Med ett urval om 430 deltagare avsåg denna studie att undersöka om sambandet mellan individens moralfundament och fördomsfulla attityder modereras av individens attityd mot tvetydighet, förstådd som faktorerna obekväm inför tvetydighet, moralisk absolutism och behov av komplexitet. För att skapa ett mätinstrument för fördomsfulla attityder utfördes en explorativ faktoranalys utifrån deltagarnas positiva eller negativa attityd responser gentemot 21 olika sociala grupper och kategorier. Analysen replikerade tidigare studier och visade en närvaro av 3 fördomsfaktorer: förringade-, farliga- och dissidenta grupper. För att testa den centrala hypotesen utfördes 6 multipla regressioner som samtliga kontrollerade för ålder. Resultatet visade inte på någon närvaro av en moderationseffekt men väl flertalet huvudeffekter. Överlag var prediktionseffekten av fördomsfulla attityder starkare för bindande fundament relativt individens attityd mot tvetydighet. Bindande fundament predicerade mer fördomsfulla attityder oavsett typ av fördom men effekten var starkast för fördomsfulla attityder mot dissidenta grupper. Moralisk absolutism predicerade fördomsfulla attityder mot dissidenta- och förringade grupper. Behov av komplexitet predicerade mer fördomsfulla attityder mot dissidenta grupper. Obekväm inför tvetydighet predicerade mindre fördomsfulla attityder mot dissidenta grupper. I jämförelse uppvisade moralisk absolutism den starkaste prediktionseffekten av tvetydighetsfaktorerna och detta vid prediktion av attityder mot dissidenta grupper. Ålder uppvisade tecken på en huvudeffekt i det att äldre individer tenderade att vara mer toleranta mot förringade- och dissidenta grupper. Avslutningsvis diskuteras begränsningar och uppslag inför framtida studier. / With a sample of 430 participants this study aimed to investigate if the relationship between the individual’s moral foundations and prejudice attitudes is moderated by the individual’s attitude towards ambiguity, understood as the factors discomfort with ambiguity, moral absolutism and need for complexity. To create a measurement for prejudice attitudes an exploratory factor analysis was performed on the participants positive or negative affective attitude responses towards 21 different social groups and categories. The analysis replicated earlier findings and showed the presence of 3 prejudice factors: derogated-, dangerous- and dissidient groups. To test the main hypothesis 6 multiple regressions controlling for age was performed. The result showed no presence of a moderation effect but there was support for several main effects. Overall the prediction effect for prejudice attitudes was stronger for binding foundations than the individuals attitude towards ambiguity. Binding foundations predicted more prejudice attitudes regardless of type of prejudice but the effect was strongest for prejudice attitudes towards dissident groups. Moral absolutism predicted prejudice attitudes towards dissident- and derogated groups. Need for complexity predicted more prejudice attitudes towards dissident groups. Discomfort with ambiguity predicted less prejudice attitudes towards dissident groups. In comparison moral absolutism showed the strongest prediction effect of the ambiguity factors in predicting attitudes towards dissident groups. Age showed signs of a main effect in that older individuals tended to be more tolerant towards derogated- and dissident groups. Limitations and suggestions for further research is also discussed.

So far, studies seeking to recognise moral foundations in texts have been relatively successful (Araque et al., 2019; Lin et al., 2018; Mooijman et al., 2017; Rezapouret al., 2019). There are, however, two issues with these studies: Firstly, it is an extensive process to gather and annotate sufficient material for training. Secondly, models are only trained and tested within the same domain. It is yet unexplored how these models for moral foundation prediction perform when tested in other domains, but from their experience with annotation, Hoover et al. (2017) describe how moral sentiments on one topic (e.g. black lives matter) might be completely different from moral sentiments on another (e.g. presidential elections). This study attempts to explore to what extent models generalise to other domains. More specifically, we focus on training on Twitter data from non-extremist sources, and testing on data from an extremist (white nationalist) forum. We conducted two experiments. In our first experiment we test whether it is possible to do cross domain classification of moral foundations. Additionally, we compare the performance of a model using the Word2Vec embeddings used in previous studies to a model using the newer BERT embeddings. We find that although the performance drops significantly on the extremist out-domain test sets, out-domain classification is not impossible. Furthermore, we find that the BERT model generalises marginally better to the out-domain test set, than the Word2Vec model. In our second experiment we attempt to improve the generalisation to extremist test data by providing contextual knowledge. Although this does not improve the model, it does show the model’s robustness against noise. Finally we suggest an alternative approach for accounting for contextual knowledge.

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Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) suggests there are five distinct moral dimensions, which define morality as a whole. MFT can be broken down into two groups binding: in group/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity-which encompass group morality. Harm/Care, fairness/reciprocity are individualizing dimensions, which highlight individual morality. Recent work has found MFT predicts sociopolitical ideologies, as well as sociopolitical attitudes. In an effort to better understand the existing relationships we investigate MFT as a predictor of sociopolitical parties, and attitudes Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO). We also draw on similarities between Individualism/Collectivism and MFT. Specifically we demonstrate individualizing foundations, and dimensions of individualism predict SDO, where as Binding dimensions and dimensions of Collectivism relate to RWA.

Subordination of judgment is a fundamental threat to auditor objectivity. Subordination of judgment occurs when auditors agree with their superiors either in spite of or without forming their own independent judgments. Many audit procedures rely on independent, critical thinking at every level of the audit team; however, a number of studies suggest that auditors tend to agree with superiors even when a superior's views clearly run contrary to generally accepted accounting principles. While there is general agreement among scholars that subordination of judgment is "bad," very little attention has been given to moral biases that might influence an auditor's tendency to subordination of judgment, or to potential remedies that could mitigate an auditor's tendency to subordinate judgment. Moral Foundations Theory suggests that individuals tend to make intuitive, normative evaluations of situations based upon a set of personal moral biases or preferences called "moral foundations." Two specific moral foundations could influence subordination of judgment in divergent ways. The moral foundation of loyalty-respect may make agreement with a superior's views seem more acceptable than would disagreement. Meanwhile, the moral foundation of fairness may make an auditor more sensitive to the observance of rules, resulting in less subordination of judgment when a superior's views run contrary to professional rules. Social Identity Theory suggests that in-group favoritism may exacerbate subordination of judgment in general; however, strengthening an auditor's professional identity salience (PIS) could strengthen an auditor's objectivity. PIS is the temporary, heightened awareness of an auditor's identity as a professional and their role as guardian of professional rules. As a result, PIS may interact with an auditor's innate sense of fairness, resulting in less subordination of judgment than when professional identity is less salient. Results supported the hypothesis that auditors tend to subordinate their judgment to that of a superior, but not that PIS mitigates the effect of subordination of judgment. Results also supported the hypotheses that the moral foundations of loyalty-respect and fairness influence the tendency of auditors to subordinate their judgment to that of a superior. Specifically, auditors with higher levels of loyalty-respect were more likely to agree with a superior who suggested an incorrect accounting treatment than auditors with lower levels of loyalty-respect. Whereas, auditors with higher levels of fairness were less likely to agree with a superior who suggested an incorrect treatment than were auditors with lower levels of fairness. Therefore, this dissertation provides evidence that moral foundations bias professional judgment and decision making in auditing and calls for further research into the influence of moral heuristics.

This dissertation examines correlations between religiousness and spirituality, to moral orientations using moral foundations theory as a framework. Using the 2012 Measuring Morality dataset, which provides a representative sample of the population of the United States, I create linear regressions which test associations between religiousness, spirituality, and each of the five moral foundations ((harm/care, fairness, in-group loyalty, respect for authority, and purity). I find that religiousness is negatively associated with concern for harm, and positively associated with respect for authority, a finding which implies that the moral behavior of religious people is rooted in respect for authority more than in any other moral concern. Spirituality is positively associated with concern for fairness. The implications of all findings are discussed, as well as limitations and recommendations for future research.

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Submitted by Rodrigo Dias (dsdias.rodrigo@gmail.com) on 2018-05-14T20:00:10Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertation - Rodrigo Dias.pdf: 1200543 bytes, checksum: 55982ff5b80c53cb3762bce772efae63 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by ÁUREA CORRÊA DA FONSECA CORRÊA DA FONSECA (aurea.fonseca@fgv.br) on 2018-05-18T21:03:48Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertation - Rodrigo Dias.pdf: 1200543 bytes, checksum: 55982ff5b80c53cb3762bce772efae63 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-06-15T12:25:14Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertation - Rodrigo Dias.pdf: 1200543 bytes, checksum: 55982ff5b80c53cb3762bce772efae63 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-12-18 / In this paper, we examine why attitudes toward marijuana legalization are split along ideological lines. In a survey, we found that conservatives were more likely to oppose this policy partly because of their greater reliance on the authority and purity foundations of morality. Curiously, concerns about harm were found to play no role in determining attitudes toward marijuana legalization, even though those who were against this policy frequently explained their views with harm-related accounts. In an experiment, we found that opponents of legalization were more likely to adopt a more favorable view towards it when exposed to arguments and sources that were consistent with the authority and purity dimensions of morality. Precisely, subjects who initially opposed legalization were more likely to change their attitudes when exposed to arguments that were based on the purity (vs. harm) foundation of morality, and when they were led to believe that these arguments were given by religious (vs. business) leaders.