Perceptions of Ingroup and Outgroup Morality

在过去的几十年里，美国两大政党的支持者之间的敌意大大增加了。现在的情况是，一个政党的支持者往往更愿意避免与另一个政党的支持者互动。当这种敌意破坏了需要两党支持和协作决策的重要问题的解决方案时，就会对社会产生负面影响。该项目开发了一个理论模型，专注于道德判断，作为解释党际敌意的起源和动态的一种方式。该模型旨在更好地理解导致两党支持者之间敌意的因素，以及如何减少这种敌意。九项研究解决了四个相关的问题：(1)党派人士在猜测他人的实际道德判断时的准确性或不准确性有多高？(2)哪些因素使党派人士认为自己政治团体的支持者在道德上优于其他团体的支持者？(3)这种假定的道德优越感的影响是什么？(4)党派分歧能否通过改善自己所在政治团体的道德优越感来克服？数学建模方法用于分离道德困境中实际反应和假定反应的三个不同方面。学生也接受这些方法的训练，获得数据分析和使用多项式处理树建模的高级技能。这项研究为如何减少美国的两极分化以及如何减轻两党决策的障碍提供了见解。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Hostility between supporters of the two major political parties in the United States has increased considerably during the last decades. It is now at a level where supporters of one political party often prefer to avoid interactions with supporters of the other. Such hostility can have negative effects on society when it undermines solutions to important problems that require bi-partisan support and collaborative decision-making. This project develops a theoretical model that focuses on moral judgments as a way to explain the origin and dynamics of such of inter-party hostility. The model aims to better understand the factors that contribute to hostility between supporters of the two political parties, and how such hostility can be reduced.Nine studies address four related questions: (1) How accurate or inaccurate are partisans in guessing the actual moral judgments made by others? (2) What factors make partisans think that supporters of their own political group are morally superior to supporters of the other group? (3) What are the effects of such presumed moral superiority? (4) Can partisan divides be overcome by ameliorating the presumed moral superiority of one’s own political group? A mathematical modeling approach is used to separate three distinct aspects of actual and presumed responses in moral dilemmas. Students are also trained in these methods, acquiring advanced skills in data analysis and the use of multinomial processing tree modeling. The research provides insight into how polarization in the United States could be reduced and how obstacles to bipartisan decision-making might be mitigated.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.