Social and competitive threat as situational factors moderating relationships between moral judgments and different comp
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Social and competitive threat as situational factors moderating relationships between moral judgments and different components of authoritarian ideology Piotr Radkiewicz 1 Accepted: 17 September 2020 # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract This paper presents research on the complexity of moral judgments underlying two components of authoritarian ideology: rightwing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO). Based on previous research, it was expected that people who were high on moral intuitions of Ingroup/loyalty and Authority/respect (Ethics of Community) should be high on RWA, whereas people who were high on moral intuitions of Care/harm and Fairness/reciprocity (Ethics of Autonomy) should be low on SDO. In more detailed hypotheses it was assumed that such general relationships would be moderated by situational factors threat to social order and competitive threat, respectively. Two experimental studies were conducted: the first with manipulation of the threat to social order, and the second with manipulation of the competitive threat (N = 180 and 150, respectively). Both studies showed that Ethics of Community predicted clear increase in RWA, while the Ethics of Autonomy predicted considerable decrease in SDO. However positive relationships between Ingroup/loyalty and RWA as well as between Authority/respect and RWA were strongly reinforced by threat to social order, whereas the negative relationships between Care/harm and SDO as well as between Fairness/reciprocity and SDO diminished under situationally induced aggressive ‘Darwinian’ competition. The Ethics of Community appears as a moral basis for development of right-wing authoritarianism, and this relationship is especially strong when the social order is perceived as threatened. On the other hand, the Ethics of Autonomy can be seen as a moral basis for inhibition of social dominance orientation, but it loses the moral relevance in strongly competitive social environment. Keywords Moral intuitions . Authoritarianism . Social dominance orientation . Social threat
Morality is pointed out by many researchers as a powerful source of human motivation (e.g. Kohlberg 1969; Gilligan 1982; Turiel 1983; Haidt and Joseph 2007). It is also indisputable that the domain of moral judgments is inseparable from worldview orientations, i.e. relatively stable sets of beliefs and judgments about the surrounding world. Worldview orientations make holistic, often very complex narratives that organize and structure various aspects of human existence, including issues such as human nature, meaning of life, place of an individual in the social community, etc. They are reflected in varied hierarchies of values and goals adopted by people. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-020-01075-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Piotr Radkiewicz [email protected] 1
Institute of Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Jaracza 1 str, 00-378 Warsaw, Poland
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