Ideological asymmetries in morality predict schism intentions

Abstract

Drawing from the social psychological model of schisms (Sani, 2005) and moral foundations theory (Haidt & Graham, 2007), we hypothesized that liberals would be more likely to schismatize from a group following an individualizing moral violation, whereas conservatives would be more likely to schismatize from a group following a binding moral violation. We additionally hypothesized that perceptions of identity-subversion would mediate the interaction between ideology and moral violation on schism intentions. We conducted four high powered studies (total N = 1,614) using different designs (correlational, experimental) to test our hypotheses across different groups. Results from Studies 1 and 2 partially supported the hypotheses, while results from Studies 3 and 4 fully supported the hypotheses. The results suggest that people’s political ideologies make them more susceptible to perceiving different types of moral violations, and that moral violations can elicit a schism process.