Deep Alignment with Country Shrinks the Moral Gap Between Conservatives and Liberals

Abstract

Moral foundations theory suggests that relative to liberals, conservatives care more about values that are believed to bind group members together: loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and purity/degradation. In contrast, we propose that individuals who are deeply aligned (“fused”) with their group should display elevated commitment to group‐oriented moral values, regardless of their political orientation. The results of three studies supported this hypothesis. The tendency for conservatives to endorse the binding foundations more than liberals only emerged among weakly and moderately fused Americans. In fact, liberals strongly fused with the United States endorsed “binding” foundations more than average conservatives and to the same extent as strongly fused conservatives. These results indicate that to fully understand moral prerogatives, one must consider the nature of the connections people form to the group, as well as their political orientation.

Recent advances, misconceptions, untested assumptions, and future research agenda for identity fusion theory

“…Identity fusion could also have some impact on our moral and socio‐political preferences and well‐being. For instance, Talaifar and Swann (2018) demonstrated that fusion with the country might break the political divide between liberals and conservatives with regard to their endorsement of the moral foundations of loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and purity/degradation. Kunst et al (2019) found that fusion with certain political leaders (i.e., Donald Trump) predicts willingness to endorse and engage in political violence (e.g., persecuting immigrants and political opponents).…”

Minority‐ versus Majority‐Status Group Intentions to Transgress the Law When Oppression Is Perceived

“…(2019) found that the quest for individual significance was strongly related to violent extremism for individuals fused with Muslims. Furthermore, individuals with fused identity are particularly sensitive to threats faced by the ingroup (Talaifar & Swann, 2019) and to context (Vázquez, Gómez, & Swann, 2017), so it seems legitimate to affirm that, once fused, individuals should be more ready to react to ingroup threats, like a collective loss of significance.…”

Censoring political opposition online: Who does it and why

“…Similarly, the temporal relationship between fusion with cause and group identification is not clear ( Gómez et al, 2019 ). Prior work has shown that identity fusion is associated with moralized attitudes ( Talaifar and Swann Jr, 2019 ) but the causal relationship between these variables is unclear. Nevertheless, given that these variables have been found to predict a suite of behaviors related to intolerance of political opposition, we included them as potential predictors of selective censoring.…”