Moral expansiveness around the world: the role of societal factors across 36 countries
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Accepted version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
What are the things that we think matter morally, and how do societal factors influence this? To date, research has explored several individual-level and historical factors that influence the size of our ‘moral circles.' There has, however, been less attention focused on which societal factors play a role. We present the first multi-national exploration of moral expansiveness—that is, the size of people’s moral circles across countries. We found low generalized trust, greater perceptions of a breakdown in the social fabric of society, and greater perceived economic inequality were associated with smaller moral circles. Generalized trust also helped explain the effects of perceived inequality on lower levels of moral inclusiveness. Other inequality indicators (i.e., Gini coefficients) were, however, unrelated to moral expansiveness. These findings suggest that societal factors, especially those associated with generalized trust, may influence the size of our moral circles.
Date Issued
2023-04-01
Date Acceptance
2022-07-01
Citation
Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2023, 14 (3), pp.305-318
ISSN
1948-5506
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Start Page
305
End Page
318
Journal / Book Title
Social Psychological and Personality Science
Volume
14
Issue
3
Copyright Statement
© 2022 The Author(s). The final, definitive version of this paper has been published in Kirkland, K., Crimston, C. R., Jetten, J., Rudnev, M., Acevedo-Triana, C., Amiot, C. E., Ausmees, L., Baguma, P., Barry, O., Becker, M., Bilewicz, M., Boonyasiriwat, W., Castelain, T., Costantini, G., Dimdins, G., Espinosa, A., Finchilescu, G., Fischer, R., Friese, M., … Bastian, B. (2022). Moral Expansiveness Around the World: The Role of Societal Factors Across 36 Countries. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506221101767 by Sage Publications Ltd. All rights reserved. It is available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506221101767
Identifier
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19485506221101767
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2022-07-04