When people disagree about deeply held moral convictions, conflicts can seem inevitable. This paper proposes that conflicts can be avoided, and respectful exchanges can follow, if people perceive stances they disagree with as morally reasonable: arrived at through good-faith deliberation. Reasonableness, central to law and philosophy, has received little attention in psychological research on morality. Across five studies (plus three replication studies, Total N = 853), this research examined whether people can perceive moral disagreements as reasonable and, if so, what the predictors, implications, and psychological underpinnings of such perceptions are. As hypothesized, (H1) participants perceived moral disagreements as more reasonable when issues were more difficult (e.g. involved conflict, more novel, or more informationally obscure); (H2) they expressed less hostility and more willingness to socialize when they saw a disagreeing stance as morally reasonable; and (H3) they saw the disagreeing stance as more reasonable when the stance was reached through good-faith deliberation. Under some circumstances, participants even saw stances they disagreed with as more reasonable than stances they agreed with. Unlike related constructs such as mere agreement, moral convictions, ethical subjectivism, and intellectual humility, perceptions of moral reasonableness are perceptions of how another person reached their stance and have stronger social implications than perceptions of empirical reasonableness. Efforts to understand and mitigate political and moral conflicts will want to incorporate how perceptions of reasonableness can be used and abused-for peaceful, political, or personal ends-to alter how reasonable or unreasonable a moral stance appears to others.

ABSTRACT Youth in a polarized society may attribute disagreements to the other side's irrationality and evil—or to the possibility that reasonable people can disagree on difficult issues. This study examined the determinants and consequences of moral reasonableness perceptions. Adolescents ( N = 131, M age = 15.88, 54% Female, 41% White) and emerging adults ( N = 65, M age = 19.83, 74% Female, 45% White) evaluated the difficulty of manipulated moral dilemmas and contemporary politico‐moral issues, the reasonableness of stances that disagree with them, and how likely they would be to talk with or be friends with those who disagree with them. We found that participants (1) saw disagreements as more reasonable for more difficult issues, (2) were more willing to engage with those they saw as morally reasonable, and (3) were more likely to perceive reasonableness when they had personal experience with disagreement and were less politically extreme. Perceptions of moral reasonableness, whether those perceptions are accurate or inaccurate, shape the course of disagreements. When youth see moral and political issues as difficult, their elevated perceptions of moral reasonableness may foster the kind of respectful engagements on which healthy democracies depend.

Some moral disagreements cause conflicts—but many do not. People who disagree about abortion, immigration, or gun rights can attack each other or have respectful conversations. One possible yet understudied contributor to respectful disagreement is perceptions of moral reasonableness: the sense that the other person has sound grounds for their moral stance. This research examined the sources and implications of moral reasonableness perceptions. Across eight studies (Total N = 811), participants perceived disagreements about hypothetical (Studies 1-2, 5-8) and political (Studies 3-4, 6-7) issues as more reasonable when issues were more difficult, be that through complexity (H1a), novelty (H1b), or informational obscurity (H1c). Participants who perceived a disagreeant as more reasonable expressed more willingness to socialize and less hostility (H2). Study 5 developed a scale for assessing perceptions of moral reasonableness. Studies 6-7 showed that people’s perceived reasonableness is not merely based on the specific moral stance but on psychological attributions about why the person holds that stance (H3). Study 8 distinguishes perceptions of moral reasonableness from general reasonableness (H4) and other constructs (H5). Our findings point to perceptions of moral reasonableness a key, underexamined factor that shapes the course of moral disagreements. Even in a polarized country, people are not doomed to demonize people they disagree with.

What role does reasoning about moral principles play in people’s judgments about what is right or wrong? According to one view, reasoning usually plays little role. People tend to do what suits their self-interests and concoct moral reasons afterward to justify their own behavior. Thus, in this view, people are far more forgiving of their own violations than of others’ violations. According to a contrasting view, principled reasoning generally guides judgments and decisions about our own and others’ actions. This view predicts that people usually can, and do, articulate the principles that guide their moral judgments and decisions. The present research examined a phenomenon at the center of these debates: students’ evaluations of academic cheating. Across three studies, we used structured interviews and online surveys to examine first- and third-party judgments and reasoning about cheating events. Third-party scenarios were derived from students’ own accounts of cheating events and manipulated based on the reasons students provided. Findings supported the view that reasoning is central to evaluations of cheating. Participants articulated reasons consistent with their judgments about their own and others’ actions. The findings advance classic debates about reasoning in morality and exemplify a paradigm that can bring further advances.

To determine whether children will exclude or punish a peer who creates an unfair advantage in an intergroup team context, four-to ten-year-old participants (N = 120, Mage = 6.87) were assigned a team membership and evaluated unintentional and intentional unfair advantages created by a character. Children were more likely to endorse punishment and exclusion responses when reasoning about an opponent than a teammate. This difference between groups was not observed when in-group and out-group members reasoned about punishing a character who intentionally created an unfair advantage. Older children were less likely to endorse exclusion than younger participants. Further, older children and in-group members utilized punishment more frequently than exclusion. Taken together this demonstrates that the group identity and the age of the child influences the ways in which children endorse responses to transgressions. These findings increase our understanding regarding children's conceptions of fairness responses to transgressions in intergroup contexts.

The Developing Inclusive Youth program is a classroom-based, individually administered video tool that depicts peer-based social and racial exclusion, combined with teacher-led discussions. A multisite randomized control trial was implemented with 983 participants (502 females; 58.5% White, 41.5% Ethnic/racial minority; M age  = 9.64 years) in 48 third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade classrooms across six schools. Children in the program were more likely to view interracial and same-race peer exclusion as wrong, associate positive traits with peers of different racial, ethnic, and gender backgrounds, and report play with peers from diverse backgrounds than were children in the control group. Many approaches are necessary to achieve antiracism in schools. This intervention is one component of this goal for developmental science.

Abstract The Developing Inclusive Youth program is a classroom‐based, individually administered video tool that depicts peer‐based social and racial exclusion, combined with teacher‐led discussions. A multisite randomized control trial was implemented with 983 participants (502 females; 58.5% White, 41.5% Ethnic/racial minority; M age = 9.64 years) in 48 third‐, fourth‐, and fifth‐grade classrooms across six schools. Children in the program were more likely to view interracial and same‐race peer exclusion as wrong, associate positive traits with peers of different racial, ethnic, and gender backgrounds, and report play with peers from diverse backgrounds than were children in the control group. Many approaches are necessary to achieve antiracism in schools. This intervention is one component of this goal for developmental science.

Nearly all students believe academic cheating is wrong, yet few students say they would report witnessed acts of cheating. To explain this apparent tension, the present research examined college students’ reasoning about whether to report plagiarism or other forms of cheating. Study 1 examined students’ conflicts when deciding whether to report cheating. Most students gave reasons against reporting a peer (e.g., social and physical consequences, a lack of responsibility to report) as well as reasons in favor of reporting (e.g., concerns about welfare, justice, and fairness). Study 2 provided experimental confirmation that the contextual factors referenced by Study 1 participants in fact influenced decisions about whether to report cheating. Overall, the findings indicate that students often decide against reporting peers’ acts of cheating, though not due to a lack of concern about integrity. Rather, students may refrain from reporting because of conflicting concerns, lack of information about school policy, and perceived better alternatives to reporting.