We investigated the connection between moral exclusion of outgroups and on the one hand, right-wi... more We investigated the connection between moral exclusion of outgroups and on the one hand, right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), and social dominance orientation (SDO) on the other. We assumed that both RWA and SDO would increase the tendency to place other groups out of the scope of justice. However, we also tested whether negative stereotypes about an outgroup's threatening and norm-violating misbehavior would serve as a justification for moral exclusion. These assumptions were tested in connection with Roma, Jewish, and Muslim people as target groups in the Hungarian context (N = 441). In line with our hypotheses, we found that both RWA and SDO had an indirect effect on moral exclusion mediated by negative stereotypes about the particular target group. Our findings suggested that negative stereotypes were more important legitimizing factors for RWA than for SDO. Our results highlight the benefits of interpreting the process of moral exclusion as an outcome of motivated social cognition.
International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 2018
A B S T R A C T Personal criteria about the morally appropriate forms of behavior can be crucial ... more A B S T R A C T Personal criteria about the morally appropriate forms of behavior can be crucial when coming into contact with members of culturally different outgroups. In our study, we investigated whether moral exclusion mediates the relationship between moral foundations and positive and negative behavioral intentions toward Muslim people. Our aim was to identify the psychological mechanism that explains why particular people intend to harm (or not harm), and help (or not help) members of particular outgroups. Using survey data from an online questionnaire, structural equation modeling and mediation analysis showed that individualizing moral foundations had a negative relationship with negative behavioral intentions and a positive relationship with positive intentions towards Muslim people. Binding moral foundations showed the opposite connection with behavioral intentions. The relationship between moral foundations and inter-group behavioral intentions was mediated by moral exclusion. These results imply that moral intuitions form the basis of behavioral intentions toward a culturally different outgroup both directly and by influencing whether or not the outgroup is worthy of moral concern.
We investigated how attitudes towards social equality can influence the relationship between cons... more We investigated how attitudes towards social equality can influence the relationship between conservation motivation (or openness) and personal ideological preferences on the left-right dimension, and how this relationship pattern differs between Western and Central & Eastern European (CEE) respondents. Using data from the European Social Survey (2012) we found that individual-level of conservation motivation reduces cultural egalitarianism in both the Western European and the CEE regions, but its connection with economic egalitarianism is only relevant in the CEE region where it fosters economic egalitarianism. Since both forms of egalitarianism were related to leftist ideological preferences in Western Europe, but in the CEE region only economic egalitarianism was ideologically relevant, we concluded that the classic " rigidity of the right " phenomenon is strongly related to cultural (anti)egalitarianism in Western Europe. At the same time, conservation motivation serves as a basis for the " rigidity of the left " in the post-socialist CEE region, in a great part due to the conventional egalitarian economic views. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The integration of the formerly socialist Eastern European countries within the EU has been an ongoing process since the collapse of communism. On the other hand, this process seems not to be entirely flawless, with more and more signs indicating that the political culture of post-socialist countries is not completely compatible with the Western European one. Although the main party families in the European Parliament are organized primarily on an ideological base, it seems that these ideological cleavages can be overwritten by an East-West cleavage. We could recently observe this in reference to the currently ongoing migrant crisis for instance, where countries of the Visegrad Group showed a unified and firm anti-quota standpoint regardless of the ideological position of their governments. If we assume that a community established upon an ideological base can function effectively only to the extent as this ideological base means the same to the members of the community, then it can be a source of serious anomalies if the content of a certain ideological label is interpreted differently by the individual members of this community.
In our study we investigated how individualizing and binding moral foundations partially mediate ... more In our study we investigated how individualizing and binding moral foundations partially mediate the relationship between the attitudinal clusters of right-wing authoritar-ianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO), and the dimensions of generalized prejudice. We found that binding moral foundations partially mediate the association between RWA and negative attitudes towards dissident and dangerous groups, while individualizing moral foundations had a positive relationship with the evaluations of all three clusters of dissident, dangerous, and derogated outgroups, and partially mediated the effects of both SDO and RWA. Based on these results we claim that intergroup attitudes are at least partly determined by moral concerns, and different personal needs activate or inhibit different moral concerns. Furthermore, while individualizing moral foundations seem to have a universal prejudice reducing effect, the effect of binding foundations is selective, increasing prejudice principally against dangerous and derogated outgroups that threaten one's personal need for security and certainty.
In our study we investigated how right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientati... more In our study we investigated how right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO) are related to perceived intergroup threat, and also tested the potential mediating role of individualizing and binding moral foundations within this relationship pattern. According to our results, both RWA and SDO enhanced the perceived threat related to immigration. Furthermore, the effect of SDO was partly mediated by individualizing moral foundations, while the effect of RWA was partly mediated by both kinds of moral foundations. It seems that perceived intergroup threat, at least to some extent, is influenced by personal moral preferences that can be derived from individual dispositions and motivations.
In our study we investigated the motivational and ideological correlates of the approval of welfa... more In our study we investigated the motivational and ideological correlates of the approval of welfare services in postsocialist Central Eastern and Western Europe. In the centre of our inquiry stood how the motivations of selflessness and conventionality, along with distributional justice principles, are related to our welfare preferences beyond our rational self-interest, furthermore, how these associations depend on social-cultural circumstances. We have found that the motivational background of egalitarian economic and welfare attitudes are substantially different in the two regions. While beside of the rationalisation of self-interest, it seems to be related to selflessness-driven solidarity in Western Europe, pro-welfare and egalitarian distributional views are primarily motivated by conventionality-driven norm adherence in postsocialist countries in the form of the mechanism of postsocialist economic system nostalgia. Our results highlight the benefits of a context-specific 'motivated social cognition' approach to ideological and political attitudes.
Our study investigates the assumption that citizens expect the democratic institutional system to... more Our study investigates the assumption that citizens expect the democratic institutional system to operate in accordance with values and norms that are deeply embedded in public thinking of their country. As individual-level trust towards the institutional system is built mainly on these norms and values, our results show that differences between Eastern and Western European public thinking lead to asymmetries regarding the bases of institutional trust. Specifically, degree of income inequalities and perceived quality of welfare services seem to be more important factors in the postsocialist region in comparison with Western Europe. Furthermore, in accordance with the approach of motivated social cognition, we could also confirm that those with a higher level of conventionality motivation lean on normative ideological elements to a greater extent when they are indicating their personal level of institutional trust.
Hadarics M. (2012) Motivational and Ideological Aspects of Attitudes Towards Social Equality: The Eastern European Way. In. Kiss P. (eds.) Social-Political Contexts for Intergroup Relations and Public Thought. 103-121., Eötvös Lóránd University, Budapest.
In our study we investigated the effect of Selflessness and Social Conformity motivations on atti... more In our study we investigated the effect of Selflessness and Social Conformity motivations on attitudes towards social equality and ideological preferences, and compared it between Eastern and Western Europe. According to our results both Cultural-Group-based and Economic-Income Egalitarianism enforced leftist ideological preferences in both regions, although these relationships were far stronger in the Western European sample. Selflessness motivation enhanced egalitarian attitudes and leftist preferences by this in both regions. Social Conformity motivation showed a negative relationship with Cultural-Group-based Egalitarianism and a positive one with rightist ideological preferences partly mediated by the former in both groups, whilst in the Eastern European sample the same motivation simultaneously enhanced leftist ideological preferences mediated by Economic Egalitarianism. We also identified a negative relationship between Cultural-Group-based and Economic-Income Egalitarianism in Eastern Europe, which indicates that economic solidarity might be selective in this region.
Hadarics M. (2013) Attitudes Towards Social Equality in Western and Eastern Europe: Motivational Bases and Behavioral Consequences. Doctoral Dissertation Thesis Booklet, Eötvös Lóránd University, Faculty of Education and Psychology, Budapest.
We investigated the connection between moral exclusion of outgroups and on the one hand, right-wi... more We investigated the connection between moral exclusion of outgroups and on the one hand, right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), and social dominance orientation (SDO) on the other. We assumed that both RWA and SDO would increase the tendency to place other groups out of the scope of justice. However, we also tested whether negative stereotypes about an outgroup's threatening and norm-violating misbehavior would serve as a justification for moral exclusion. These assumptions were tested in connection with Roma, Jewish, and Muslim people as target groups in the Hungarian context (N = 441). In line with our hypotheses, we found that both RWA and SDO had an indirect effect on moral exclusion mediated by negative stereotypes about the particular target group. Our findings suggested that negative stereotypes were more important legitimizing factors for RWA than for SDO. Our results highlight the benefits of interpreting the process of moral exclusion as an outcome of motivated social cognition.
International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 2018
A B S T R A C T Personal criteria about the morally appropriate forms of behavior can be crucial ... more A B S T R A C T Personal criteria about the morally appropriate forms of behavior can be crucial when coming into contact with members of culturally different outgroups. In our study, we investigated whether moral exclusion mediates the relationship between moral foundations and positive and negative behavioral intentions toward Muslim people. Our aim was to identify the psychological mechanism that explains why particular people intend to harm (or not harm), and help (or not help) members of particular outgroups. Using survey data from an online questionnaire, structural equation modeling and mediation analysis showed that individualizing moral foundations had a negative relationship with negative behavioral intentions and a positive relationship with positive intentions towards Muslim people. Binding moral foundations showed the opposite connection with behavioral intentions. The relationship between moral foundations and inter-group behavioral intentions was mediated by moral exclusion. These results imply that moral intuitions form the basis of behavioral intentions toward a culturally different outgroup both directly and by influencing whether or not the outgroup is worthy of moral concern.
We investigated how attitudes towards social equality can influence the relationship between cons... more We investigated how attitudes towards social equality can influence the relationship between conservation motivation (or openness) and personal ideological preferences on the left-right dimension, and how this relationship pattern differs between Western and Central & Eastern European (CEE) respondents. Using data from the European Social Survey (2012) we found that individual-level of conservation motivation reduces cultural egalitarianism in both the Western European and the CEE regions, but its connection with economic egalitarianism is only relevant in the CEE region where it fosters economic egalitarianism. Since both forms of egalitarianism were related to leftist ideological preferences in Western Europe, but in the CEE region only economic egalitarianism was ideologically relevant, we concluded that the classic " rigidity of the right " phenomenon is strongly related to cultural (anti)egalitarianism in Western Europe. At the same time, conservation motivation serves as a basis for the " rigidity of the left " in the post-socialist CEE region, in a great part due to the conventional egalitarian economic views. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The integration of the formerly socialist Eastern European countries within the EU has been an ongoing process since the collapse of communism. On the other hand, this process seems not to be entirely flawless, with more and more signs indicating that the political culture of post-socialist countries is not completely compatible with the Western European one. Although the main party families in the European Parliament are organized primarily on an ideological base, it seems that these ideological cleavages can be overwritten by an East-West cleavage. We could recently observe this in reference to the currently ongoing migrant crisis for instance, where countries of the Visegrad Group showed a unified and firm anti-quota standpoint regardless of the ideological position of their governments. If we assume that a community established upon an ideological base can function effectively only to the extent as this ideological base means the same to the members of the community, then it can be a source of serious anomalies if the content of a certain ideological label is interpreted differently by the individual members of this community.
In our study we investigated how individualizing and binding moral foundations partially mediate ... more In our study we investigated how individualizing and binding moral foundations partially mediate the relationship between the attitudinal clusters of right-wing authoritar-ianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO), and the dimensions of generalized prejudice. We found that binding moral foundations partially mediate the association between RWA and negative attitudes towards dissident and dangerous groups, while individualizing moral foundations had a positive relationship with the evaluations of all three clusters of dissident, dangerous, and derogated outgroups, and partially mediated the effects of both SDO and RWA. Based on these results we claim that intergroup attitudes are at least partly determined by moral concerns, and different personal needs activate or inhibit different moral concerns. Furthermore, while individualizing moral foundations seem to have a universal prejudice reducing effect, the effect of binding foundations is selective, increasing prejudice principally against dangerous and derogated outgroups that threaten one's personal need for security and certainty.
In our study we investigated how right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientati... more In our study we investigated how right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO) are related to perceived intergroup threat, and also tested the potential mediating role of individualizing and binding moral foundations within this relationship pattern. According to our results, both RWA and SDO enhanced the perceived threat related to immigration. Furthermore, the effect of SDO was partly mediated by individualizing moral foundations, while the effect of RWA was partly mediated by both kinds of moral foundations. It seems that perceived intergroup threat, at least to some extent, is influenced by personal moral preferences that can be derived from individual dispositions and motivations.
In our study we investigated the motivational and ideological correlates of the approval of welfa... more In our study we investigated the motivational and ideological correlates of the approval of welfare services in postsocialist Central Eastern and Western Europe. In the centre of our inquiry stood how the motivations of selflessness and conventionality, along with distributional justice principles, are related to our welfare preferences beyond our rational self-interest, furthermore, how these associations depend on social-cultural circumstances. We have found that the motivational background of egalitarian economic and welfare attitudes are substantially different in the two regions. While beside of the rationalisation of self-interest, it seems to be related to selflessness-driven solidarity in Western Europe, pro-welfare and egalitarian distributional views are primarily motivated by conventionality-driven norm adherence in postsocialist countries in the form of the mechanism of postsocialist economic system nostalgia. Our results highlight the benefits of a context-specific 'motivated social cognition' approach to ideological and political attitudes.
Our study investigates the assumption that citizens expect the democratic institutional system to... more Our study investigates the assumption that citizens expect the democratic institutional system to operate in accordance with values and norms that are deeply embedded in public thinking of their country. As individual-level trust towards the institutional system is built mainly on these norms and values, our results show that differences between Eastern and Western European public thinking lead to asymmetries regarding the bases of institutional trust. Specifically, degree of income inequalities and perceived quality of welfare services seem to be more important factors in the postsocialist region in comparison with Western Europe. Furthermore, in accordance with the approach of motivated social cognition, we could also confirm that those with a higher level of conventionality motivation lean on normative ideological elements to a greater extent when they are indicating their personal level of institutional trust.
Hadarics M. (2012) Motivational and Ideological Aspects of Attitudes Towards Social Equality: The Eastern European Way. In. Kiss P. (eds.) Social-Political Contexts for Intergroup Relations and Public Thought. 103-121., Eötvös Lóránd University, Budapest.
In our study we investigated the effect of Selflessness and Social Conformity motivations on atti... more In our study we investigated the effect of Selflessness and Social Conformity motivations on attitudes towards social equality and ideological preferences, and compared it between Eastern and Western Europe. According to our results both Cultural-Group-based and Economic-Income Egalitarianism enforced leftist ideological preferences in both regions, although these relationships were far stronger in the Western European sample. Selflessness motivation enhanced egalitarian attitudes and leftist preferences by this in both regions. Social Conformity motivation showed a negative relationship with Cultural-Group-based Egalitarianism and a positive one with rightist ideological preferences partly mediated by the former in both groups, whilst in the Eastern European sample the same motivation simultaneously enhanced leftist ideological preferences mediated by Economic Egalitarianism. We also identified a negative relationship between Cultural-Group-based and Economic-Income Egalitarianism in Eastern Europe, which indicates that economic solidarity might be selective in this region.
Hadarics M. (2013) Attitudes Towards Social Equality in Western and Eastern Europe: Motivational Bases and Behavioral Consequences. Doctoral Dissertation Thesis Booklet, Eötvös Lóránd University, Faculty of Education and Psychology, Budapest.
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