The widely held assumption in philosophy & psychology that one purpose of human morality is to regulate social behavior is confirmed: the presence of another person increased moral values' importance

Yudkin, Daniel A., Ana P. Gantman, Wilhelm Hofmann, and Jordi Quoidbach. 2019. “Moral Values Gain Importance in the Presence of Others.” PsyArXiv. April 12. doi:10.31234/osf.io/tcq65

Abstract: A widely held assumption in philosophy and psychology is that the purpose of human morality is to regulate social behavior. Yet this premise has never been tested directly. We used a custom smartphone application to repeatedly record participants’ (N = 1,166) social context and the importance they afforded different moral values. Results showed moral values were rated more important when people were in the presence of others versus alone. This effect was robust to a series of potential confounds (demographics, time of day, mood) and was moderated by relationship type such that closer social relationships exerted stronger impact on moral evaluation than more distant. Furthermore, the effect of social proximity on moral evaluation was stronger for “binding” values than “individualizing” ones, suggesting the effect of social context differs according to value type. A randomized laboratory experiment confirmed that the mere physical presence of another person in the immediate environment increased the importance of moral values. Overall, these results demonstrate the contextual sensitivity of moral values and corroborate the view that morals play a social-regulatory role in human behavior.

Moral Values Gain Importance in the Presence of Others

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When we think about moral values, it is tempting to picture the philosopher in the armchair, postulating moral principles. Yet there is near consensus this is the wrong way to describe morality. Instead, research suggests the more accurate picture is that of two or more people, figuring out how to live and work together (ⁱ, ⁱⁱ, ⁱⁱⁱ, ^iv, ^v).

The inherently social nature of morality suggests moral values may be more salient when people are in social contexts. Fitting this idea, classic research suggests the presence of others impacts behavior (^vi). Other work shows that social situations increase egalitarian behavior (^vii, ^viii), and the mere suggestion of an external observer can increase cooperation (^ix, ^x, ^xi). Remarkably, however, the possibility that moral values gain importance in the presence of others has never been directly tested empirically. Answering this question would thus provide empirical validation to a foundational assumption in moral theory.

We sought tested this question using an app-based experience-sampling method (^xii, ^xiii). By measuring the importance of moral values in people’s daily lives as well as their current social situations, this approach has the potential to obtain a more accurate picture of how context impacts moral evaluation. We also tested two additional hypotheses. First, past research suggests that people’s treatment of others varies according to their social distance to the self (^xiv, ^xv). Accordingly, we tested whether the effect is moderated by social distance. Second, research shows morality can be divided into two types of values: “individualizing” (concerned with rights and freedoms), and “binding” (concerned with group harmony and cohesion) (^xvi, ^xvii). Because the latter set is particularly important for social regulation (^xviii) it is possible the importance of these values is especially sensitive to the presence of others (^xix). Overall, our method presented an opportunity to put several influential theories of moral psychology to the test in a real-world setting.

The research was part of the “58 seconds” project (^xx) approved by The Ethics Committee of ESADE Business School, Spain. European adults (N = 1,166, M_age = 35.7, SD = 11.1, 861 female, 305 male) were asked a series of questions (pulled from a larger pool) at random intervals over several months. Moral importance was assessed by averaging across responses of how important it was for participants to behave in accordance with values of care, fairness, loyalty, authority, and purity (0 – not at all; 100 – very) (17). Participants also indicated how happy they felt (0 – not at all; 100 – very), and who, if anyone, they were with. The analytic approach consisted of a series of multilevel analyses using the lme4 and lmerTest packages in R controlling for participants’ age and gender, hour of day, and day of week, with participant-level random intercepts (all scripts and materials at https://osf.io/4q8jg/).