High economic inequality is linked to greater moralization

Kelly Kirkland; Paul A.M. Van Lange; Drew Gorenz; Khandis Blake; Catherine E. Amiot; Liisi Ausmees; Peter Baguma; Oumar Barry; Maja Becker; Michal Bilewicz; Watcharaporn Boonyasiriwat; Robert W. Booth; Thomas Castelain; Giulio Costantini; Girts Dimdins; Agustín Espinosa; Gillian Finchilescu; Ronald Fischer; Malte Friese; Ángel Gómez; Roberto González; Nobuhiko Goto; Peter Halama; Camilo Hurtado-Parrado; Ruby D. Ilustrisimo; Gabriela M. Jiga-Boy; Peter Kuppens; Steve Loughnan; Khairul A. Mastor; Neil McLatchie; Lindsay M. Novak; Blessing N. Onyekachi; Muhammad Rizwan; Mark Schaller; Eleonora Serafimovska; Eunkook M. Suh; William B. Swann; Eddie M.W. Tong; Ana Torres; Rhiannon N. Turner; Christin Melanie Vauclair; Alexander Vinogradov; Zhechen Wang; Victoria Wai Lan Yeung; Brock Bastian

doi:10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae221

High economic inequality is linked to greater moralization

Kelly Kirkland^*, Paul A.M. Van Lange, Drew Gorenz, Khandis Blake, Catherine E. Amiot, Liisi Ausmees, Peter Baguma, Oumar Barry, Maja Becker, Michal Bilewicz, Watcharaporn Boonyasiriwat, Robert W. Booth, Thomas Castelain, Giulio Costantini, Girts Dimdins, Agustín Espinosa, Gillian Finchilescu, Ronald Fischer, Malte Friese, Ángel GómezRoberto González, Nobuhiko Goto, Peter Halama, Camilo Hurtado-Parrado, Ruby D. Ilustrisimo, Gabriela M. Jiga-Boy, Peter Kuppens, Steve Loughnan, Khairul A. Mastor, Neil McLatchie, Lindsay M. Novak, Blessing N. Onyekachi, Muhammad Rizwan, Mark Schaller, Eleonora Serafimovska, Eunkook M. Suh, William B. Swann, Eddie M.W. Tong, Ana Torres, Rhiannon N. Turner, Christin Melanie Vauclair, Alexander Vinogradov, Zhechen Wang, Victoria Wai Lan Yeung, Brock Bastian

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

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.

Original language	English
Article number	pgae221
Pages (from-to)	1-13
Number of pages	13
Journal	PNAS Nexus
Volume	3
Issue number	7
Early online date	5 Jun 2024
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae221
Publication status	Published - Jul 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2024.

Funding

B.B. was supported by the Australian Research Council (ARC) (grant number DP200101446), S.L. was supported by the Philip Leverhulme Prize, C.A. was supported by a Senior Fellowship from the Fund for Research on Health\u2014Qu\u00E9bec (FRQS: no. 268393), R.G. was supported by the Center for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies (ANID/FONDAP 15130009), the Center for Intercultural and Indigenous Research (ANID/FONDAP 15110006) and the Fondecyt Program (ANID/Fondecyt 1201788), \u00C1.G. was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (PID2021-124617OB-I00) and by the ERC Grant agreement no: 101018172, Z.W. was supported by the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation fellowship (2021M690681) and the National Social Science Fund of China (22CSH093), N.G. was supported by the JSPS KAKENHI (grant number 19KK0063), G.D. was supported by the Latvian Council of Science (grant number lzp-2018/1-0402), and M.B. was supported by the Polish National Science Centre Grant Opus (grant number UMO-2023/49/B/HS6/0142).

Funders	Funder number
ANID
Fondecyt Program
Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación	PID2021-124617OB-I00
Fund for Research on Health	268393
National Office for Philosophy and Social Sciences	22CSH093
Fondecyt	1201788
Polish National Science Centre	UMO-2023/49/B/HS6/0142
ERC	101018172
Latvian Council of Science	lzp-2018/1-0402
JSPS	19KK0063
Center for Intercultural and Indigenous Research	ANID/FONDAP 15110006
Australian Research Council	DP200101446
China Postdoctoral Science Foundation	2021M690681
Center for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies	ANID/FONDAP 15130009

Keywords

anomie
economic inequality
moral judgments
moralization
Twitter

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10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae221

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Kirkland, K., Van Lange, P. A. M., Gorenz, D., Blake, K., Amiot, C. E., Ausmees, L., Baguma, P., Barry, O., Becker, M., Bilewicz, M., Boonyasiriwat, W., Booth, R. W., Castelain, T., Costantini, G., Dimdins, G., Espinosa, A., Finchilescu, G., Fischer, R., Friese, M., ... Bastian, B. (2024). High economic inequality is linked to greater moralization. PNAS Nexus, 3(7), 1-13. Article pgae221. https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae221

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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{\textquoteright}). 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{\textquoteright}s everyday actions. Together these findings demonstrate that economic inequality is linked to the tendency to see the world through a moral lens.",

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Kirkland, K, Van Lange, PAM, Gorenz, D, Blake, K, Amiot, CE, Ausmees, L, Baguma, P, Barry, O, Becker, M, Bilewicz, M, Boonyasiriwat, W, Booth, RW, Castelain, T, Costantini, G, Dimdins, G, Espinosa, A, Finchilescu, G, Fischer, R, Friese, M, Gómez, Á, González, R, Goto, N, Halama, P, Hurtado-Parrado, C, Ilustrisimo, RD, Jiga-Boy, GM, Kuppens, P, Loughnan, S, Mastor, KA, McLatchie, N, Novak, LM, Onyekachi, BN, Rizwan, M, Schaller, M, Serafimovska, E, Suh, EM, Swann, WB, Tong, EMW, Torres, A, Turner, RN, Vauclair, CM, Vinogradov, A, Wang, Z, Yeung, VWL & Bastian, B 2024, 'High economic inequality is linked to greater moralization', PNAS Nexus, vol. 3, no. 7, pgae221, pp. 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae221

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High economic inequality is linked to greater moralization

Abstract

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Keywords

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