On the Morality of Torture & Utilitarianism
I personally do not believe in torture, but I have to admit that when I think of it, my mind prototypically thinks of the potential harm that might befall an innocent person caught by an unscrupulous policeman who is all too sure of his moral superiority. What would I do if I knew with 100% [...]
Wanted: Motivated Academic Writers to Help Publish Our Data
Thanks to the publicity which moral psychology (and specifically Jon Haidt’s work) has begun to receive, along with the average person’s insatiable appetite for knowledge about themselves, facilitated by the internet, we have collected a truly unique dataset at yourmorals.org. It is a large community sample and includes some reaction time data. It is non-representative [...]
What is more Immorral? Distracted Driving or Smoking Marijuana?
The answer is that it depends on whom you ask. Below is a graph based on yourmorals data where participants were randomly assigned to answer whether they agreed that “XXX is immoral” about one of seven health behaviors.
As you can see, conservatives feel that ingesting all types of substances (cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine) are [...]
How to publish a Replication of Disgust & Big Five Personality Trait Correlations
I have recently been following a discussion in my discipline about the peer review process, which led me to this very interesting paper about the history of and alternatives to the peer review process in psychology.
At the same time, I’ve been working with colleagues on a paper about experiential vs. material purchasing styles, for which [...]
Sam Harris’ TED video and the danger of liberal atheist moral absolutism
A fellow graduate student recently shared the below Sam Harris TED video with me and I was quite surprised at the premise of the talk. In it, Sam Harris gives a spirited defense of moral absolutism, the idea that there are objective truths about what we should and should not value. Below is the video.
Harris [...]
Does trait anxiety make your more or less likely to support war & aggression?
Recently, one of the grad students in my department gave a brownbag talk about the relationship between fear and aggression. On the one hand, one might expect fear to lead to aggression as one perceives threat to a greater extent and responds accordingly. On the other hand, fear is associated with withdrawal and so we [...]
Democrats and Republicans agree that Justice & Fairness are about Equity, not Equality or Impartiality
I was browsing CNN today and I decided to expand my moral imagination by watching Glenn Beck Speak at the Conservative Political Action Committee meeting. I was surprised how reasonable his message sounded to me, as I my previous impression of him was not good.
I believe that people should be able to get what they deserve [...]
Separating Pro-Peace from Anti-War Attitudes using Moral Psychology Measures
I’m off to SPSP 2010 and will be presenting the below poster at the morality and justice pre-conference. It’s based on a scale I found measuring separate war and peace attitudes (Vander Linden et. al, 2008) at the main political psychology conference 2 years ago. The concept is pretty simple…I found scales that predicted pro-war and [...]
Does gratitude promote a sense of fairness and equality?
Gratitude has been theorized to be a moral emotion, yet it has largely been studied for it’s hedonic benefits rather than it’s effect on moral reasoning. I had done some previous analyses on our data at yourmorals.org where scores on the Gratitude quotient scale were positively related to most all measures of moral reasoning. By [...]
Main Themes of This Blog
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- •Hypermoralism – Morality causes ordinary people to do immoral things.
- •What are the psychological differences that make people liberal democrats, conservative republicans, or libertarians?
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Last 30 Posts:
- May 17, 2012
When should we believe social science findings? - April 25, 2012
Empathizing vs. Systemizing – A Book Review of Tattoos On The Heart - April 5, 2012
Big Data Should Measure Value Fit - March 6, 2012
Five ways that technology will democratize social science - February 20, 2012
The importance of wisdom in social science research - February 18, 2012
Big 5 Personality Traits of would-be Owners vs. Renters - January 25, 2012
Why doesn’t Ron Paul use the word ‘America’ much? - January 7, 2012
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Should Protect Fair Negotiations (not the poor) - December 11, 2011
The Experiential Economy - November 2, 2011
The Moral Foundations of ThinkProgress, Alternet, Daily Kos, & the NY Times - October 15, 2011
Liberals vs. Conservatives:innocent until proven guilty? - September 11, 2011
Does social psychology try too hard to be perceived as a “science”? - August 31, 2011
Equity trumps Equality in arguments about taxation - July 31, 2011
Hypermoral Debt Ceiling Quotes - July 17, 2011
Libya as a moral war (except for libertarians) - July 10, 2011
Oregon’s Medicaid Experiment vs. Motivated Reasoning - June 18, 2011
Relative vs. Absolute Good Choices for Liberals, Conservatives, and Libertarians - May 23, 2011
Personality profiles of readers vs. non-readers and saving your local bookstore. - May 9, 2011
When Ingroup Love does not equal Outgroup Hate - May 2, 2011
Osama Bin Laden’s Death is a chance to escape Zero-Sum thinking - April 23, 2011
Liberals place more value on being funny than conservatives and libertarians. - April 21, 2011
Jon Kyl’s Moral Confabulation is something we all do. - March 30, 2011
Why should the US lead in Libya? Liberal-Conservative Value Differences. - March 24, 2011
Perceptions of Scarcity & Responsibility inform Budget Negotiations - February 27, 2011
Psychological Correlates of Feelings Toward Labor Unions among Liberals - February 22, 2011
Reagan was a Union Member – Visiting his Library as an exercise in Civil Politics - February 15, 2011
Psychology is generally Continuous, not Categorical - February 11, 2011
Are liberals more neurotic than conservatives? - February 10, 2011
Can liberal academics study conservative ideology? - January 17, 2011
Rush Limbaugh says Civility is the New Censorship
Civil Politics Posts
- What Does it Mean to be Civil? May 8, 2012 Hal
- WNPR Connecticut Hosts a Discussion of Civil Politics April 27, 2012 Ravi Iyer
- The No Labels 12-Point Plan: CivilPolitics Analysis March 22, 2012 Jonathan Haidt
- My data-driven conversion to (relative) political moderation March 15, 2012 Jarret Crawford
- Today is Town Meeting Day in Vermont (and what that has to do with civil politics) March 6, 2012 Liz Joyner
Armando Galarraga demonstrates the relationship between happiness and forgiveness
Watching baseball can be a frivolous pursuit and a distraction from psychology research, but last night something happened which demonstrated a psychological finding far more effectively than any study or paper.
Armando Galarraga, a pitcher for the Detroit Tigers, was very close to pitching a perfect game. For non-baseball fans, its a very rare occurrence, comparable [...]