Deep Alignment with Country Shrinks the Moral Gap Between Conservatives and Liberals

Moral foundations theory suggests that relative to liberals, conservatives care more about values that are believed to bind group members together: loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and purity/degradation. In contrast, we propose that individuals who are deeply aligned (“fused”) with their group should display elevated commitment to group‐oriented moral values, regardless of their political orientation. The results of three studies supported this hypothesis. The tendency for conservatives to endorse the binding foundations more than liberals only emerged among weakly and moderately fused Americans. In fact, liberals strongly fused with the United States endorsed “binding” foundations more than average conservatives and to the same extent as strongly fused conservatives. These results indicate that to fully understand moral prerogatives, one must consider the nature of the connections people form to the group, as well as their political orientation.     

Can We Identify with a Nation Low in Morality? The Heavy Weight of (Im)Morality in International Comparison

Research has shown that the perceived morality of the ingroup is a primary source of group pride and ingroup identification. The present research examined whether this is true even when a group has a poor reputation for morality in terms of dishonesty and corruption, such as in the case of Italians. To address this issue, two studies analyzed the role of the three fundamental dimensions of social judgment—morality, competence, and sociability—in predicting Italians’ identification with their nation when the salience of social comparison and the status of the comparison outgroup were varied. Findings showed that perceived morality predicted ingroup identification when participants did not engage in social comparison. Under salient social comparison, individuals based group identification on other dimensions: Perceived sociability was the main predictor of identification when respondents compared with a higher status outgroup (Germans; Study 1; N = 109), whereas perceived competence was the main predictor of identification when participants compared with a lower status outgroup (Romanians; Study 2; N = 121). Overall, findings showed compensation processes in social identification: When social comparison is salient, members of a low morality group base identification on the dimension which allows positive differentiation from the outgroup.     

APPLIED MYSTICISM: A DRUG‐ENABLED VISIONARY EXPERIENCE AGAINST MORAL BLINDNESS

Intellectuals such as William James and Aldous Huxley have thought it possible to develop a technique to apply to this world the mystical‐type insights gained during drug‐enabled experiences. Particularly, Huxley claimed that the visionary experience triggered by psychedelics could help us rethink our relationship with technology and promote a much‐needed cultural change. In this article, we explore this hypothesis. To do so, we build a philosophical framework based on Günther Anders's philosophy of technique, presenting human beings as morally blind when facing technological development. Mystical experiences are then proposed as a means to improve our moral faculties—and psychedelic drugs as tools to enable them. We finally explore the empirical feasibility of such a hypothesis by thoroughly reviewing the recent scientific literature on the nature of the psychedelic experience, concluding that the long‐term effects in the personality domain openness and in nature relatedness point to the emergence of a morally improved agent, thus providing substance to an application of mysticism.     

论医生的“道德心”

“心”是中国古代哲学的基本概念,“道心”是儒家修养论的起点和归宿,演绎了完整的修养论。然而,这一传统思路目前在很多研究领域被遗忘,包括医德研究领域。强调尊重传统,用“道德心”来重新衡量医生内在的精神世界,并从祖国传统医学文献的角度,对医德这一常规命题做全新的解读。     

Moral mires and the grip of the group: Morality as internalized group norms

I argue that morality is a set of internalized group norms. It is a reliable guide in a complex social world where group status and membership are not guaranteed by birth, but have to be asserted and maintained continuously. Morality is acquired through the process of socialization when children learn in their experience with peers, from observation of adults, and by instructional stories, such as fairy tales. Failure to internalize group norms results in a clinical condition of Psychopathy, or Antisocial Personality Disorder. Research into Antisocial Personality Disorder suggests that likely pathways of group norm internalization are states of arousal associated with social situations.     

Stability of choices in a risky decision‐making task: a 3‐year longitudinal study with children and adults

In a 3‐year follow‐up to Levin and Hart's ( 2003 ) study, we observed the same children, now 9–11 years old, and their parents in the same risky decision‐making task. At the aggregate level the same pattern of means was observed across time periods. At the individual level the key variables were significantly correlated across time periods for both children and adults. Taken together with the results from the original study and earlier studies, these results solidify the following conclusions: children utilize both probability and outcome information in risky decision‐making; the tendency to make more risky choices to avoid a loss than to achieve a gain of equal magnitude, which is a major tenet of the leading theories of risky decision‐making, occurs for children as well as adults; children make more risky choices than adults; temperamental predictors of risky choice are valid for children as well as for adults. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

平话心理科学向何处去

对心理学现状,要从课题的琐细,及屈从物理方法的独裁解放出来。建议群策群力,从战略的高度,进行战役性的研究,避免仓卒应付的遭遇战．要理论研究结合实际,从现实中发现漏洞以资利用。克服方法论中的诸多限制,比较机器人学的缺陷,重视意义的地位,采纳释义学的方法,打破“所谓”科学的梏制,以活跃心理学克服科学方法论的专制。     

The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of Darwinism

As a young proponent of "creation science," I rejected Darwinian biology as false, bad, and ugly. Now I defend Darwinism as true, good, and beautiful. Moreover, I now see Darwinism as compatible with the natural piety that arises as one moves from nature to nature's God.     

Importance of Morality in Mindfulness Practice

As the result of secularization and adaption of mindfulness practices from Buddhism, elements specific to culture and religion have been removed, now drawing criticism that mindfulness training has lost its original ethical characteristics. This article argues that the lack of formal coverage of morality in mindfulness‐based programs does not imply that morality plays no part, and that participants independently contextualize their mindfulness practice by drawing on their own sense of morality. Therefore, awareness of the role of morality in mindfulness practice is important for counselors, who can assist their clients with integrating their mindfulness practice with their own worldviews and ethical frameworks.     

电影《传染病》对消除社会恐慌与道德危机的启示

社会恐慌与道德危机是疾病传播所产生的两个重要社会效应。《传染病》虽是一部虚构电影作品,但其中对于疾病与恐慌以及私利与道德冷漠的严肃探讨,能够为现实提供警醒和反思借鉴。从疾病传染到恐慌的社会性传播,从社会恐慌到道德危机的产生,恐慌事实上成为了疾病传染与道德危机之间的一个关键反思节点。因疾病而引发的社会恐慌虽然源自知识领域,但其社会效应却作用于道德领域,因此,疾病恐慌的消除既有赖于知识的进步,也依赖于信息的公开。