Perceptions of Ingroup and Outgroup Morality

在过去几十年中，美国两大政党支持者之间的敌意大大增加。目前的情况是，一个政党的支持者往往宁愿避免与另一个政党的支持者互动。这种敌意可能对社会产生负面影响，因为它破坏了需要两党支持和合作决策的重要问题的解决方案。该项目开发了一个理论模型，重点是道德判断，作为一种方式来解释这种党派间敌意的起源和动态。该模型旨在更好地了解导致两个政党的支持者之间的敌意的因素，以及如何减少这种敌意。九项研究解决了四个相关问题：（1）党派人士在猜测他人做出的实际道德判断时的准确性或不准确性如何？(2)是什么因素使游击队员认为他们自己的政治团体的支持者在道德上上级其他团体的支持者？(3)这种假定的道德优越感有什么影响？(4)党派分歧是否可以通过改善自己政治集团的假定道德优越性来克服？一个数学建模的方法是用来分离三个不同方面的实际和假定的反应在道德困境。学生还接受了这些方法的培训，获得了数据分析和使用多项式处理树建模的高级技能。该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NSF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.