| Title: |
High economic inequality is linked to greater moralization |
| Authors: |
Kirkland, Kelly; Van Lange, Paul A.M.; Gorenz, Drew; Blake, Khandis; Amiot, Catherine E.; Ausmees, Liisi; Baguma, Peter; Barry, Oumar; Becker, Maja; Bilewicz, Michal; Boonyasiriwat, Watcharaporn; Booth, Robert W.; Castelain, Thomas; Constantini, Giulio; Dimdins, Girts; Espinosa, Agustín; Finchilescu, Gillian; Fischer, Ronald; Friese, Malte; Gómez, Ángel; González, Roberto; Goto, Nabuhiko; Halama, Peter; Hurtado-Parrado, Camilo; Ilustrisimo, Ruby D.; Jiga-Boy, Gabriela M.; Kuppens, Peter; Loughnan, Steve; Mastor, Khairul R.; McLatchie, Neil; Novak, Lindsay M.; Onyekachi, Blessing N.; Rizwan, Muhammad; Schaller, Mark; Serafimovska, Eleonora; Suh, Eunkook M.; Swann Jr., William B.; Tong, Eddie M.W.; Torres, Ana; Turner, Rhiannon N.; Vauclair, Christin-Melanie; Vinogradov, Alexander; Wang, Zhechen; Wai Lan Yeung, Victoria; Bastian, Brock |
| Publisher Information: |
National Academy of Sciences |
| Publication Year: |
2024 |
| Collection: |
Zenodo |
| Subject Terms: |
moralization; economic inequality; anomie; moral judgments; Twitter |
| Description: |
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 datafrom 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. |
| Document Type: |
article in journal/newspaper |
| Language: |
English |
| ISSN: |
2752-6542 |
| Relation: |
https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/3/7/pgae221/7687932; https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/5dnt8; https://zenodo.org/records/12738205; oai:zenodo.org:12738205; https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae221 |
| DOI: |
10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae221 |
| Availability: |
https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae221; https://zenodo.org/records/12738205 |
| Rights: |
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International ; cc-by-4.0 ; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode |
| Accession Number: |
edsbas.2EBCDC1B |
| Database: |
BASE |