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High economic inequality is linked to greater moralization

Kirkland, Kelly and Van Lange, Paul A. M. and Gorenz, Drew and Blake, Khandis and Amiot, Catherine E. and Ausmees, Liisi and Baguma, Peter and Barry, Oumar and Becker, Maja and Bilewicz, Michal and Boonyasiriwat, Watcharaporn and Booth, Robert and Castelain, Thomas and Costantini, Giulio and Dimdins, Girts and Espinosa, Agustin and Finchilescu, Gillian and Fischer, Ronald and Friese, Malte and Gomez, Angel and Gonzalez, Roberto and Goto, Nobuhiko and Halama, Peter and Hurtado-Parrado, Camilo and Ilustrisimo, Ruby D. and Jiga-Boy, Gabriela M. and Kuppens, Peter and Loughnan, Steve and Mastor, Khairul A. and McLatchie, Neil and Novak, Lindsay M. and Onyekachi, Blessing N. and Rizwan, Muhammad and Schaller, Mark and Serafimovska, Eleonora and Suh, Eunkook M. and Swann Jr, William B. and Tong, Eddie M. W. and Torres, Ana and Turner, Rhiannon N. and Vauclair, Christin-Melanie and Vinogradov, Alexander and Wang, Zhechen and Yeung, Victoria Wai Lan and Bastian, Brock (2024) High economic inequality is linked to greater moralization. PNAS Nexus, 3 (7). ISSN 2752-6542

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Abstract

Throughout the 21st century, economic inequality is predicted to increase as we face new challenges, from changes in the technological landscape to the growing climate crisis. It is crucial we understand how these changes in inequality may affect how people think and behave. We propose that economic inequality threatens the social fabric of society, in turn increasing moralization—that is, the greater tendency to employ or emphasize morality in everyday life—as an attempt to restore order and control. Using longitudinal data from X, formerly known as Twitter, our first study demonstrates that high economic inequality is associated with greater use of moral language online (e.g. the use of words such as “disgust”, “hurt”, and “respect’). Study 2 then examined data from 41 regions around the world, generally showing that higher inequality has a small association with harsher moral judgments of people’s everyday actions. Together these findings demonstrate that economic inequality is linked to the tendency to see the world through a moral lens.
Item Type: Article
Divisions: Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Depositing User: Robert Booth
Date Deposited: 29 Aug 2024 11:28
Last Modified: 29 Aug 2024 11:28
URI: https://research.sabanciuniv.edu/id/eprint/49627

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