Basic value orientations and moral foundations: Convergent or discriminant constructs?

This study examined the structural and genetic links between value orientations, based on the theory of basic values, and moral concerns, based on moral foundations theory. We hypothesized both structural and genetic convergence of Conservation (versus openness to change) with Binding foundations and of Self-transcendence (versus self-enhancement) with Individualizing foundations. We analyzed self- and informant ratings from 924 participants with extended multitrait-multirater modeling and ran twin model analyses on self-ratings from 555 twin pairs. For Conservation and Binding foundations, we found partial convergence across different rater perspectives and a substantial genetic overlap, but also distinct genetic factors. Self-transcendence and Individualizing foundations were found to be structurally divergent, but genetically linked. We discuss the conceptual and measurement-related implications of the findings.     

Moral perfectionism and moral values,virtues, and judgments: A preliminary investigation

Moral perfectionism has a long tradition in philosophical inquiry, but so far has been ignored in psychological research. This article presents a first psychological investigation of moral perfectionism exploring its relationships with moral values, virtues, and judgments. In three studies, 539 university students responded to items of the Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (Frost et al., 1990) adapted to measure personal moral standards (PMS) and concern over moral mistakes (CMM) and completed measures of moral values, virtues, and forgiveness, gratitude, and wrong behavior judgments. When partial correlations were computed controlling for the overlap between PMS and CMM, PMS showed positive correlations with moral values, virtues, reciprocal helping, forgiveness, and condemnation of wrong behaviors. In contrast, CMM showed a positive correlation only with indebtedness and a negative correlation with self-reliance. The present findings, while preliminary, suggest that moral perfectionism is a personality characteristic that may help explain individual differences in moral values, virtues, and judgments.     

Moral sentiment predicts desire for Scottish independence

Scottish independence has been a topic of considerable political debate for some time, with the 2014 referendum concerning whether Scotland should remain a part of the United Kingdom testament to this fact. Numerous economic and political factors have been noted as determinants of the referendum vote. However, the role of psychological factors as a predictor of the desire for independence has not been well explored despite much work demonstrating the importance of specific traits and values on a range of socio-political attitudes. In the current study, using a sample of Scottish adults (n = 271), we sought to examine how two core constructs capturing moral sentiment – binding (reflecting concern for group cohesion and norms) and individualizing (reflecting concern over individual rights) – predicted the desire for independence during the build-up to the referendum. Results indicated that lower binding and higher individualizing predicted a desire for independence, with evidence for mediation via Scottish identification. These findings are consistent with the notion that the Scottish independence movement can be viewed as a broadly left-wing phenomenon. More generally, these results provide novel evidence in a charged political debate that moral sentiments concerning how individual and group life should be structured play a significant role in explaining individual differences in political sentiment.     

Education and training in the context of European construction

The construction of Europe now also contains cultural and educational dimensions. These are in fact the best ways of securing Europe to the reality of the lives of our youth; they also provide an important equilibrium in our European creation. Without a European culture, without respect for the cultural heritage of Europe, there can be no united Europe.     

Child temperament predicts maternal socialization values

The longitudinal study examined whether and how children’s temperament traits in particular but also their age, sex as well as maternal education and age predict maternal socialization values. The sample was drawn from the IDEFICS study and included 567 mothers from Estonia whose children were 2–9 years old at Time 0 and 4–11 years old at Time 1. The findings showed that children’s temperament at Time 0 predicted maternal socialization values at Time 1, but not vice versa. Mothers who perceived their child to be more imaginative at Time 0 considered self-maximization socialization values more important and social conformity-related values less important at Time 1. Child’s conscientiousness and extraversion were linked positively to social conformity-related socialization values. Older mothers and those with higher level of education put more emphasis on self-maximization socialization values. Children’s age and sex were not related to socialization values.     

Basic Human Values and Their Contexts: A Multilevel Analysis of Support for the Use of Armed Drones in the United States,United Kingdom,and Turkey

Armed drones are now a key component of military strategy; however, little empirical research has explored the phenomenon in terms of psychological processes. Previous research has emphasized the importance of basic human values for structuring understandings of and opinions towards foreign policy issues. Using a social representations approach, we used a multilevel modeling approach to explore the link between values and support for the use of armed drones in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Turkey. In line with our predictions, high priority of self-transcendence values negatively predicted, and high priority of conservation values positively predicted, support for armed drones. Furthermore, given our theoretical framework, we specified that values should be conceptualized as prioritized or devalued within a particular context, and when values were specified as country-level, as well as individual predictors, this led to an increase in model fit. These findings are discussed in light of a developing line of research on meta-representations and their consequences for political opinion, and directions for future research are advanced.     

Children and the future of humanity

In the face of a world that is undergoing a radical revolution, in terms of values as well as institutions, we must act so that future generations might have the means to face up to new demands. We must overhaul the educational program: we must teach children solidarity, openness and mutual respect, ecology, if we want our planet to survive.     

Halakhah as Torat Hayyim: the values-conscious visions of Eliezer Berkovits and Emanuel Rackman

In the third quarter of the twentieth century, Eliezer Berkovits and Emanuel Rackman were two of the most articulate spokesmen of an approach to the interpretation and application of Jewish law, in the United States, identified with modern Orthodoxy. Each viewed their understanding of the development of Halakhah as an organic expression of the millennia-old process that is torat hayyim, living Torah. Both Berkovits and Rackman moved to Israel in the 1970s; each was, increasingly, marginalized in the world of organized Orthodoxy.

The tropes sounded by Berkovits and Rackman were remarkably consistent over their careers. One particular area that both recognized as urgently calling for halakhic development was matters relating to women. In this connection, as with other issues they addressed, they maintained that Torah principles of the ethical have a significant role to play in Jewish legal development. This essay focuses on the visions of halakhic development articulated by Berkovits and Rackman during the third quarter of the twentieth century.     

An investigation of the role of scale values in the DS/AHP method of multi‐criteria decision making

DS/AHP is a method of multi‐criteria decision making based on the Dempster–Shafer theory of evidence and the analytic hierarchy process. Central to the utilization of DS/AHP is the composing of preference judgements on identified groups of decision alternatives (DA) across a number of criteria against all the DA present in the problem in question. This paper exposits a series of results whose objectives are to aid in the development of an effective set of preference scale values for use within DS/AHP. These results relate directly to the concomitant level of ignorance (uncertainty) with the judgements made on a single criterion. Two particular directions of investigation are undertaken, firstly in determining the necessary number of scale values available and secondly finding the necessary differences between scale values, dependent on whether an arithmetic or geometric progression is the basis for the scale values. Through an example, the implications and utilization of these results within DS/AHP are illustrated. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.