Moral Conviction

Moral conviction refers to the perception that one’s feelings about a given attitude object are based on one’s beliefs about right and wrong. Holding an attitude with moral conviction means that a person has attached moral significance to it. Some people hold an attitude based on their likes and dislikes, or their preferences. Other attitudes may be based more on norms and conventions in a society, such as what the law dictates or what close others believe. Still other attitudes are based on people’s beliefs about right and wrong, and thus are attitudes held with moral conviction. Unlike some of the other dominant ways of conceptualizing morality in moral psychology, research on moral conviction takes a bottom-up approach. Instead of assuming certain issues are moral, individuals are asked to evaluate different attitude objects and issues based on their beliefs about right and wrong with questions like, “To what extent is your position on X connected to your beliefs about fundamental right and wrong?” Attitudes held with strong moral conviction, also called “moral mandates,” have a number of important characteristics and consequences that set them apart from other strong, but nonmoral, attitudes. When an attitude is based on one’s sense of right and wrong, it is perceived to be more of an objective fact (e.g., it is the correct and factual position to have) that should be universally held. Morally convicted attitudes have a stronger emotional intensity than equally strong but nonmoral attitudes. These attitudes are more likely to have a motivational component to them, so people act in favor of their moral attitudes because they provide justification for the action and are seen as obligations. Moral convictions can also provide an internal guide for behavior, independent of authority or group influence (i.e., authority independence). Moral mandates have a variety of consequences, which can be seen in either a normatively positive or negative light. Moral conviction is, for example, associated with increased political engagement and volunteerism (generally seen as normative goods), but also predicts increased intolerance and unwillingness to compromise with those who do not share one’s moral point of view (generally seen as normative bads).