Shining the “Light” on Moral Foundations: Light Versus Dark Personality Relates More Strongly to Moral Foundations

Abstract

Endorsement of the moral foundations specified by Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) can sometimes fail to relate negatively to certain dispositions indicative of bad moral character. This evidence has fueled some concerns over whether the moral foundations in MFT are “moral.” To increase understanding of how moral foundations relate to moral character, we proposed the “asymmetry hypothesis.” This hypothesis states that “good” character is a more powerful predictor of each moral foundation than “bad” character. Put differently, there is an asymmetry in the strength (not merely direction) with which the moral foundations relate to encompassing indicators of good versus bad character. This is important because it suggests that links between the moral foundations and moral character will be somewhat concealed by focusing on bad character and/or not considering encompassing indicators of good character. A sample of college participants ( N = 514) rated their endorsement of moral foundations and completed two sets of measures that represented encompassing indicators of both good and bad character. The data supported the asymmetry hypothesis: Each encompassing good-character assessment was a stronger predictor of each moral foundation than its corresponding encompassing bad-character assessment. Furthermore, variance unique to any good-character assessment had about moderate relations with each moral foundation, but variance unique to any bad-character assessment had no more than small relations with each moral foundation. The study provides a more nuanced understanding of how moral character relates to moral foundations and highlights utility in considering moral character as multidimensional.