Abstract: Do clashes between ideologies reflect policy differences or something more fundamental? The present research suggests they reflect core psychological differences such that liberals express compassion toward less structured and more encompassing entities (i.e., universalism), whereas conservatives express compassion toward more well-defined and less encompassing entities (i.e., parochialism). Here we report seven studies illustrating universalist versus parochial differences in compassion. Studies 1a-1c show that liberals, relative to conservatives, express greater moral concern toward friends relative to family, and the world relative to the nation. Studies 2a-2b demonstrate these universalist versus parochial preferences extend toward simple shapes depicted as proxies for loose versus tight social circles. Using stimuli devoid of political relevance demonstrates that the universalist-parochialist distinction does not simply reflect differing policy preferences. Studies 3a-3b indicate these universalist versus parochial tendencies extend to humans versus nonhumans more generally, demonstrating the breadth of these psychological differences.
Introduction
In 2006, then Democratic Senator Barack Obama bemoaned the country’s “empathy deficit,” telling college graduates, “I hope you choose to broaden, and not contract, your ambit of concern.” In 2012, Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney said, “President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet. My promise is to help you and your family.”
The distinction between Obama and Romney captures the distinct worldviews of American political liberals and conservatives, respectively. Romney prioritized the family unit, whereas Obama highlighted the planet broadly. This difference in parochialism versus universalism became exacerbated during the 2016 presidential election, with one article noting, “Trump vs. Hillary Is Nationalism vs. Globalism, 20161,” contrasting the more parochial Republican candidate with the more universalist Democratic candidate. Others have characterized the Trump administration’s policy decisions as battles between nationalists (typified by parochialism) and globalists (typified by universalism)2.
These differential tendencies toward parochialism and universalism on the political right and left, respectively, extend beyond the United States as well. For example, leading French right-wing politician, Marie Le Pen declared in 2016, “The gap is not between the Left and the Right, but between globalists and patriots. The globalists are acting for the dilution of France and its people in a huge worldwide magma. The patriots hope that the nation constitutes the most protective space for the French3.” Across Western Europe, ideological battles between the left and right have centered on this tension between universalism and parochialism.
Universalism refers to moral regard directed toward more socially distant and structurally looser targets, relative to socially closer and structurally tighter targets. Parochialism refers to moral regard directed toward socially closer and structurally tighter targets, relative to socially more distant and structurally looser targets. Universalist moral circles and parochial moral circles in this context are concentric, with one encompassing the other. These circles refer to groups of targets toward which one expends moral regard, and reflect the concept of moral circles popularized by Singer4 (see also Burke5). They are akin to the idea of moral communities that comprise one’s in groups (discussed by Deutsch et al.6,7), in which entities can be included or excluded as worthy of moral regard, as well as to concentric circles of identity defined by self-categorization theory (whereby one’s self-concept can include increasingly distant social groups depending on one’s level of abstraction)8. While “parochial” sometimes has a negative connotation, we do not imply any such evaluation here and simply use it to describe maintaining a tight (versus loose) moral circle.
Previous research supports this universalist–parochial distinction between liberals and conservatives9. For instance, conservatives, relative to liberals, express greater need for closure, order, and structure10,11,12. Personality research shows social liberals consistently score higher on openness, whereas social conservatives score higher on conscientiousness13. Taken together, existing work suggests that political conservatism reflects a greater tendency to seek structure, to avoid ambiguity, changes to the status quo, and novelty. By this account, political liberalism represents greater comfort with lack of structure, new experiences, and novel information.
Given ideological differences in open versus closed styles of information processing, moral concern might follow a similar pattern. In prioritizing closure, order, and stability, conservatives should express concern toward smaller, more well-defined, and less permeable social circles (relative to broader ones). In prioritizing openness, tolerance for ambiguity, and desire for change, liberals should express concern toward larger, less well-defined, and more permeable social circles (relative to smaller ones).
Beyond low-level cognitive and motivational differences, one additional line of work supports the ideological distinction between parochial–universalist differences in compassion. This line of research stems from Moral Foundations Theory (MFT)14,15,16, which characterizes liberals and conservatives as diverging along two classes of intuitive moral values. Liberals care about harm and fairness (individualizing values), whereas conservatives care more about loyalty, authority, and sanctity (binding values). This research again suggests a differing focus such that liberals tend to express compassion toward individuals broadly construed, whereas conservatives emphasize compassion toward their immediate social groups. Supporting this idea, separate work indeed found that endorsement of individualizing values is positively correlated with moral expansiveness (moral consideration for entities, including plants and animals, beyond one’s immediate in group) whereas endorsement of binding values is negatively correlated with moral expansiveness17.
The present research provides empirical evidence for these differing ideological patterns of compassion and extends these patterns to stimuli across a range of measures. This work also shows these broader ideological differences are rooted in perceptual differences. These differences appear to stem also from a broader historical trend that has accelerated in recent decades as most countries have become wealthier and safer. Christian Welzel, a lead researcher for the World Values Survey, has described how reduced “existential threats” change values:
Fading existential pressures open people’s minds, making them prioritize freedom over security, autonomy over authority, diversity over uniformity, and creativity over discipline… the existentially relieved state of mind is the source of tolerance and solidarity beyond one’s in group18.Our research is consistent with Welzel’s characterization of the general shift from “survival values” that increase dependence on close others, to “emancipative values” that downplay local ties—and loyalties—and lead people to look farther afield for social relationships.
These studies aim to connect Singer’s4 idea of the moral circle to empirical political psychology. Beyond demonstrating a universalist–parochial distinction between liberals and conservatives, this research examines whether this distinction reflects mere political preferences, or something deeper. Universalism may reflect favorability toward policies that promote open borders (and encourage immigration) and that promote diplomacy toward ostensibly hostile nations. Such policies represent extending moral regard beyond one’s immediate group (e.g., the nation) and to the world more broadly. Similarly, parochialism may reflect favorability toward stricter immigration policies and defense spending to protect one’s nation—these policies represent prioritizing the well-being of one’s own nation at the potential expense of others. On the other hand, if the universalist–parochial distinction reflects a worldview beyond policy interests, then it should reflect evaluations of stimuli completely devoid of social or political relevance, for example abstract, animate shapes. Thus, we tested whether liberals and conservatives would display universalist and parochialist tendencies, respectively, in terms basic perceptual preferences. Finally, we examined whether this universalist–parochialist difference would map on to moral concern for humans exclusively versus a broader conception of the moral universe that includes nonhumans as well. Importantly, this work uses both measures developed for this work that explicitly capture the expanse of one’s moral circle as well as established measures that assess moral consideration for specific targets, to provide convergent evidence across studies.
Studies 1a–1c examine universalist versus parochial differences in the domains of friends versus family (friends typically constitute a larger, broader and more diffuse group than family) and the world versus the nation (the world encompasses one’s nation). Studies 2a–2b show this universalist–parochial distinction maps on to abstract entities (animated shapes) distinguished only by low-level perceptual properties. Studies 3a–3b demonstrate that this universalist–parochial distinction maps on to moral concern for humans exclusively compared with a social world that includes nonhumans. Across studies, we predicted that liberalism versus conservatism would be associated with universalism relative to parochialism, even in the context of preference for shapes devoid of social relevance and humans versus nonhumans.
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