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Showing posts with label Virtue Signaling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Virtue Signaling. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 17, 2021

Signaling Virtuous Victimhood as Indicators of Dark Triad Personalities

Ok, E., Qian, Y., Strejcek, B., & Aquino, K. 
(2020). Journal of Personality 
and Social Psychology. 

Abstract

We investigate the consequences and predictors of emitting signals of victimhood and virtue. In our first three studies, we show that the virtuous victim signal can facilitate nonreciprocal resource transfer from others to the signaler. Next, we develop and validate a victim signaling scale that we combine with an established measure of virtue signaling to operationalize the virtuous victim construct. We show that individuals with Dark Triad traits—Machiavellianism, Narcissism, Psychopathy—more frequently signal virtuous victimhood, controlling for demographic and socioeconomic variables that are commonly associated with victimization in Western societies. In Study 5, we show that a specific dimension of Machiavellianism—amoral manipulation—and a form of narcissism that reflects a person’s belief in their superior prosociality predict more frequent virtuous victim signaling. Studies 3, 4, and 6 test our hypothesis that the frequency of emitting virtuous victim signal predicts a person’s willingness to engage in and endorse ethically questionable behaviors, such as lying to earn a bonus, intention to purchase counterfeit products and moral judgments of counterfeiters, and making exaggerated claims about being harmed in an organizational context.

General Discussion

Fortune and human imperfection assure that at some point in life everyone will experience suffering, disadvantage, or mistreatment.  When this happens, there will be some who face their burdens in silence, treating it as a private matter they must work out for themselves, and there will others who make a public spectacle of their sufferings, label themselves as victims, and demand compensation for their pain. This latter response is what interests us in this series of studies. Much research documents the intrapsychic and
social costs of being a victim (Bar-Tal, Chernyak-Hai, Schori, & Gundar, 2009; Taylor, Wood, & Lichtman, 1983; Zur, 2013), yet the increasing presence of individuals and groups publicly claiming victim status has led many observers to conclude that Western societies have developed a culture of victimization that makes victim-claiming advantageous (Campbell & Manning, 2018).

As explained earlier, victim signaling can yield many positive personal and social outcomes, such as helping people heal and raising awareness about the conditions that lead to victimization.  Our article focuses on a different set of questions associated with victim signaling, including an examination of its functionality as a social influence tactic, how its effectiveness can be maximized by combining it with a virtue signal, who is likely to emit this dual signal, and whether the frequency of signaling virtuous victimhood can predict certain behaviors and judgments. 

Sunday, July 19, 2020

Virtue signalling is virtuous

Neil Levy
Synthese (2020).
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02653-9

Abstract

The accusation of virtue signalling is typically understood as a serious charge. Those accused usually respond (if not by an admission of fault) by attempting to show that they are doing no such thing. In this paper, I argue that we ought to embrace the charge, rather than angrily reject it. I argue that this response can draw support from cognitive science, on the one hand, and from social epistemology on the other. I claim that we may appropriately concede that what we are doing is (inter alia) virtue signalling, because virtue signalling is morally appropriate. It neither expresses vices, nor is hypocritical, nor does it degrade the quality of public moral discourse. Signalling our commitment to norms is a central and justifiable function of moral discourse, and the same signals provide (higher-order) evidence that is appropriately taken into account in forming moral beliefs.

From the Conclusion

The charge that someone is engaged in virtue signalling is widely felt to be a serious one. It is an accusation that stings. I hope we can now see that it should sting very much less. Virtue signalling is not an ir- or arational influence on belief formation. Rather, it provides (higher-order) evidence, which serves as an input into rational deliberation. Moreover, signalling is not a perversion of the central function of moral discourse. Independently of the role it plays in deliberation, signalling is a central function of public moral discourse, with an important role to play in enabling cooperation. Virtue signallers are not, in the main, hypocritical in their motivations and we have some grounds for thinking they are not dishonest in the signals they send.

Wednesday, June 17, 2020

Vice dressed as virtue

Paul Russell
aeon.com
Originally published 22 May 20

Here is an excerpt:

When I speak of moralism, in this context, what I am concerned with, in general terms, is the misuse of morality for ends and purposes that are themselves vicious or corrupt. Moralisers present the facade of genuine moral concern but their real motivations rest with interests and satisfactions of a very different character. When these motivations are unmasked, they are shown to be tainted and considerably less attractive than we suppose. Among these motivations are cruelty, malice and sadism. Not all forms of moralism, however, are motivated in this way. On the contrary, it could be argued that the most familiar and common form of moralism is rooted not in cruelty but in vanity.

The basic idea behind vain moralism is that the agents’ (moral) conduct and conversation is motivated with a view to inflating their social and moral standing in the eyes of others. This is achieved by way of flaunting their moral virtues for others to praise and admire. Any number of moralists through the ages – reaching back to the likes of François de La Rochefoucauld (1613-80) and Bernard Mandeville (1670-1733) – have attempted to show that it is vanity that lies behind most, if not all, of our moral conduct and activity. While theories of this kind no doubt exaggerate and distort the truth, they do make sense of much of what troubles us about moralism.

One feature of vain moralism that is especially troubling is that an excessive or misplaced concern with our moral reputation and standing suggests that moralisers of this kind lack any deep or sincere commitment to the values, principles and ideals that they want others to believe animates their conduct and character. Moralisers of this kind are essentially superficial and fraudulent. We have, of course, countless examples of this sort of moral personality, ranging from Evangelical preachers caught in airport motels taking drugs with male prostitutes, to any number of highly paid professors wining and dining on the lecture circuit while explaining the need for social justice and advocating extreme forms of egalitarianism. For the most part, these characters and their activities – whatever their doctrine – are a matter of ridicule rather than of grave moral concern. Over time, the motivations behind their ‘grandstanding’ and ‘virtue signalling’ will be exposed for what it is, and the moralisers’ shallow commitment to their professed ideals and values becomes apparent to all. While we shouldn’t dismiss the vain moraliser as simply innocuous, there is no essential connection between moralism of this kind and cruelty or sadism.

The info is here.

Monday, May 4, 2020

Differential virtue discounting: Public generosity is seen as more selfish than public impartiality

Kraft-Todd, G., Kleiman-Weiner, M., & Young, L.
(2020, March 25).
https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/zqpv7

Abstract

There is a paradox in our desire to be seen as virtuous. If we do not overtly display our virtues, others will not be able to see them; yet, if we do overtly display our virtues, others may think that we do so only for social credit. Here, we investigate how virtue signaling works across two distinct virtues—generosity and impartiality—in eleven online experiments (total N=4,586). We demonstrate the novel phenomenon of differential virtue discounting, revealing that participants perceive actors who demonstrate virtue in public to be less virtuous than actors who demonstrate virtue in private, and, critically, that this effect is greater for generosity than impartiality. Further, we provide evidence for the mechanism underlying these judgments, showing that they are mediated by perceived selfish motivations. We discuss how these findings and our novel terminology can shed light on open questions in the social perception of reputation and motivation.

From the Discussion

We all want to be seen as virtuous. The paradox of this desire is that the best way to be seen as virtuous is to be virtuous in public; yet, if we are virtuous in public—as we have shown here—observers may believe our behavior to be selfishly motivated. Or, as Oscar Wilde put it: “The nicest feeling in the world is to do a good deed anonymously—and have somebody find out.”

Saturday, April 25, 2020

Punitive but discriminating: Reputation fuels ambiguously-deserved punishment but also sensitivity to moral nuance

Jordan, J., & Kteily, N.
(2020, March 21).
https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/97nhj

Abstract

Reputation concerns can motivate moralistic punishment, but existing evidence comes exclusively from contexts in which punishment is unambiguously deserved. Recent debates surrounding “virtue signaling” and “outrage culture” raise the question of whether reputation may also fuel punishment in more ambiguous cases—and even encourage indiscriminate punishment that ignores moral nuance. But when the moral case for punishment is ambiguous, do people actually expect punishing to make them look good? And if so, are people willing to use ambiguously-deserved punishment to gain reputational benefits, or do personal reservations about whether punishment is merited restrain them from doing so? We address these questions across 11 experiments (n = 9448) employing both hypothetical vignette and costly behavioral paradigms. We find that reputation does fuel ambiguously-deserved punishment. Subjects expect even ambiguously-deserved punishment to look good, especially when the audience is highly ideological. Furthermore, despite personally harboring reservations about its morality, subjects readily use ambiguously-deserved punishment to gain reputational benefits. Yet we also find that reputation can do more to fuel unambiguously-deserved punishment. Subjects robustly expect unambiguously-deserved punishment to look better than ambiguously-deserved punishment, even when the audience is highly ideological. And we find evidence that as a result, introducing reputational incentives can preferentially increase unambiguously-deserved punishment—causing punishers to differentiate more between ambiguous and unambiguous cases and thereby heightening sensitivity to moral nuance. We thus conclude that the drive to signal virtue can make people more punitive but also more discriminating, painting a nuanced picture of the role that reputation plays in outrage culture.

From the Discussion:

Here, we have provided a novel framework for understanding the influence of reputational incentives on moralistic punishment in ambiguous and unambiguous cases.By looking beyond contexts in which punishment is unambiguously merited, and by considering the important role of audience ideology,our work fills critical theoretical gaps in our understanding of the human moral psychology surrounding punishment and reputation. Our findings also speak directly to concerns raised by critics of “outrage culture”, who have suggested that “virtue signaling” fuels ambiguously-deserved punishment and even encourages indiscriminate punishment that ignores moral nuance, thereby contributing to negative societal outcomes(e.g., by unfairly harming alleged perpetrators and chilling social discourse). More specifically, our results present a complex portrait of the role that reputation plays in outrage culture, lending credence to some concerns about virtue signaling but casting doubt on others.

Thursday, March 19, 2020

Does virtue lead to status? Testing the moral virtue theory of status attainment.

Bai, F., Ho, G. C. C., & Yan, J. (2020).
Journal of Personality and 
Social Psychology, 118(3), 501–531.

Abstract

The authors perform one of the first empirical tests of the moral virtue theory of status attainment (MVT), a conceptual framework for showing that morality leads to status. Studies 1a to 1d are devoted to developing and validating a 15-item status attainment scale (SAS) to measure how virtue leads to admiration (virtue–admiration), how dominance leads to fear (dominance–fear), and how competence leads to respect (competence–respect). Studies 2a and 2b are an exploration of the nomological network and discriminant validity to show that peer-reported virtue–admiration is positively related to moral character and perceptions such as perceived warmth and unrelated to amoral constructs such as neuroticism. In addition, virtue–admiration mediates the positive effect of several self-reported moral character traits, such as moral identity-internalization, on status conferral. Study 3 supports the external validity of the virtue route to status in a sample of full-time managers from China. In Study 4, a preregistered experiment, virtue evokes superior status while selfishness evokes inferior status. Perceivers who are high in moral character show stronger perceptions of superior status. Finally, Study 5, another preregistered experiment, shows that virtue leads to higher status through inducing virtue–admiration rather than competence–respect, even for incompetent actors. The findings provide initial support for MVT arguing that virtue is a distinct, third route to status.

The research is here.

Thursday, December 26, 2019

Is virtue signalling a perversion of morality?

<p><em>Photo courtesy Wikimedia</em></p>Neil Levy
aeon.co
Originally posted 29 Nov 19

Here is an excerpt:

If such virtue signalling is a central – and justifying – function of public moral discourse, then the claim that it perverts this discourse is false. What about the hypocrisy claim?

The accusation that virtue signalling is hypocritical might be cashed out in two different ways. We might mean that virtue signallers are really concerned with displaying themselves in the best light – and not with climate change, animal welfare or what have you. That is, we might question their motives. In their recent paper, the management scholars Jillian Jordan and David Rand asked if people would virtue signal when no one was watching. They found that their participants’ responses were sensitive to opportunities for signalling: after a moral violation was committed, the reported degree of moral outrage was reduced when the participants had better opportunities to signal virtue. But the entire experiment was anonymous, so no one could link moral outrage to specific individuals. This suggests that, while virtue signalling is part (but only part) of the explanation for why we feel certain emotions, we nevertheless genuinely feel them, and we don’t express them just because we’re virtue signalling.

The second way of cashing out the hypocrisy accusation is the thought that virtue signallers might actually lack the virtue that they try to display. Dishonest signalling is also widespread in evolution. For instance, some animals mimic the honest signal that others give of being poisonous or venomous – hoverflies that imitate wasps, for example. It’s likely that some human virtue signallers are engaged in dishonest mimicry too. But dishonest signalling is worth engaging in only when there are sufficiently many honest signallers for it make sense to take such signals into account.

The info is here.

Friday, August 23, 2019

Moral Grandstanding

Justin Tosi and Brandon Warmke
Philosophy & Public Affairs
First published: 27 December 2016
https://doi.org/10.1111/papa.12075

Here is an excerpt:

We suspect that most people would agree that grandstanding is annoying. We think that it is also morally problematic. In our view, the vast majority of moral grandstanding is bad, and, in general, one should not grandstand. We will adduce some reasons for this view shortly, but we should make a few preliminary points.

First, we will not argue that grandstanding should never be done. We are open to the possibility that there are circumstances in which either an instance of grandstanding possesses no bad‐making features or, even if an instance does have bad‐making features, the option of not grandstanding will be even worse.

Second, we will not claim that people who grandstand are bad people in virtue of engaging in grandstanding. We all have flaws that are on occasion revealed in the public square. Engaging in grandstanding is not obviously worse than many other flaws, and a propensity to grandstand is not indefeasible evidence that someone lacks good character.

Third, although we do believe that grandstanding is typically bad and should not be done, we are not prescribing any particular social enforcement mechanisms to deal with it. Presently, our concerns are the nature of grandstanding and its moral status. It does not follow, at least in any straightforward way, that people should intervene in public moral discourse to discourage others from grandstanding, or to blame them for grandstanding.

The info is here.

Saturday, December 23, 2017

What Makes Moral Disgust Special? An Integrative Functional Review

Giner-Sorolla, Roger and Kupfer, Tom R. and Sabo, John S. (2018)
Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 57

The role of disgust in moral psychology has been a matter of much controversy and experimentation over the past 20 or so years. We present here an integrative look at the literature, organized according to the four functions of emotion proposed by integrative functional theory: appraisal, associative, self-regulation, and communicative. Regarding appraisals, we review experimental, personality, and neuroscientific work that has shown differences between elicitors of disgust and anger in moral contexts, with disgust responding more to bodily moral violations such as incest, and anger responding more to sociomoral violations such as theft. We also present new evidence for interpreting the phenomenon of sociomoral disgust as an appraisal of bad character in a person. The associative nature of disgust is shown by evidence for “unreasoning disgust,” in which associations to bodily moral violations are not accompanied by elaborated reasons, and not modified by appraisals such as harm or intent. We also critically examine the literature about the ability of incidental disgust to intensify moral judgments associatively. For disgust's self-regulation function, we consider the possibility that disgust serves as an existential defense, regulating avoidance of thoughts that might threaten our basic self-image as living humans. Finally, we discuss new evidence from our lab that moral disgust serves a communicative function, implying that expressions of disgust serve to signal one's own moral intentions even when a different emotion is felt internally on the basis of appraisal. Within the scope of the literature, there is evidence that all four functions of Giner-Sorolla’s (2012) integrative functional theory of emotion may be operating, and that their variety can help explain some of the paradoxes of disgust.

The information is here.

Monday, October 23, 2017

Holding People Responsible for Ethical Violations: The Surprising Benefits of Accusing Others

Jessica A. Kennedy and Maurice E. Schweitzer
Wharton Behavioral Lab

Abstract

Individuals who accuse others of unethical behavior can derive significant benefits.  Compared to individuals who do not make accusations, accusers engender greater trust and are perceived to have higher ethical standards. In Study 1, accusations increased trust in the accuser and lowered trust in the target. In Study 2, we find that accusations elevate trust in the accuser by boosting perceptions of the accuser’s ethical standards. In Study 3, we find that accusations boosted both attitudinal and behavioral trust in the accuser, decreased trust in the target, and promoted relationship conflict within the group. In Study 4, we examine the moderating role of moral hypocrisy. Compared to individuals who did not make an accusation, individuals who made an accusation were trusted more if they had acted ethically but not if they had acted unethically. Taken together, we find that accusations have significant interpersonal consequences. In addition to harming accused targets, accusations can substantially benefit accusers.

Here is part of the Discussion:

It is possible, however, that even as accusations promote group conflict, accusations could benefit organizations by enforcing norms and promoting ethical behavior. To ensure ethical conduct, organizations must set an ethical tone (Mayer et al., 2013). To do so, organizations need to encourage detection and punishment of unethical behavior. Punishment of norm violators has been conceptualized as an altruistic behavior (Fehr & Gachter, 2000). Our findings challenge this conceptualization. Rather than reflecting altruism, accusers may derive substantial personal benefits from punishing norm violators. The trust benefits of making an accusation provide a reason for even the most self-interested actors to intervene when they perceive unethical activity. That is, even when self-interest is the norm (e.g., Pillutla & Chen, 1999), individuals have trust incentives to openly oppose unethical behavior.

The research is here.