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Supplemental Material - Testing heritability of moral foundations: Common pathway models support strong heritability for the five moral foundations
No full textSupplemental Material for Testing heritability of moral foundations: Common pathway models support strong heritability for the five moral foundations by Michael Zakharin, and Timothy C Bates in European Journal of Personality</p
The architecture of morality: assessing the genetic and psychometric dimensions of moral values
No full textMoral judgment is a complex psychological phenomenon that reflects how people evaluate the rightness or wrongness of actions. Different moral values can shape how individuals perceive and respond to moral dilemmas, with the origins of moral thinking being multifaceted and involving both genetic and environmental factors. This thesis aimed to advance understanding of moral psychology in two key areas: the underlying structure of morality and its genetic and environmental underpinnings. Chapter 1 provides background on prominent theories of moral judgment, emphasising Moral Foundations Theory, which serves as the primary theoretical framework for the majority of the research presented in this thesis. Chapter 2 reviews methodologies in behavioural genetics, focusing on twin design and their application to studying human psychology and values, providing a foundation for genetically informed research on morality we investigate in Chapters 4 and 7.
Chapter 3 focuses on measuring moral judgment using the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ), a widely used instrument. While previous attempts to model the factor structure of the MFQ were unsatisfactory, our research revealed a well-fitting and replicable model published as Zakharin and Bates (2021). We analysed five independent datasets and identified six moral factors organised under two higher-order "individualising" and "binding" domains. We also found evidence for a general moral judgment factor.
Having validated a measurement model of moral values in Chapter 3, Chapter 4 examines the genetic and environmental influences on those moral factors. As outlined in Zakharin and Bates (2022), we analysed two twin datasets using multivariate behavioural genetic models to assess the heritability of the MFQ moral domains. The results demonstrated substantial heritable influence on higher-order individualising and binding moral domains. Interestingly, only two individual foundations, Care and Purity, showed direct heritable effects, suggesting that genetic influences on other foundations are mediated through the individualising and binding domains. Additionally, we found evidence for significant heritability of the general moral concern factor independent of the specific moral domains. This reinforces the notion of an underlying genetically influenced disposition towards moral values, complementing the effects on the domain-specific factors.
Chapter 5 focuses on the psychometric evaluation of a recently developed revised instrument, the MFQ-2, aimed to improve the original MFQ. Across three studies, we provided initial validation support for the factor structure, reliability, and external validity of the MFQ-2, as detailed in Zakharin and Bates (2023a). In large UK and US samples, confirmatory factor analyses supported the proposed 6-factor structure, with two group factors of Individualizing and Binding. The MFQ-2 also demonstrated strong predictive validity, significantly correlating with 17 out of 18 expected external criteria. This initial validation indicates that the MFQ-2 reliably and validly assesses moral foundations with enhanced properties compared to the original MFQ.
Building on the findings from previous chapters, Chapter 6 explores the connections between moral values, Big Five personality traits and intelligence in a multivariate analysis. While moral foundations were largely independent from personality and cognitive ability, we did find some meaningful relationships. Specifically, Agreeableness and Neuroticism personality traits demonstrated small positive associations with the Individualising moral domain. Openness to Experience was negatively related to the Binding moral domain. We also found that the general intelligence factor was negatively associated with the Binding domain and Equality moral foundation. Verbal reasoning showed a negative relationship with the Purity foundation. Although the strengths of these relationships were modest, these findings provide new insights into the intersections between aspects of personality, cognitive abilities, and moral values. They demonstrate that moral intuitions are not completely separable from other psychological characteristics.
Expanding on the genetic analysis of moral foundations, Chapter 7 investigates the modular versus general nature of moral cognition from an evolutionary perspective. Drawing on the theory of Morality as Cooperation (MAC), we tested whether our morals are the product of multiple domain-specific psychological mechanisms versus a single domain-general mechanism. We also investigated the heritability of this alternative measure of moral judgment. By examining a large twin sample, our findings supported the existence of multiple, separable moral modules centred around different types of cooperation. Models with fewer factors than the seven predicted by theory demonstrated poor fit, pointing to domain-specific genetic effects. However, a general moral factor was also needed, though its heritability was non-significant, indicating it may partly reflect response biases.
While the preceding chapters focus on moral values, Chapter 8 expands the scope by validating relational models theory (RMT), which delineates cognitive models underlying social relationships. RMT proposes four fundamental relational prototypes: communal sharing, authority ranking, equality matching, and market pricing. We developed a psychometrically sound short form of the Relational Models Questionnaire with 20 items and confirmed its four-factor structure, published as Zakharin and Bates (2023b). This model demonstrated replication across distinct relationship types reported by participants. A general factor tied to relationship closeness also emerged in the data.
Finally, Chapter 9 explored support for freedom of speech as a psychological construct and its relationship to morality. We hypothesised that endorsement of free speech rights represents a multifaceted orientation extending beyond existing personality and moral values models. Our findings, published as Zakharin and Bates (2024), revealed that support for freedom of speech comprises four distinct dimensions: the liberty to criticise, hold unpopular beliefs, protest, and pursue independent thought. These factors demonstrated independence from both Big Five personality traits and the moral foundations identified in earlier chapters. The emergence of a coherent four-factor structure of free speech attitudes provides evidence that this orientation is not wholly reducible to either personality differences or current moral value frameworks. As such, liberty may constitute an additional moral principle or sentiment beyond those most often studied
Origins and structure of social and political attitudes: insights from personality system theory and behavioural genetics
No full textPeople differ, often strikingly, in their views on desired social structures and processes.
For example, while some value ethnic diversity in their society, others believe non -indigenous
individuals (whatever that might mean) should be repatriated to their land of origin. Similarly,
whereas some believe religion should play no role in determining social policy, others strongly
advocate the importance of living according to religious scripture, including at a social level.
This variation in attitudes, and its implication for societal cohesion, has made research on the
origins of social and political attitudes of enduring interest to psychologists, sociologists,
political scientists, among many others.The goal of the current thesis was to extend work in this literature in two key ways:
Firstly, I examined whether political attitudes can be understood within a personality system
model. This work addresses previous mixed results on the links of basic personality traits to
political conservatism. In Chapter 3, I test predictions from this model; namely, that direct
influences on political behaviour flow from moral values, with personality mostly acting
indirectly via these moral values, rather than directly affecting political attitudes. Findings from
two studies (published as Lewis & Bates, 2011a) supported these predictions suggesting that the
new model helps explain inconsistencies in previous research attempting to link personality to
political orientation that have not included the intermediary level of values.Secondly, I examined the genetic architecture of social attitudes constructs in three
separate studies. Chapter 4 addressed whether in -group favouritism reflects heritable effects, and,
secondly, whether race -favouritism was accounted for broad or specific genetic effects. Results
indicated that a common biological mechanism exists facilitating generalised favouritism, with
evidence for additional genetic effects specific to each form of group favouritism. These findings
(published as Lewis & Bates, 2010) suggest that (at least) at the genetic level, race favouritism is
multiply determined.In Chapter 5, I examined whether prosocial obligations across the domains of welfare,
work, and civic obligation share a common genetic basis, or reflect specific heritable
components (published as Lewis & Bates, 2011b). In females, results indicated the existence of a
common heritable factor underlying each of these prosocial obligations. In males, a prosocial
factor was also observed; familial effects (genetic and shared -environment effects were
indistinguishable) influenced this general mechanism. At the domain -specific level, modest
genetic effects were observed in females for civic and work obligations, with shared - environment effects influencing welfare obligations. In males, genetic influences were observed
for welfare obligation, with unique -environments affecting work and civic duty.Finally, in Chapter 6, I present work examining the genetic architecture of religious
belief. Although genetic factors are known to influence strength of religious belief, the
psychological mechanism(s) through which this biological influence is manifest are presently
unknown. Two non -theological constructs - 1) need for community integration and 2) need for
existential certainty - were hypothesised to account for the genetic effects on religiosity. The
results supported this hypothesis, with genetic influences on these traits wholly accounting for
the heritable basis of religiosity, suggesting that religion "re- uses" systems involved in meeting
both social and existential needs
Well-fitting structural models of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire replicate the five foundations and reveal two additional dimensions.
No full textData for Zakharin, M. and T. C. Bates (2021). "Remapping the foundations of morality: Well-fitting structural model of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire." PLoS One 16(10): e0258910.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.025891
Economic attitudes and individual difference: replication and extension
No full textThe work presented in this dissertation primarily focused on two topics. The first was understanding differences in support for redistribution. In this section, we replicated existing research on the three-player two-situation model, extended this model with more precise measures – for instance of malicious envy – and developed new measures for instance of mutualism. The second main topic was understanding how motivations and cognitive ability influence people's economic attitudes and knowledge.
The thesis is structured as follows. Chapter 1 provides a brief introduction about redistribution and economic ideology which will be discussed in subsequent chapters and argues for the importance of replication existing findings in psychology.
Chapter 2 aims to address whether social orientation and cognitive style reflect the differences in cultural orientation, such as individualism and collectivism. We conducted a study (n = 216) to test the relationships between Sociogram Task (a social orientation measure which assumes that using a relatively large circle to perform self in a diagram would be more individualistic), Triad Task (a cognitive style measure which assumes grouping objects through their category rather than relationship would be more individualistic), and three cultural orientation measures. We found that neither social orientation nor cognitive style was associated with cultural orientations, and social orientation nor cognitive style were not correlated with each other, either. This result showed that Sociogram Task and Triad Task did not reflect the underlying dimension of individualism and collectivism, indicating that social orientation and cognitive style were not linked with cultural orientations. Given that the effects of social orientation and cognitive style failed to replicate, we switched to our main findings in the next part.
In part one of this dissertation (Chapter 3 to Chapter 5), we explored a different direction, focusing on the replication and extension of the three-player two-situation model, which hypothesizes that people’s attitude toward resource allocation (e.g. support for economic redistribution) is driven by three motivations: compassion, envy, and self-interest.
In Chapter 3, we build on the work of the three-player two-situation model, testing whether the attitude toward redistribution is motivated by the three motivations rather than procedural fairness. We successfully replicated this model in three studies (n = 1,011), confirming that support for redistribution is influenced by compassion, envy, and self-interest, and procedural fairness plays no role. Furthermore, we also refined the three-player two-situation model, indicating that the concept of envy referred to malicious envy, which is characterized by hostility and behaviours about decreasing others’ advantage. These results support the role of evolution motivates in explaining contemporary economic redistribution.
In Chapter 4, we aim to answer whether support for redistribution would be shaped by a specific kind of fairness vital in collaboration, the equal-division fairness. In two studies (n = 805), we found that motivation of equal-division played a significant role in support for redistribution. Furthermore, we found that attitude toward redistribution involved a coercive part, which was also associated with equal-division fairness. These results confirmed the role of equal-division motivation, suggesting that the three-player two-situation model includes equal-division fairness and coercive enforcement.
In Chapter 5, we focused on another key concept of the evolution of cooperation, mutualism, trying to answer how it influences support for redistribution and associates with compassion, envy, self-interest, and equal-division fairness. We developed a Mutualism scale based on Baumard, André, and Sperber (2013), which reflects proportional division, proportional punishment, and helping behaviour. In two studies (n = 902), the Mutualism scale showed good fits to the predicted model and satisfactory reliability and validity. Furthermore, we found mutualism was independent of compassion, envy, and self-interest, but associated with equal-division, coercing others to share equally, and negative attitudes toward redistribution. These results extended the three-player two-situation model, confirming the importance of equal-division and mutualism motivations in explaining people’s tendency toward economic redistribution.
In the second part of this dissertation (Chapter 6 and Chapter 7), we turned to concern how cognitive ability influence people's economic attitudes and knowledge.
In Chapter 6, we addressed whether cognitive ability influences economic attitudes. In two studies (n = 1,400) and a longitudinal data set (n = 11,563), we found cognitive ability was positively correlated with how far individuals deviate from prevailing centrist views, that is, the level of economic extremism. These results indicated that the association between cognitive ability and economic attitudes was not a simple linear relationship, highlighting the role of cognitive ability in generating radical attitudes.
Chapter 7 aims to answer whether cognitive ability is related to economic knowledge and whether it will increase financial outcomes. In two studies (n = 1,356), we found that cognitive ability was positively associated with economic knowledge, and greater economic knowledge also positively correlated with financial literacy. In addition, our findings showed that education level and economic training level only had little effect on economic knowledge compared with cognitive ability. These findings fill the gap between cognitive ability and economic knowledge, extending the role of general ability in improving lifetime financial wellbeing.
Finally, Chapter 8 was a summary of the previous chapters’ findings, and suggestions for future research on people's economic attitudes and knowledge, especially the role of individual differences in this research area
Support for redistribution Data and Code
No full textRepository for data and analysis scripts for studies 1-3 of the paper "Who Supports redistribution? Replicating and refining effects of compassion, malicious envy, and self-interest." by Chien-An Lin and Timothy C. Bate
Support for redistribution Data and Code
No full textRepository for data and analysis scripts for studies 1-3 of the paper "Who Supports redistribution? Replicating and refining effects of compassion, malicious envy, and self-interest." by Chien-An Lin and Timothy C. Bate
Support for redistribution Data and Code
No full textRepository for data and analysis scripts for studies 1-3 of the paper "Who Supports redistribution? Replicating and refining effects of compassion, malicious envy, and self-interest." by Chien-An Lin and Timothy C. Bate
Fluctuating asymmetry and personality
No full textThe relationship between Fluctuating Asymmetry (FA) and personality can cast light on the fitness con sequences and selective benefits underlying personality However few studies have investigated the topic and these have rendered inconsistent findings Theoretically predicted relationships of FA to personality include linear associations and curvilinear associations (with low FA leading to average-not extreme-personality trait levels) Evidence for no association would suggest that personality has no consequences for general fitness We summarise the findings to date adding two new studies testing each of the hypothesised models with well-validated measures of FA and personality traits No consistent associations were found Though it remains possible that low FA is weakly related to conscientiousness and openness to experience the major personality domains seem unrelated to FA (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved</p
Symmetry of the face in old age reflects childhood social status
No full textThe association of socioeconomic status (SES) with a range of lifecourse outcomes is robust, but the causes of these associations are not well understood. Research on the developmental origins of health and disease has led to the hypothesis that early developmental disturbance might permanently affect the lifecourse, accounting for some of the burden of chronic diseases such as coronary heart disease. Here we assessed developmental disturbance using bodily and facial symmetry and examined its association with socioeconomic status (SES) in childhood, and attained status at midlife. Symmetry was measured at ages 83 (facial symmetry) and 87 (bodily symmetry) in a sample of 292 individuals from the Lothian Birth Cohort 1921 (LBC1921). Structural equation models indicated that poorer SES during early development was significantly associated with lower facial symmetry (standardized path coefficient -.25, p=.03). By contrast, midlife SES was not significantly associated with symmetry. The relationship was stronger in men (-.44, p=.03) than in women (-.12, p=.37), and the effect sizes were significantly different in magnitude (p=.004). These findings suggest that SES in early life (but not later in life) is associated with developmental disturbances. Facial symmetry appears to provide an effective record of early perturbations, whereas bodily symmetry seems relatively imperturbable. As bodily and facial symmetries were sensitive to different influences, they should not be treated as interchangeable. However, markers of childhood disturbance remain many decades later, suggesting that early development may account in part for associations between SES and health through the lifecourse. Future research should clarify which elements of the environment cause these perturbations
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