How social relationships shape moral wrongness judgments

Moral psychology has largely focused on judgments involving strangers, neglecting the significant role of relationships in shaping everyday moral judgments. While studies on stranger-stranger interactions provide valuable insights into basic moral principles, the majority of our moral judgments involve familiar others within established relationships. The stakes are often higher in these scenarios, and moral judgments concerning actions within familiar relationships systematically differ from those involving strangers. For example, a mother failing to feed her child is considered highly blameworthy, whereas a restaurant owner failing to feed a non-paying customer is typically not. Several theories highlight the importance of relational context, and emerging empirical work shows that moral judgments of the same action vary across relationships, depending on how 'relationship type' is defined (genetic relatedness, social closeness, interdependence). However, a systematic, data-driven approach accounting for multiple cooperative functions within relationships and a comparison of these functions' predictive power relative to other models is lacking. This study addresses this gap by focusing on four cooperative functions (care, reciprocity, hierarchy, mating) that characterize dyadic relationships, proposing that societal norms prescribe how these functions should operate within specific relationships ('relational norms'). The study aims to describe relational norms for common relationships in a US context, predict out-of-sample moral wrongness judgments based on these norms, and compare the model's predictive power to alternative models.

Existing research in moral psychology often employs scenarios involving strangers or thinly described agents, examining judgments in decontextualized situations. However, this approach overlooks the crucial influence of social relationships on moral judgment. Previous studies have explored the impact of genetic relatedness, social closeness, and interdependence on moral judgments across relationships, revealing variations in moral evaluations based on these factors. However, these studies often lack a systematic framework that considers the multifaceted nature of relationships and the interplay of multiple cooperative functions within those relationships. This study builds upon these previous efforts by proposing a more comprehensive model that incorporates the diverse ways in which relationships contribute to the overall moral landscape of human interactions.

The research employed a three-stage design involving multiple pre-registered studies. Stage 1 (Study 1) assessed relational norms for 20 common dyadic relationships in a nationally representative sample of 423 US participants. Participants rated the extent to which each relationship should serve the functions of care, reciprocity, hierarchy, mating, and coalition. Stage 2 (Study 2) focused on predicting moral wrongness judgments using relational norms established in Stage 1. Fifteen judges rated 86 action statements on their capacity to weaken or strengthen cooperative functions (independent of moral judgment). A subset of 12 action statements (3 per function) was selected for Study 2 using an algorithm minimizing across-function mean rating differences. In Study 2, 1320 participants rated the moral wrongness of these actions within one of ten selected relationships (based on functional distinctiveness from Stage 1). Stage 3 examined the comparative predictive power of relational norms against alternative models (genetic relatedness, social closeness, interdependence). 85 participants rated social closeness and interdependence for the ten relationships; genetic relatedness was determined objectively. Linear mixed models were used to analyze data across stages, controlling for potential confounding factors such as action likelihood and participant demographics.

Study 1 revealed significant variation in relational norms across dyadic relationships. Relationships showed different levels of functional polarization (deviation in function prescriptions) and specificity (strong expectation to serve only one function). Women reported stronger expectations for care, while men reported stronger expectations for mating across most dyads. Hierarchical clustering revealed four main clusters: sexual relationships, hierarchical relationships, reciprocal relationships, and familial/caring relationships. Study 2 demonstrated that relational norms significantly predicted out-of-sample moral wrongness judgments (p < .001, R² = .63). The model's predictive power exceeded that of action likelihood alone. Target specificity (extent to which an action specifically weakened a target function) and action likelihood were also significant predictors. The correlation between relational norm dissimilarity and moral judgment dissimilarity across relationship pairs further supported the model (r = .43, p = .003). This correlation held strongly for care and mating, and weakly for hierarchy but not reciprocity. Study 3 showed that relational norms explained significantly more variance in moral wrongness judgments (marginal R² = .69) than genetic relatedness, social closeness, or interdependence (marginal R² ≈ .44 for all three).

This research provides strong evidence that relational norms, reflecting socially prescribed expectations for cooperative functions within relationships, powerfully shape moral wrongness judgments. This finding challenges previous one-dimensional approaches that focus solely on genetic relatedness, social closeness, or interdependence. The model's strong predictive power underscores the importance of considering the complex interplay of cooperative functions in understanding moral judgments. The unexpected result for reciprocity warrants further investigation, potentially distinguishing between transactional and communal forms of reciprocity. The consistent finding across studies emphasizes the impact of relational context on moral judgment.

This study demonstrates that a relational norms model, considering multiple cooperative functions inherent in relationships, provides a robust and accurate prediction of moral wrongness judgments. This model outperforms alternative models based solely on genetic relatedness, social closeness, or interdependence. Future research should explore the nuances of reciprocity, expand to include moral rightness judgments, investigate the role of individual differences, and examine cultural variations in relational norms.

The study's findings may have limited generalizability due to several factors. The focus on a US sample might limit the generalizability of the findings to other cultures. The study primarily focused on moral wrongness judgments and did not address moral rightness or praiseworthiness. The study did not comprehensively assess the impact of participant characteristics (race, religion, etc.) on moral judgments or how these characteristics interact with relational context.