Meant No Harm
Liberals and Conservatives See Different Victims: Moral Disagreement Is Explained by Different Assumptions of Vulnerability
Jake Womick et al.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Moral disagreement across politics revolves around the key question, “Who is a victim?” Twelve studies explain moral conflict with assumptions of vulnerability (AoVs): liberals and conservatives disagree about who is especially vulnerable to victimization, harm, and mistreatment. AoVs predict moral judgments, implicit attitudes, and charitable behavior -- and explain the link between ideology and moral judgment (usually better than moral foundations). Four clusters of targets -- the Environment, the Othered, the Powerful, and the Divine -- explain many political debates, from immigration and policing to religion and racism. In general, liberals see vulnerability as group-based, dividing the moral world into groups of vulnerable victims and invulnerable oppressors. Conservatives downplay group-based differences, seeing vulnerability as more individual and evenly distributed. AoVs can be experimentally manipulated and causally impact moral evaluations. These results support a universal harm-based moral mind (Theory of Dyadic Morality): moral disagreement reflects different understandings of harm, not different foundations.
Social Distancing From Innocent Victims by Spatial Distality
Rael Dawtry et al.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, March 2026, Pages 431-451
Abstract:
Drawing on just-world theory and theories of psychological distance, we tested the idea that people respond to injustice by symbolically distancing themselves from innocent victims. Across 12 studies using varied victimization contexts and spatial arrangement methods, we examined whether perceived injustice motivates people to place victims further from the self in visual space based on perceived value or personality similarity. Participants distanced themselves from victims receiving unjust (vs. just or neutral) outcomes by placing a symbolic self-representation farther from the victims’ names in 2D space (Studies 1a–1c). Study 2 found that this distancing effect was independent of victim derogation and blame, while Study 3 demonstrated that distancing was especially pronounced for traits central (vs. peripheral) to the self-concept. Studies 4a/4b revealed that distancing depends on victims’ innocence and perceived injustice, ruling out a general avoidance account. Studies 5a/5b confirmed that spatial distancing corresponds to perceived dissimilarity, and Studies 6a/6b showed the reverse process: identical outcomes were judged as more unjust when they befell spatially close versus distant others. Finally, Study 7 extended these findings to self-relevant contexts, showing that participants distanced their current self from past selves who experienced unfair (vs. fair) events, over and above subjective and objective temporal distance. Taken together, these findings highlight the reciprocal relationship between experiences of injustice and symbolic social distancing, revealing how people mentally represent victims as more or less distant from the self, and contribute to the broader understanding of social and spatial representations of self–other (dis)similarity.
Moral stereotyping in large language models
Aliah Zewail et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 10 March 2026
Abstract:
Can Large Language Models (LLMs) accurately estimate various societies’ moral values? Here, we query the perceptions of LLMs regarding the moral norms of the “average” person from 48 nations and compare them to a large-scale (n=90,802) survey of six moral values (Care, Equality, Proportionality, Loyalty, Authority, and Purity) from those populations. Our findings indicate that LLMs poorly capture the moral diversity around the globe, systematically overestimating some moral values (particularly Care) and underestimating others (especially Purity). Notably, examining various versions of Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) shows that these LLMs may overestimate the overall moral concerns of some Western countries (e.g., the United States, Canada, and Australia) while underestimating those of non-Western countries (e.g., Nigeria, Morocco, and Indonesia). Our work demonstrates that LLMs are inaccurate generators of cross-cultural estimations in the moral domain; in other words, they stereotype the moral values of non-Western populations in predictable ways. Our results highlight the ethical and epistemic risks of relying on LLMs to estimate the endorsement of moral values around the globe.
Absolute moral perceptions of the self and others: People are bad, a person is good, I am great
André Vaz, André Mata & Clayton Critcher
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, February 2026, Pages 215-236
Abstract:
For decades, psychologists have appreciated that the average person sees themselves as better than average, particularly in moral domains. Although self-other comparisons permit establishing normative violations, they leave unanswered whether people see themselves and others positively or negatively in an absolute sense. The present research introduces a novel measure of moral thresholds to identify the behavioral tipping point that subjectively differentiates morality from immorality. Participants in two countries viewed themselves as clearly moral while viewing the other participants as falling short of the moral threshold (Study 1 and Supplemental Study A). Social targets of course take different forms. Study 2 (and Supplemental Study B) found that even when collectives (e.g., others in the study) were seen to fall short of moral thresholds, randomly selected individuals in those collectives -- whether individuating information was offered about them or not -- were estimated to exceed moral thresholds. The relative positivity of behavioral estimates (self > individuals > collectives) could not be explained by perceivers’ confidence in those assessments (Study 3). Studies 4a–4b completed an experimental causal chain to identify one reason individuals are judged more positively than collectives. People anticipated feeling worse if they were to be cynical about an individual (as opposed to a collective). This heightened anticipated negative experience was causally responsible for more positive behavioral forecasts. The moral threshold allows moral perception to join other domains (e.g., monetary outcomes, attitudes) in which identifying neutral reference points has been core to theoretical and empirical development.
Distributing Help Enhances Moral Judgment
Matilde Lucheschi, Danit Ein-Gar & Oguz Acar
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
People tend to judge those who perform good deeds, such as donating money, as moral. Yet, prosocial actors are not equally appraised. In this article, we explore how moral judgment varies based on the donation distribution strategy -- that is, the extent to which donors distribute resources across recipients. In seven studies (N = 1,495), we show that distributing help is considered by observers to be more moral than concentrating help on a single recipient. Furthermore, this effect is driven by observers perceiving the donors distributing their help to be more committed toward the charitable cause. We extend the generalizability of our results by showing that the effect replicates across three populations considered culturally distant along the WEIRD dimensions. The article ends with a discussion of the theoretical relevance of the findings.
How individual differences in autobiographical memory relate to morality
Ana Lucía Cárdenas-Egúsquiza et al.
Personality and Individual Differences, July 2026
Abstract:
Autobiographical memory supports several functions essential to daily life such as decision-making, social bonding, and personal identity. Surprisingly, the role of autobiographical memory for moral identity and moral commitments has scarcely been examined, even though people tend to reflect on their past experiences to make moral judgments of themselves and others. Across four studies (Ns ≥ 239), we found that individual differences in the recollective experience of autobiographical memories as measured by the Autobiographical Recollection Test (Berntsen et al., 2019) consistently correlated with individual differences in moral dispositions, including centrality of moral identity, internalization of moral values, and moral commitments. In Studies 3 and 4, we introduced measures of the tendency to perceive moral value in one's personal past, which showed robust associations with moral identity and commitments. Overall, we demonstrated that people who generally remember their past well and who perceive their past as a carrier of central moral standards also report a stronger moral identity, higher internalization of moral values, and commitment to a wide range of moral principles. These findings suggest a critical interplay between autobiographical memory and morality at the level of individual differences.
Dirty work history and future career success: Does the “dirt” stick?
Junhui Yang, Brian Swider & Yanran Fang
Journal of Applied Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Although research has identified the negative experiences and attitudes of individuals currently holding dirty jobs, it remains unclear whether holding these jobs relates to future career outcomes for individuals once they leave their dirty work roles. Drawing on the public and self-stigma model, we argue the outcomes of dirty work do not cease after employees exit dirty jobs but extend to predict future career success. We tested our hypotheses using a multidecade nationally representative longitudinal sample, a simulated hiring experiment, and a qualitative study of previous dirty workers. The results indicate individuals with career histories that included dirty work experience both public and self-stigma, which relates to lower income and prestige in future jobs as well as a higher likelihood and longer length of unemployment between jobs, compared to individuals with no previous dirty jobs. Moreover, the negative associations with individuals’ future career outcomes were shown to be stronger with greater amounts of dirty work experience previously accumulated throughout their careers (i.e., the number of prior dirty jobs, total length of dirty work, dirtiness of jobs held). These findings suggest deleterious outcomes of holding dirty work remain even after employees leave those roles, shedding light on the enduring associations between stigmatized work experiences and individuals’ future career success.
Transcending embarrassment: On the reputational benefits of laughing at yourself
Selin Goksel, Ovul Sezer & Jonathan Berman
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
How do people judge those who commit faux pas? Across six preregistered studies (N = 3,204), we find that the answer depends on how a faux pas is presented to others and the extent to which it harms others. For faux pas that cause minimal or no harm to others, those who display amusement (by laughing at their error) are seen as warmer, more competent, and more authentic (though not significantly more or less moral) than those who display embarrassment. While both amusement and embarrassment displays serve an appeasement function (which reflects positively on actors), observers view those displaying embarrassment as being excessively self-conscious (which limits positive character judgments). In contrast, amusement displays are deemed more emotionally calibrated, since they signal that an actor recognizes the faux pas is benign and therefore not serious enough to warrant negative self-conscious emotions. In other words, observers do not believe actors ought to feel particularly embarrassed upon committing common benign faux pas. However, when a faux pas harms others, those who display amusement are seen as experiencing a deficient level of self-consciousness, since, in this case, amusement indicates a disregard for the welfare of others. As a result, as harm to others increases, the benefits of displaying amusement become either attenuated or reversed relative to displaying embarrassment. Together, these findings provide a simple framework for understanding when amusement and embarrassment displays reflect well on individuals who commit faux pas.
Audiences on the dark side: Do antisocial personality traits predict motives for true crime listening?
Sofia Rhea & Laramie Taylor
Psychology of Popular Media, forthcoming
Abstract:
True crime is the most popular topic among podcasts in the United States (Shearer et al., 2023), yet very little is known about the fans of this genre. We used data from true crime podcast listeners (n = 300) to investigate both what motivations drive true crime podcast use and whether specific personality traits shape those motivations. We found that motives related to information seeking were prevalent among fans of true crime podcasts. We also found that trait psychopathy and narcissism were significantly associated with many important motives for true crime podcast consumption. Overall, findings indicated general patterns of user motivation among fans of true crime podcasts as well as differential motivation and use across dark triad personality traits.