Participants evaluated the same costs (public shaming, deaths & illnesses, & police abuse of power) as more acceptable when they resulted from efforts to minimize C19's health impacts, than when they resulted from prioritizing economic costs

Moralization of Covid-19 health response: Asymmetry in tolerance for human costs. Maja Graso, Fan Xuan Chen, Tania Reynolds. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, December 4 2020, 104084. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2020.104084

Abstract: We hypothesized that because Covid-19 (C19) remains an urgent and visible threat, efforts to combat its negative health consequences have become moralized. This moralization of health-based efforts may generate asymmetries in judgement, whereby harmful by-products of those efforts (i.e., instrumental harm) are perceived as more acceptable than harm resulting from non-C19 efforts, such as prioritizing the economy or non-C19 issues. We tested our predictions in two experimental studies. In Study 1, American participants evaluated the same costs (public shaming, deaths and illnesses, and police abuse of power) as more acceptable when they resulted from efforts to minimize C19's health impacts, than when they resulted from non-health C19 efforts (e.g., prioritizing economic costs) or efforts unrelated to C19 (e.g., reducing traffic deaths). In Study 2, New Zealand participants less favorably evaluated the quality of a research proposal empirically questioning continuing a C19 elimination strategy in NZ than one questioning abandoning an elimination strategy, although both proposals contained the same amount of methodology information. This finding suggests questioning elimination approaches is morally condemned, a similar response to that found when sacred values are questioned. In both studies, condition effects were mediated by lowered moral outrage in response to costs resulting from pursuing health-minded C19 efforts. Follow-up analyses revealed that both heightened personal concern over contracting C19 and liberal ideology were associated with greater asymmetries in human cost evaluation. Altogether, results suggest reducing or eliminating C19 have become moralized, generating asymmetries in evaluations of human suffering.

Keywords: Covid-19MoralizationHuman costMoral outrageInstrumental harmideology

Intro

Covid-19 (C19) has been a terrifying global health threat since its detection. In comparison to the familiar seasonal influenza, C19 is more contagious, insidious, deadly, and potentially overwhelming of health care systems (Resnick & Animashaun, 2020). Governments around the world have responded by implementing various restrictions, which had been relatively unprecedented in Western civilizations. Despite these restrictions' capacity to save lives (Alwan et al., 2020), prolonged regulation of human contact and economic activity is not without devastating health, welfare, and economic costs (Glover et al., 2020). Minimizing fatalities and health system burden, while simultaneously protecting people's social wellbeing and livelihoods appears unattainable. In the absence of effective and widely available vaccines or therapeutics, no country is well positioned to provide both sustained health care and economic support for all. Because resources are finite, difficult trade-offs surrounding lives and livelihoods are inevitable. How do people evaluate such trade-offs? The current investigation sought to examine these psychological calculi.

We test the possibility that within the current C19 pandemic, not all human costs are perceived as equally tolerable. Because C19 is a salient threat, we contend that eliminating it has become moralized, perhaps even to the point of a sacred value (Tetlock, 2003; Tetlock, Kristel, Elson, Green, & Lerner, 2000). As a result, we hypothesized that people would exhibit asymmetries in their evaluations of human costs, such that the harmful by-products of C19 reduction or elimination efforts are viewed as more tolerable than those resulting from non-C19 efforts. Moreover, in line with extant work on sacred values, we anticipated that merely questioning the elimination strategy would elicit moral outrage, disapproval, and a desire to reaffirm one's moral commitments.

General Discussion

We investigated whether the moralization of health-based C19 efforts (i.e., to reduce C19 deaths and illnesses, or eliminate the virus) would generate asymmetries in the evaluation of human costs. We hypothesized that because the health impacts of C19 remain an urgent, visible, and quantifiable threat, efforts to reduce that harm would become moralized as moral mandates (Rozin, 1999; Skitka & Houston, 2001). As such, the harmful by-products inherent in combating C19's health effects would be accepted as more tolerable than identical harm resulting from efforts unrelated to C19's health effects. Predictions were overwhelmingly supported. In Study 1 participants exhibited asymmetries in their tolerance for health, social, and human rights costs; identical costs (e.g., number of deaths, online harassment, or police abuse of power) arising from health-related C19 strategies were more readily accepted than those arising from either non-health-based strategies (e.g., economic), or from other unrelated efforts. Moreover, these effects were mediated by moral outrage, supporting that elimination efforts have become moralized.

Study 2 furnished additional evidence for the moralization of C19 health-targeted efforts. Indeed, participants in NZ evaluated a research proposal as less accurate, less methodologically sound, and less valuable to society when it posited the hypothesis that the suffering resulting from continuing an elimination approach in NZ outweighed that from abandoning the approach (compared to one forwarding the reverse hypothesis). Yet, both proposals contained the same amount of empirically validated information. Moreover, Study 2 participants evaluated the researchers as less competent and were less trustful they would honor participants' donation wishes when the researchers merely posited the empirical possibility the elimination approach led to increased suffering. These patterns are congruent with extant work on sacred values (Tetlock, 2003), whereby merely opening cherished beliefs up to scrutiny evokes moral outrage and motivates individuals to further demonstrate their moral commitments. In a similar vein, Study 2 participants who read the research proposal questioning the elimination strategy espoused heightened moral commitments to an elimination approach. Altogether, these patterns support that efforts to control or eliminate C19 have become moralized, leading individuals to overlook potential collateral costs from such efforts.

Our results also provide insight into the individual-level factors that may exacerbate the asymmetries we observed: 1) personal fear of contracting the virus, and 2) political ideology. Across our two studies, both those who more strongly feared contracting the virus and those who more strongly identified as liberal exhibited widened asymmetries, as well as greater moral outrage. Indeed, these greater asymmetries were mediated by heightened moral outrage. Of note, we observed these patterns in both the USA and NZ, suggesting they were not a relic of a particular political climate or a country that had yet to effectively contain the virus. Rather these patterns may reflect deeper ideological differences, such as liberals' greater emphasis on avoiding harm (Graham, Haidt, & Nosek, 2009) or conservatives' greater valuation of personal liberties (Boaz, 1997). Irrespective of their origin, the divergent conceptualizations of morality observed here may undermine empathy for those proffering alternative responses to C19, thereby exacerbating political polarization in the US and beyond (Ditto & Koleva, 2011).

Although our findings lend support for the contention that elimination efforts have become moralized and that perceived threat contributes to this moralization, many other factors undoubtedly contribute to the asymmetries observed here. For example, it is possible that the salience of C19 drives moralization more strongly than perceptions of its harm (see Philipp-Muller, Wallace, & Wegener, 2020; Skitka, Wisneski, & Brandt, 2018). Alternatively, the moral language and media depictions surrounding C19 may amplify moralization, such as by activating disgust. We leave these intriguing possibilities as open questions for future research. Our investigation was also limited by its examination of only a few types of human costs. However, there are numerous tragic costs that can result from both aiming to reduce the spread of C19 and failing to do so. Future studies might assess how individuals weigh these additional costs (Alwan et al., 2020; Glover et al., 2020).

It is worth clarifying that our investigation cannot speak to the moral standing of C19-efforts, nor does it aim to. Behaviors, including C19-directed strategies, are often moralized out of necessity (Rozin et al., 1997; Rozin & Singh, 1999). Indeed, C19 continues to spread rapidly in many places around the world, with devastating consequences. It is perhaps unsurprising then that efforts to combat the pandemic have been moralized and elevated to the status of a sacred value. Nonetheless, C19 is an evolving threat. If, for example, an effective vaccine is developed, the human costs resulting from C19 elimination strategies, such as ‘deaths of despair’, may exceed C19's direct health effects, and consequently, the trends observed here might reverse entirely. However, our findings among New Zealanders suggest the reluctance to consider the instrumental harm of C19 health-based efforts may persist after C19 elimination.

Indeed, our findings suggest potential human costs beyond C19's direct health effects may be relatively under-acknowledged, deprioritized, or granted less moral weight. Within our studies, we held suffering constant, revealing that even the loss of human lives is differentially weighted, depending on the cause. Our findings also reveal that empirical endeavors that might allow scientists to better understand costs resulting from C19 restrictions may be discouraged, unfunded, or dismissed. There are significant disagreements between the world's leading scientists on how C19 should be handled, given its severity and costs (see Alwan, 2020; Horton, 2020). Yet, the current findings identify and underscore a prominent obstacle in evaluating those costs dispassionately or through empirical scrutiny: moral outrage. Without tempered discussions or comprehensive data, assessing the true calculus of human suffering will pose challenges for scientists, policy makers, and the general public alike. The current trade-offs facing decision-makers and individual citizens are difficult, unprecedented, and costly. Providing a nuanced understanding of how individuals evaluate these human costs can help guide an informed pathway towards weathering these ongoing difficulties and ultimately, minimizing human suffering.