The general purpose of this research project is to identify and analyse the mechanisms and motives behind our moral actions and moral judgments. What are the psychological processes involved when we deliver a moral judgment of right or wrong?
The present projects has three objectives:
1) to examine the relationship between moral foundations, Need for cognitive closure (NCC), perception of social context (and social danger) and political orientation (WP1). We hypothesise that the relationships between the perception of social danger and political orientation could be moderated by moral foundations and NCC.
2) to test the relationship between moral foundations, NCC and moral behaviour. We hypothesise that the relationships between moral foundations and moral vs. immoral behaviour could be moderated by NCC and the perception of moral norms in the society. Besides moral vs. immoral choices, the project aims to explore the phenomenon of moral ambivalence.
3) to explore the relationship between moral foundations and prejudice towards several groups of immigrants. It is hypothesised that this relations may be moderated by NCC and the perception of morality among these ethnic groups.
This project will advance current state of the art on the issues proposed and will create new and innovative instruments.
This research project will contribute to the progress of the state of the art in several ways.
First, it will explore the literature on moral philosophy and moral psychology in order to search for the link between different theories about moral foundations and for the existence of any additional moral aspect or foundation besides those proposed by the Moral Foundation Theory.
Second, this project will contribute towards better understanding of the mechanisms and motives underlying the relationship between moral foundations and political orientation.
Third, the Moral Foundation Questionnaire (MFQ) has been criticized by several authors for its low internal reliability in most of the studies. This research will measure the importance of moral foundations by using three instruments in three different studies with the same group of the participants (two exploratory and one experimental): MFQ, Moral Foundation Vignettes (Clifford et al. 2015), and IAT (Implicit Association Test). The project will contribute also towards the creation of IAT focused on the moral foundations.
Forth, as mentioned previously, a limited number of studies explored the relationship between moral foundations and moral behaviour (e.g., responses to moral dilemmas). This project aims to fill in this gap and to explore the relationships between moral foundations and responses to various ¿sacrificial dilemmas¿. It will contribute also towards the creation of new set of dilemmas more connected with everyday life. In addition, the project will analyse which foundations are more connected with moral choices, and which others are instead more connected with moral ambivalence, something that has been little explored in the previous studies.
Fifth, it has been noted that shared ideas about what is the ¿right¿ way to behave may vary, depending on the cultural, religious, or political context in which this is defined (Haidt & Graham, 2007; Haidt & Kesebir, 2010; Rai & Fiske, 2011). Even though such analyses suggest that group norms¿indicating what the group considers the right and ¿proper¿ thing to do¿constitute an important guideline for the behaviour of individual group members (Turner, 1991), this context has not been systematically taken into account in research on morality. This research aims to analyse the role of the perception of group norms for moral behaviour and judgments.
Sixth, one criticism of MFT, and of morality research in general, is that it largely ignores the role of individual (personality and motivational) and contextual factors (Rai & Fiske, 2011). This project explores the role of Need for cognitive closure and the perception of group norms for moral judgments and behaviours.
Seventh, this project will contribute to the progress of the state of the art concerning the relationship between moral foundations, NCC and prejudice towards immigrants, which has received limited attention in the previous literature.
Last but not least, first two studies will be conducted in three countries, in Italy, in Albania e in Serbia, with collaboration of colleagues working at the University of Belgrade (Serbia) and University of Vlora (Albania). This cross-cultural aspect is an aditional value of this project.