503 Covid-19 and morality
1.Permissiveness
of instrumental harm: harming some people for the good of the whole.
2
Impartial benificence, with more empathetic concern.
1. Concern about human life, correlating with permissiveness concerning instrumental harm
2. Focus on public health, correlating with impersonal beneficence
The table below indicates which responses loaded positively (+) or highly so (++), and which loaded negatively (-) or highly so (--) on the PC’s
PC1 PC2
saving
younger patients ++ --
vaccine
development ++ --
animal
rights -- ++
data
protection -- -
virus
tracing ++ +
informing
protocol breach + ++
protecting
a friend - --
wanting
economic activity - --
physical
distance + ++
all
patients equal -- ++
Effects on these PC’s were studied of: the two moral stands, contextual factors , the five personality traits and demographic variables, with a total of 15 explanatory variables. The contextual factors were: per capita number of deaths, per capita number of confirmed Covid cases and.personal proximity to Covid. The demograhic variables were gender and age.
The two utilitarian stands agreed on prioritising public health over non-health concerns. Impartial beneficence had a negative effect on prioritising ventilator use and on lowering thresholds on animal rights, and instrumental harm had the opposite effect.
Per capita number of deaths, and per capita number of confirmed Covid cases had a positive effect on both principal components of responses.The effect of personal proximity had no effect on the PC’s, indicating that societal impact was considered more important,
In contrast with the rationality of institutional rules, morality is accompanied with emotions When policies and messages go against one’s morals, this can produce negative emotional reactions and polarisation, as we now observe across different countries. Their thesis was that conflicts between public health messages and moral values evoke emotions. Trevors and Duffy (2020) tested their thesis that conflicts between public health messages and moral values evoke emotions. They investigated the self-reported emotional responses of 518 people in the US to public messages with purported refutations of common Covid-19 misconceptions (e.g. that the flu is.just as bad if not worse than Covid). from 12 states The sample was not representative for the whole country, but ‘purposeful’, from communities known to be strongly opposed to social distancing identified in previous research as among the highest to favour immediate return to normal economic activity.
Respondents completed five prior knowledge items, a modified version of the ‘Moral foundations Questionnaire (MFQ)’ and read 5 short messages that refuted misconceptions, and then reported their emotional response, whether the content of the message conflicted with their personal views and/or views of their community, and the extent to which they believed the refutation and skimmed it quickly.
Factor analyses were conducted, , separately on the MFQ and the emotion response items.Three factors were found from the MFQ that elained 39% of variance:
Binding ,with eight
items, indicating an ethic of group cohesion and social order
Individualising, with six items,
indicating a preference for individuals. In aliberal ideology.
Libertarian, with four items,
indicating a preference for autonomous exercise of liberties.
On emotion response, three factors explained 55% of variance:
Anxious, with variables
anxious, scared, hopeless, and threatened
Hopeful, with variables
hopeful, relieved, hapy, curious, surprised
Doubtful, with variables doubtful,
bored, angry, confused.
Concerning the results, there were complicated interactions between the variables, for which I refer to the publication. Salient results were the following: Overall refutations did increase factual knowledge, and this accounted for 60% of post test score variance. Conflict of the messages with beliefs, hopefulness, doubtfulness and skimming had a negative effect on learing, and belief and prior knowledge had a posiive effect. Binding and libertarianism had a negative effect on learning when the corrections conflicted with views, and individualising had a positive effect.
Overall, the study showed that indeed the effectiveness of refutations depends on moral values. Strong moral concerns for individual well-being are more likely to let people undate their Covid beliefs, while ‘morally valued group cohesion or individual freedoms are more likely tot o affectively or cognitiovely reject corrctive informtion’, and ‘Public health actions undermined valued social ties or personal autonomy’.
The conclusion of the authors is that ‘Corrections should be adapted to connect with the morality of recipients, … link to concerns for fairness and suffering for the individualising stand, obeying authority, defending purity, and patriotism for the binding stance, and self-protection for the libertarian stand.
Everett. J,A, C. Colombatto, V. Chituc, W.J. Brady and M.J.Crockett 2020, ‘The effectiveness of moral messages on public health behavioural intentions during the Covid-19 pandemic’, preprint, Dept. of Psychology, UK: University of Kent
Navajas, J.,
F.A.Heduan, G. Garbulski, E. Tagliazucchi, D. Ariely and M.Sigman
2020,’Utilitarian reasoning about moral problems of the Covid-19 crisis’, OST preprint,
https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/ktv62 .
Qian, K. and
T. Yahara. 2020, ‘Mentality and behaviour in Civid-19, emerging status in
Japan:
influence of personality, morality and ideology’, Plos One.17/t e0235883
Trevors, G and M.C. Duffy 2020, ‘Correcting Covid-19 misconceptions
requires caution’, https://doi.org/10.3102/003189X20953825
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