Actions versus consequences in political arguments: Insights from moral psychology

Abstract

A striking characteristic of moral judgments is that people commonly assign value to particular actions, irrespective of what consequences the actions bring about. This phenomenon might be important to understanding political judgments, when people frequently purport to stand on principle, even when doing so comes at a substantial cost. Here, I draw on work in psychology that might help identify which citizens are insensitive to consequences in the context of political argumentation. I find that a particular facet of attitude intensity (moral conviction) identifies citizens who think about political issues in absolutist terms (studies 1 and 2) and who dismiss damaging information about policy consequences (studies 3 and 4). These results develop understanding of what attributes make different political arguments compelling to different people and illustrate the utility of attitude intensity measures as a way to account for the atomized and disorganized nature of political opinions.