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Eavesdropping on Character: Assessing Everyday Moral Behaviors.

ABSTRACT: Despite decades of interest in moral character, comparatively little is known about moral behavior in everyday life. This paper reports a novel method for assessing everyday moral behaviors using the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR)-a digital audio-recorder that intermittently samples snippets of ambient sounds from people's environments-and examines the stability of these moral behaviors. In three samples (combined N = 186), participants wore an EAR over one or two weekends. Audio files were coded for everyday moral behaviors (e.g., showing sympathy, gratitude) and morally-neutral comparison language behaviors (e.g., use of prepositions, articles). Results indicate that stable individual differences in moral behavior can be systematically observed in daily life, and that their stability is comparable to the stability of neutral language behaviors.

SUBMITTER: Bollich KL

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4836053 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Eavesdropping on Character: Assessing Everyday Moral Behaviors.

Bollich Kathryn L KL Doris John M JM Vazire Simine S Raison Charles L CL Jackson Joshua J JJ Mehl Matthias R MR

Journal of research in personality 20160401

Despite decades of interest in moral character, comparatively little is known about moral behavior in everyday life. This paper reports a novel method for assessing everyday moral behaviors using the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR)-a digital audio-recorder that intermittently samples snippets of ambient sounds from people's environments-and examines the stability of these moral behaviors. In three samples (combined N = 186), participants wore an EAR over one or two weekends. Audio files ...[more]

PMID: 27110044

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Project description:Within moral psychology, theories focusing on the conceptualization and empirical measurement of people's morality in terms of general moral values -such as Moral Foundation Theory- (implicitly) assume general moral values to be relevant concepts for the explanation and prediction of behavior in everyday life. However, a solid theoretical and empirical foundation for this idea remains work in progress. In this study we explore this relationship between general moral values and daily life behavior through a conceptual analysis and an empirical study. Our conceptual analysis of the moral value-moral behavior relationship suggests that the effect of a generally endorsed moral value on moral behavior is highly context dependent. It requires the manifestation of several phases of moral decision-making, each influenced by many contextual factors. We expect that this renders the empirical relationship between generic moral values and people's concrete moral behavior indeterminate. Subsequently, we empirically investigate this relationship in three different studies. We relate two different measures of general moral values -the Moral Foundation Questionnaire and the Morality As Cooperation Questionnaire- to a broad set of self-reported morally relevant daily life behaviors (including adherence to COVID-19 measures and participation in voluntary work). Our empirical results are in line with the expectations derived from our conceptual analysis: the considered general moral values are poor predictors of the selected daily life behaviors. Furthermore, moral values that were tailored to the specific context of the behavior showed to be somewhat stronger predictors. Together with the insights derived from our conceptual analysis, this indicates the relevance of the contextual nature of moral decision-making as a possible explanation for the poor predictive value of general moral values. Our findings suggest that the investigation of morality's influence on behavior by expressing and measuring it in terms of general moral values may need revision.

Dataset Information

Eavesdropping on Character: Assessing Everyday Moral Behaviors.

Publications

Eavesdropping on Character: Assessing Everyday Moral Behaviors.

Similar Datasets

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