained. Such a systematic approach may further our understanding of the intention-behavior gap in relation to physical activity and other behaviors.

Morality Matters in the Marketplace: The Role of Moral Metacognition in Consumer Purchasing

To better understand the seemingly inconsistent influence of consumers' morality on their marketplace behaviors, we apply insights from research on attitude moralization to the consumer domain. That is, rather than predefining certain products as “moral,” this approach treats morality as the extent to which individual consumers metacognitively perceive their positive product attitudes as rooted in moral (vs. non-moral) considerations. Across multiple studies (N = 1,105), a wide variety of product categories, and multiple methodological approaches (i.e., correlational, experimental, and longitudinal), we show how the degree to which consumers perceive a moral basis for their product attitudes robustly predicts their intended and actual marketplace behaviors. Importantly, these findings hold above and beyond overall attitudes, other metacognitive assessments (e.g., certainty and ambivalence), and explicit product quality. By extending prior research in moral social cognition to the consumer domain, we provide a more refined account of morality's role in consumer behavior.

Moralization of Covid-19 health response: Asymmetry in tolerance for human costs

We hypothesized that because Covid-19 (C19) remains an urgent and visible threat, efforts to combat its negative health consequences have become moralized. This moralization of health-based efforts may generate asymmetries in judgement, whereby harmful by-products of those efforts (i.e., instrumental harm) are perceived as more acceptable than harm resulting from non-C19 efforts, such as prioritizing the economy or non-C19 issues. We tested our predictions in two experimental studies. In Study 1, American participants evaluated the same costs (public shaming, deaths and illnesses, and police abuse of power) as more acceptable when they resulted from efforts to minimize C19's health impacts, than when they resulted from non-health C19 efforts (e.g., prioritizing economic costs) or efforts unrelated to C19 (e.g., reducing traffic deaths). In Study 2, New Zealand participants less favorably evaluated the quality of a research proposal empirically questioning continuing a C19 elimination strategy in NZ than one questioning abandoning an elimination strategy, although both proposals contained the same amount of methodology information. This finding suggests questioning elimination approaches is morally condemned, a similar response to that found when sacred values are questioned. In both studies, condition effects were mediated by lowered moral outrage in response to costs resulting from pursuing health-minded C19 efforts. Follow-up analyses revealed that both heightened personal concern over contracting C19 and liberal ideology were associated with greater asymmetries in human cost evaluation. Altogether, results suggest efforts to reduce or eliminate C19 have become moralized, generating asymmetries in evaluations of human suffering.

Two-Sided Messages Promote Openness for Morally Based Attitudes

This research demonstrates that two- versus one-sided counterattitudinal messages can encourage people with a strong moral basis for their attitudes to be more open to contrary positions. Studies 1A/B demonstrated that the interaction between moral basis and message sidedness was present not just for a controversial issue with balanced views in society but also for a topic with a majority opinion. In Study 2, the relative effectiveness of two- over one-sided messages for people with a moral attitude basis was shown to occur only when the two-sided message respectfully acknowledged the recipient's side. In Study 3, the effect was replicated in a preregistered experiment. Furthermore, moral bases provided unique predictive power beyond alternative attitude strength indicators. Across all studies, perceived appreciation of the speaker acknowledging the recipient's view mediated the impact of the independent variables on openness.

Understanding When Similarity-Induced Affective Attraction Predicts Willingness to Affiliate: An Attitude Strength Perspective

Individuals reliably feel more attracted to those with whom they share similar attitudes. However, this affective liking does not always predict affiliative behavior, such as pursuing a friendship. The present research examined factors that influence the extent to which similarity-based affective attraction increases willingness to affiliate (i.e., behavioral attraction) – one potential step toward engaging in affiliative behavior. Research on attitude strength has identified attitude properties, such as confidence, that predict when an attitude is likely to impact relevant outcomes. We propose that when one’s attitudes possess these attitude strength-related properties, affective attraction to those who share that attitude will be more likely to spark willingness to affiliate. Across four studies on a variety of topics, participants (N = 428) reported their attitudes and various attitude properties regarding a topic. They were introduced to a target and learned the target’s stance on the issue. Participants reported their affective attraction and willingness to pursue friendship with the target. Consistent with past research, attitude similarity predicted affective attraction. More importantly, the relation between affective attraction and willingness to affiliate with the target was moderated by the attitude strength-related properties. A mini meta-analysis found this effect to be consistent across the four studies.