| |
| author |
William DeJianne
| | title |
Demoralization: Do Perceptions of Low Harm Reduce Moral Conviction?
| | abstract |
The field of moral psychology has an extensive amount of literature regarding moral
attitudes and moralization, or the process of a formerly neutral attitude becoming morally
charged. However, we know less about the process of demoralization, or reducing the strength of
a moral conviction. This is despite the presence of many demoralization events in history and the
idea that one needs to demoralize an attitude before people who are opposed on an issue can
come to a compromise. The current research investigated whether perceptions of harm, based in
the Theory of Dyadic Morality, reduce moral conviction by showing participants that a given
behavior does not result in the harm of an individual. Participants were randomly assigned to
three conditions. Participants in the low harm condition read a fabricated story about a man who
was healthy despite smoking marijuana, then responded open-endedly about the passage and
their own beliefs about the lack of harm of marijuana, and finally read information from the
CDC about the benefits of marijuana. Participants in the high harm condition read a similar
fabricated story about a man who was having negative health symptoms due to smoking
marijuana, then responded open-endedly about the passage and their own beliefs about the harms
of marijuana, and finally read information from the CDC about the risks of marijuana.
Participants in the control group did not read any passages nor responded open-endedly. All
participants reported their position on marijuana, their degree of moral conviction about
marijuana, their perceptions of harm, and demographic variables. Results partially supported the
hypotheses, as the low harm group had the highest support for marijuana and the lowest
perceptions of harm and moral conviction, but the differences from the control group were not
statistically significant for the support and perceptions of harm variables. However, moral
conviction, the main study variable, was found to be significantly lower for the low harm group
than the control group, or, in other words, the topic was demoralized. Implications for the idea of
demoralization, in the context of past events and current political activism, are discussed, and
recommendations for future research in the topic of demoralization are offered.
| | school |
The College of Liberal Arts, Drew University
| | degree |
B.A. (2021)
|
| advisor |
Scott Morgan
|
| committee |
Adijat Mustapha
Jim Bazewicz
|
| full text | WDeJianne.pdf |
| |
