Do Moral Intuitions and Situations Vary Across Cultures?
Faculty Sponsor
Vinai Norasakkunkit, Gonzaga University
Research Project Abstract
Culture can regulate a person’s moral intuition, as well as what situations constitute moral violations. The nature of moral intuitions can be categorized as Ethic of Autonomy (rights and justice), Ethic of Community (social role and duty) or Ethic of Divinity (divine-natural-order). Although all three categories exist in all cultures, the degree to which they are emotionally salient varies. Furthermore, the same action can violate different ethics, depending on the culture. Employing the situation sampling method, behaviors that violate each moral category were generated by American and Japanese participants. A second group of participants then categorized each situation and rated the severity of its violation. We predict that Americans will find violations of ethic of autonomy to be more egregious and evoke stronger reactions than ethic of community violations while this pattern will be reversed for Japanese. Cultural differences in the nature of actual situations will be discussed.
Session Number
SS7
Location
Weyerhaeuser 303
Abstract Number
SS7-a
Do Moral Intuitions and Situations Vary Across Cultures?
Weyerhaeuser 303
Culture can regulate a person’s moral intuition, as well as what situations constitute moral violations. The nature of moral intuitions can be categorized as Ethic of Autonomy (rights and justice), Ethic of Community (social role and duty) or Ethic of Divinity (divine-natural-order). Although all three categories exist in all cultures, the degree to which they are emotionally salient varies. Furthermore, the same action can violate different ethics, depending on the culture. Employing the situation sampling method, behaviors that violate each moral category were generated by American and Japanese participants. A second group of participants then categorized each situation and rated the severity of its violation. We predict that Americans will find violations of ethic of autonomy to be more egregious and evoke stronger reactions than ethic of community violations while this pattern will be reversed for Japanese. Cultural differences in the nature of actual situations will be discussed.
