From The Oxford Handbook of Moral Psychology (2022):
* Traditional Conservatives (19 per cent). This group is patriotic, religious, moralistic, and tends to lament what it perceives as the gradual erosion of a bygone and glorified American way of life. They tend to believe that America is a fair society, and that people’s success is the result of hard work and effort rather than luck and circumstance. They strongly approve of Donald Trump’s job performance, and tend to agree in traditional notions of American identity, such as having two American parents, speaking English, and being Christian. They tend to get their news from Fox News and from talk radio, and are suspicious of traditional media, believing that it is biased in favour of liberal causes and tends to be anti – religious. Traditional Conservatives’ more important concerns are foreign tensions, jobs, and terrorism.
Devoted Conservatives (6 per cent). This group is highly active, highly engaged, uncompromising, and nationalistic in its views. Members of this group have a higher income than any other group, and feel significantly happier and more secure than the average American. They are staunchly supportive of Donald Trump and his ‘America First’ policies, including a ban on travel from Muslim – majority countries and a wall on the US — Mexico border. They tend to oppose compromise, and are the most likely to believe there is a need to ‘defeat the evil’ within our country. They feel the most pride in the American flag, and are deeply loyal to the ideals for which it stands. Their most important issues are immigration, terrorism, jobs, and the economy.
Overall, the results revealed a number of interesting insights regarding the psychological roots of political polarization in the United States:
Tribal membership predicts political views better than self – identified political labels…. For example, support for building a wall on the US – Mexico border was predicted better by tribal membership than by self – identified ideology (as measured by the question asking people to indicate their political on a scale ranging from ‘very liberal’ to ‘very conservative’). The same was true for overall approval of Donald Trump, and beliefs that racism and sexual harassment remain serious problems in the United States. In addition, when predicting concern for each of the moral foundations, tribal membership does a significantly better job at predicting four out of the five moral foundations (purity, authority, loyalty, and fairness) than self – identified ideology. (The one exception is harm, in which there is no significant difference between the models.) Overall, this helps confirm the notion that tribal membership (obtained directly from measurements of core beliefs) is a powerful predictor of explicit political attitudes. Moreover, it helps explain the seemingly unlikely election of Donald Trump by revealing the ‘hidden tribes’ in America that would be most susceptible to his message of threat and his expressed desire to return to the putative ‘golden years’ of American greatness.* endorsement of the care foundation is most closely correlated with the view that hate speech is a real problem in America and that sexism is pervasive. Endorsement of fairness is associated with the views, for instance, that women are paid less solely because of their gender and that the world is a dangerous place. Endorsement of the loyalty foundation is associated with pride in seeing the American flag and feeling as though being American is central to one’s identity. The authority foundation is associated with support for the Muslim travel ban and the view that the police should be more protected than Black Lives Matter activists. Endorsement of the purity foundation is associated with opposition to gay marriage and the view that changing attitudes towards sex are causing American to lose its moral foundation. Overall, these results show a strong and intuitive relationship between people’s endorsements of various moral foundations and their professed views regarding a variety of current political issues. More broadly, the results show that moral foundations have important power in predicting not just people’s underlying ideology but also their political opinions.
* perceived threat subsequently correlated with such attitudes as support for the Muslim ban, and support for the US – Mexico border wall. Another important predictor of political attitudes was parenting style. Devoted Conservatives were a full three times more likely to endorse authoritative as opposed to permissive parenting values (for instance, preferring preferring ‘good manners’ to ‘curiosity’, and ‘respect for elders’ to ‘independence’) In turn, endorsement of authoritative parenting principles positively predicted a slew of political opinions, including opposition to gay marriage, being ‘pro – life’ in the abortion debate, and believing that people’s gender is fixed at birth.
A final important difference between the tribes was in views about personal responsibility. Corroborating the observations of past research, 86 per cent of Progressive Activists believed that people’s lives are determined by forces outside their control, while 98 per cent of Devoted Conservatives believe that people are largely responsible for their own outcomes in life. These viewpoints are subsequently correlated with a variety of policy decisions. For example, those who endorse the former perspective (vs those endorsing the second) are more than twice as likely to support expanding the government safety net, 25 per cent more likely to say that refugees are America’s moral responsibility, and 35 per cent more likely to believe that women are discriminated against in the workplace.Conservatives tend to believe that it is only through disciplined and effortful adherence to a certain set of pre – established obligations — including one’s family, one’s country, one’s religion, and existing laws and traditions — that the individual may become a good and moral person. To the liberals, by contrast, true personal success is achieved not by taming the inner spirit, but by cultivating and freeing it. Progress, therefore, is achieved by releasing people from pre – existing moral obligations, and instead allowing them to pursue their own authentic path of self – expression.
