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Subjective socioeconomic status and income inequality are associated with self-reported morality across 67 countries

Individuals can experience a lack of economic resources compared to others, which we refer to as subjective experiences of economic scarcity. While such experiences have been shown to shift cognitive focus, attention, and decision-making, their association with human morality remains debated. We con...

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Autores principales: Elbæk, Christian T., Mitkidis, Panagiotis, Aarøe, Lene, Otterbring, Tobias
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10482940/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37673884
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-41007-0
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author Elbæk, Christian T.
Mitkidis, Panagiotis
Aarøe, Lene
Otterbring, Tobias
author_facet Elbæk, Christian T.
Mitkidis, Panagiotis
Aarøe, Lene
Otterbring, Tobias
author_sort Elbæk, Christian T.
collection PubMed
description Individuals can experience a lack of economic resources compared to others, which we refer to as subjective experiences of economic scarcity. While such experiences have been shown to shift cognitive focus, attention, and decision-making, their association with human morality remains debated. We conduct a comprehensive investigation of the relationship between subjective experiences of economic scarcity, as indexed by low subjective socioeconomic status at the individual level, and income inequality at the national level, and various self-reported measures linked to morality. In a pre-registered study, we analyze data from a large, cross-national survey (N = 50,396 across 67 countries) allowing us to address limitations related to cross-cultural generalizability and measurement validity in prior research. Our findings demonstrate that low subjective socioeconomic status at the individual level, and income inequality at the national level, are associated with higher levels of moral identity, higher morality-as-cooperation, a larger moral circle, and increased prosocial intentions. These results appear robust to several advanced control analyses. Finally, exploratory analyses indicate that observed income inequality at the national level is not a statistically significant moderator of the associations between subjective socioeconomic status and the included measures of morality. These findings have theoretical and practical implications for understanding human morality under experiences of resource scarcity.
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spelling pubmed-104829402023-09-08 Subjective socioeconomic status and income inequality are associated with self-reported morality across 67 countries Elbæk, Christian T. Mitkidis, Panagiotis Aarøe, Lene Otterbring, Tobias Nat Commun Article Individuals can experience a lack of economic resources compared to others, which we refer to as subjective experiences of economic scarcity. While such experiences have been shown to shift cognitive focus, attention, and decision-making, their association with human morality remains debated. We conduct a comprehensive investigation of the relationship between subjective experiences of economic scarcity, as indexed by low subjective socioeconomic status at the individual level, and income inequality at the national level, and various self-reported measures linked to morality. In a pre-registered study, we analyze data from a large, cross-national survey (N = 50,396 across 67 countries) allowing us to address limitations related to cross-cultural generalizability and measurement validity in prior research. Our findings demonstrate that low subjective socioeconomic status at the individual level, and income inequality at the national level, are associated with higher levels of moral identity, higher morality-as-cooperation, a larger moral circle, and increased prosocial intentions. These results appear robust to several advanced control analyses. Finally, exploratory analyses indicate that observed income inequality at the national level is not a statistically significant moderator of the associations between subjective socioeconomic status and the included measures of morality. These findings have theoretical and practical implications for understanding human morality under experiences of resource scarcity. Nature Publishing Group UK 2023-09-06 /pmc/articles/PMC10482940/ /pubmed/37673884 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-41007-0 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Elbæk, Christian T.
Mitkidis, Panagiotis
Aarøe, Lene
Otterbring, Tobias
Subjective socioeconomic status and income inequality are associated with self-reported morality across 67 countries
title Subjective socioeconomic status and income inequality are associated with self-reported morality across 67 countries
title_full Subjective socioeconomic status and income inequality are associated with self-reported morality across 67 countries
title_fullStr Subjective socioeconomic status and income inequality are associated with self-reported morality across 67 countries
title_full_unstemmed Subjective socioeconomic status and income inequality are associated with self-reported morality across 67 countries
title_short Subjective socioeconomic status and income inequality are associated with self-reported morality across 67 countries
title_sort subjective socioeconomic status and income inequality are associated with self-reported morality across 67 countries
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10482940/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37673884
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-41007-0
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