jonathan haidt university of virginia

The righteous mind: Why good people are divided by

politics and religion

Sage Lecture #2Nov. 17, 2008

Jonathan HaidtUniversity of Virginia

6 Lectures on Morality11/10: What is morality and how does it work?11/17: The righteous mind: Why good people are divided

by politics and religion 11/24: The positive moral emotions: Elevation, awe,

admiration, and gratitude 12/1: Hive psychology, group selection, and leadership 12/8: The dark side: Why moral psychology is the

greatest source of evil 12/15: The light side: How to pursue happiness using

ancient wisdom and modern psychology

Magic trick #2

Where did Max’s morality come from?

1. Put into Max from outside (empiricism)2. Was in Max all along (nativism)3. Was constructed in Max, by Max (constructivism)

2. NativismNature provides a first draft, which experience then revises… ‘Built-in' does not mean unmalleable; it means organized in advance of experience.“ (Marcus, 2004)

The New Synthesis in Moral Psych

1) Intuitive primacy (but not dictatorship)2) Moral thinking is for social doing3) Morality binds and builds4) Morality is about more than harm and

fairness

The Social Intuitionist Model (Haidt, 2001)

A’s Intuition A’s Judgment A’s Reasoning

B’s IntuitionB’s JudgmentB’s Reasoning

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34

1

Four main processes: 1) the intuitive judgment link 2) the post-hoc reasoning link 3) the reasoned persuasion link 4) the social persuasion link

Two rare processes: 5) the reasoned judgment link 6) the private reflection link

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6

Intuition tilts the table



fairness

3) Morality binds and builds



fairness

Morality as harm reduction: “Morality is an informal public system applying to all

rational persons, governing behavior that affects others, and has the lessening of evil or harm as its goal.” (Gert, Stanford Encycl. of Phil.)

“If, as I believe, morality is a system of thinking about (and maximizing) the well being of conscious creatures like ourselves, many people's moral concerns are frankly immoral.” (Harris, 2008)

Morality is.....

Fairness/Justice

Harm/Care

“prescriptive judgments of justice, rights, and welfare pertaining to how people ought to relate to each other.” (Turiel, 1983)

Looking for moral “dark matter”Survey of five sources, by one judge. What appraisals of

the social world trigger an evaluative response?

Designed to capture universals: 1) De Waal (1996) Good Natured 2) Fiske (1992) Structures of Social Life 3) Brown (1991) Human Universals

Designed to capture cultural variation: 4) Shweder et al. (1996) “The Big Three…” 5) Schwartz (1992) Value Survey

Harm/care (5) Authority/respect (5) Fairness/reciprocity (5)

And the winners are…….

The “first draft” of the moral mind is “organized in advance of experience” either to have certain intuitions, or to be “prepared” to learn some moral content easily.

Needed 2 more: Ingroup/loyalty (4) Purity/sanctity (3)

1. Harm/care

1. Harm/care

--Attachment system is pan-mammalian (Bowlby)--Psychopaths lack a “Violence Inhibition Mechanism” (Blair)--Mirror neurons and empathy (Rizzolatti; Decety)--Infants detect helping and hurting...

1. Harm/care

1. Harm/care

These findings “indicate that humans engage in social evaluation far earlier in development than previously thought, and support the view that the capacity to evaluate individuals on the basis of their social interactions is universal and unlearned” (Hamlin, Wynn, & Bloom, 2007, Nature).

[i.e., “structured in advance of experience”]

2. Fairness/reciprocity

2. Fairness/reciprocity

--Reciprocity is a human universal (Brown)--Reciprocal altruism (Trivers)--People want punishment to fit crime, not to prevent future harm (Darley & Carlsmith)--Concepts of fairness not clear until age 7, but emotional sensitivity to unfairness emerges much earlier...

When getting something good is bad...(Lobue, Nishida, Chiong, DeLoache, & Haidt, under reviewDesign: 72 pairs of preschoolers, ages 3:0 to 5:10

--Pre-test: “can you give me 4/2/3 fish?”--Free play--Cleanup--Reward for cleanup: stickers--Distribution: 2 for Disadvantaged, 4 for Advantaged

--Wait, observe--Go on to next task--Find 2 more stickers, ask what should be done?--Equalize distribution

Pair 17, disadvantaged = 5 yrs, 4 mo; advantaged = 4 yrs 9 mo

Clear D.I.A., with sulking

Advantaged

Disadvantaged

On implicit measures, early emergence, tiny age trend (n.s.)!

On explicit measures: late emergence, clear age trend. Learned concepts catch up with early intuitive emotional response (structured in advance of experience)

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Disadvantaged Advantaged

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3-year-olds 4-year-olds 5-year-olds

3. Ingroup/loyalty

3. Ingroup/loyalty

--Minimal Groups Paradigm (Tajfel)--Early preference for local accent (Kinzler, Dupoux, & Spelke, 2007)--Tribalism and initiation rites emerge even when not culturally supported (e.g., street gangs and fraternities)

4. Authority/respect

4. Authority/respect

--Hierarchy is culturally widespread; egalitarianism is not the default, it is maintained effortfully (Boehm)--Displays of appeasement (Keltner; Fessler)--Brown, Pronouns of Power: tu/vous distinction is recreated even when language doesn’t mark it: Bob/Mr.-Smith

5. Purity/sanctity

--Disgust is universally present, extended into social world (Rozin, Haidt)

--Purity & pollution practices are widespread in traditional societies, many similarities (Douglas)

--Purity and pollution practices emerge even in modern societies......

5. Purity/sanctity

A game learned from older kids by a general learning system?

orA game that emerges from the 7-year-old-mind as the

purity module matures?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6ylxWcwkUM

Cooties

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6ylxWcwkUM

Web survey of 271 UVA Int’l Students

In the United States, children in many schools say that certain children have “cooties.” If a child has cooties then other children try to avoid coming near or touching that child. Sometimes there are special ways of getting rid of cooties, or of protecting oneself from catching cooties. Kids talk about cooties for just a few years, and it seems to disappear. Do you know what cooties are? (It might have been called something else in your country or school)

Web survey of 271 UVA Int’l Students

107 said they recognized it, continued the study75 finished the study26 thought cooties was just head lice (with some social

entailments)43 said they were related to boy/girl germs/avoidance,

or other mainly social issues --18 of these spent most of ages 7-11 in an English

speaking country, or had English as native language --19 did not

Cooties exists elsewhereJapan: ___-kin (person’s name-germs)Who had it: (1) Anyone who touched a dirty thing, who were being stupid, or

who were bad at something. (2)Elementary school kids… would point out and tease kids who were fat, below average academically, and/or unathletic.

How do you catch it: (1) By touching something dirty, or making some mistakes in class, (2) Imaginary germs that can transfer by touching others

How to protect self: (1) If you are not the first person, then you can say 'engaccho' to protect you. (2) The initial reaction was to pretend they were flicking it off, as if it were dust and they would joke, 'I'll just have to take shower when I get home.'

What properties affect likelihood of cooties?

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-1.00

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Mean

Opp. sex - Same

Dirty - clean

popular - unpop

attractive - deformed

intelligent - dumb

In U.S. or Common-wealthn=18

Notn=19

Being opposite sex, dirty(un)popular, (un)attractive.

Intelligence doesn’t matter much

HarmFairnessIngroupAuthorityPurity

The First Draft....

Structured in advance of experience, in multiple ways (e.g., emotions, learning modules, likes/dislikes)

Openness to Experience

“Open individuals have an affinity for liberal, progressive, left-wing political views, whereas closed individuals prefer conservative, traditional, right wing views”(McCrae, 1996)

The 5-channel Moral Equalizer

Check your settings at www.YourMorals.org

Moral Foundations QuestionnaireMoral Relevance: When you decide whether something is right or wrong, to what extent are the following considerations relevant to your thinking?

(6-point scale, not at all relevant to extremely relevant)

Whether or not...• someone cared for someone weak or vulnerable [Harm]• some people were treated differently than others [Fairness]• someone showed a lack of loyalty [Ingroup]• someone conformed to the traditions of society [Authority]• someone did something disgusting [Purity]

(Graham, Haidt, & Nosek, under review)

Harm

Fairness

Ingroup

Authority

Purity

Moral Relevance RatingsYourMorals.org participants (N=26,464)

Liberals 2 channels, Conservatives 5En

dors

emen

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Harm

Fairness

IngroupAuthority

Purity


dors

emen

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HarmFairness

IngroupAuthority

Purity


dors

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Harm

Fairness

IngroupAuthority

Purity


dors

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HarmFairness

IngroupAuthority

Purity

Moral Sacredness and Taboo Trade-offsTry 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.

Scale: $0 (I’d do it for free), $10, $100, $1,000, $10,000, $100,000, A million dollars, Never for any amount of money

• Kick a dog in the head, hard [Harm]• Sign a secret-but-binding pledge to only hire people of your

race in your company [Fairness]• Publicly bet against your favorite sports team [Ingroup]• Curse your parents, to their face [Authority]• Get a blood transfusion of 1 pint of disease-free, compatible

blood from a convicted child molester [Purity]

(Tetlock, 2003; Graham, Haidt, & Nosek, under review)

Harm

Fairness

Ingroup

Authority

Purity

Moral SacrednessYourMorals.org participants (N=8,004)

$100

$1K

$10K

$100K

$1M

Never

Liberal Response: Explain conservatism psychologically

“Conservative opinions acquire coherence by virtue of the fact that they minimize uncertainty and threat while pursuing continuity with the past (i.e., status quo) and rationalizing inequality in society. Basic social, cognitive, and motivational differences may also explain why extreme right wing movements are typically obsessed with purity, cleanliness, hygiene, structure, and order - things that would otherwise have little to do with political positions per se...”

(Jost et al., 2003)

Liberals are often anti-I,A,P

Science writers John Horgan & George Johnson, talking about 5 foundations on bloggingheads.tv

Engaging the moral imagination: what makes I, A, & P MORAL?

Cooperation decays without punishment

Fehr & Gachter,Nature, 2002

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Fundamentalist churches and village life

“Though a life of mutual dependence within a family circle was commonplace among members of SR and other new right activists I met, it was foreign to people I knew in academia and the New Left... Most of us were prepared, from the moment we left home for college, to leave family dependencies behind and learn to live as self-governing individuals. This left us free to move from one city to another...”

(Ault, Spirit and Flesh, 2005)

Cosmopolitan liberals live in Atom-World, created by post-enlightenment forces of modernity

You can do what you want, just don’t HARM anyone, and be FAIR to other individuals.

But people traditionally lived in Lattice-World

Groups/institutions exist and are primary. Morality is broader, includes foundations of: • Ingroup/loyalty• Authority/respect• Purity/sanctity

Groups/institutions exist and are primary. Morality is broader, includes foundations of • Ingroup/loyalty• Authority/respect• Purity/sanctity

But people traditionally lived in Lattice-World

Social capital: social networks and the associated norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness

Moral-communal capital: Social capital, plus institutions, traditions, and norms that guarantee that contributions and hard work will be rewarded, and that free-riders, exploiters, and criminals will be punished.

Factors that increase MCC:

--Group is fundamental source of value--Emphasize similarity, shared traditions--Authoritarian or Authoritative parenting--Moral imperative to punish--Religiosity--Emphasis on duties, not rights--Ethos of support for authority and local institutions

Factors that undermine MCC:

--Individual is fundamental source of value --Celebrate diversity, tolerance--Permissive parenting--Reluctance to punish--Secularism--Emphasis on rights, not duties--Question authority & institutions--Hi mobility, hi immigration, low stability

Traditional Morality: Uses every tool in the toolbox to increase MCC

Liberal Morality: Rejects I, A, P

The Magic Trick: E Pluribus Unum

Liberals are seen to be obstacles, care only about pluribus:

--Immigration--Bilinguilism--Diversity --Civil liberties

“Liberalism is, in essence, the HIV virus because it weakens the defense cells of a nation."

Liberals speak for the weak and oppressed; want change and justice, even at risk of chaos

"The restraints on men, as well as their liberties, are to be reckoned among their rights.“ --Burke

Conservatives speak for institutions and traditions; want order even at cost to those at the bottom

Cons and Libs as Yin and Yang?

Shiva theDestroyer(change)

Vishnu the Preserver(stability)

The righteous mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion

jonathan haidt university of virginia

Documents

builds4 morality

builds3 morality

fairness3 morality

maxs morality

social doing3 morality

dictatorship2 moral

moral psychology

moral psych1 intuitive