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    Rights statement: The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Social Psychological and Personality Science, 10 (7), 2019, © SAGE Publications Ltd, 2019 by SAGE Publications Ltd at the Feminist Theory page: http://fty.sagepub.com/ on SAGE Journals Online: http://online.sagepub.com/

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Which appraisals are foundational to moral judgment?: Harm, injustice, and beyond

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<mark>Journal publication date</mark>1/09/2019
<mark>Journal</mark>Social Psychological and Personality Science
Issue number7
Volume10
Number of pages11
Pages (from-to)903-913
Publication StatusPublished
Early online date27/09/18
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

Harm-centric accounts of judgments of moral wrongdoing argue that moral judgments are fundamentally based on appraisals of harm. However, past research has failed to operationally discriminate harm appraisals from appraisals related to injustice. Four studies carefully discriminated harm qua pain/suffering from injustice, alongside appraisals related to impurity, authority, and disloyalty. Appraisals of injustice outperformed appraisals of harm as independent predictors of the judged wrongness of recalled offenses (Study 1). Studies 2a, 2b, and 3 extended these findings using a diverse range of wrongful acts and two different cultural samples—the United States and Greece. In addition to the strong relevance of injustice appraisals, these latter studies uncovered substantial contributions of impurity and authority appraisals. The results inform debates on moral pluralism and the foundations of moral cognition.

Bibliographic note

The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Social Psychological and Personality Science, 10 (7), 2019, © SAGE Publications Ltd, 2019 by SAGE Publications Ltd at the Feminist Theory page: http://fty.sagepub.com/ on SAGE Journals Online: http://online.sagepub.com/