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Moral foundations theory, political identity, and the depiction of morality in children’s movies

Children’s movies often provide messages about morally appropriate and inappropriate conduct. In two studies, we draw on Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) to derive predictions about actual depictions of morality, and people’s preferences for different moral depictions, within children’s movies. Accord...

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Autores principales: Gehman, Rachel, Guglielmo, Steve, Schwebel, David C.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7996984/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33770129
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0248928
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author Gehman, Rachel
Guglielmo, Steve
Schwebel, David C.
author_facet Gehman, Rachel
Guglielmo, Steve
Schwebel, David C.
author_sort Gehman, Rachel
collection PubMed
description Children’s movies often provide messages about morally appropriate and inappropriate conduct. In two studies, we draw on Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) to derive predictions about actual depictions of morality, and people’s preferences for different moral depictions, within children’s movies. According to MFT, people’s moral concerns include individualizing foundations of care and fairness and binding foundations of loyalty, authority, and sanctity. Prior work reveals that although there are political differences in the endorsement of these two broad categories—whereby stronger political conservatism predicts stronger binding concerns and weaker individualizing concerns—there nonetheless is broad agreement across political identity in the importance of individualizing concerns. We therefore predicted that heroes would value individualizing foundations more than villains, and that despite political differences in preferences for moral messages, there would be more agreement in the importance of messages promoting individualizing concerns. In Study 1, we coded heroes and villains from popular children’s movies for their valuation of moral foundations. Heroes valued individualizing concerns more, and binding concerns less, than villains did. Participants in Study 2 considered moral dilemmas faced by children’s movie characters, and rated their preferences for resolutions that promoted either individualizing or binding foundations. Although liberals preferred individualizing-promoting resolutions and conservatives preferred binding-promoting resolutions, there was stronger agreement across political identity in the importance of individualizing concerns. Despite political differences in moral preferences, popular depictions of children’s movie characters and people’s self-reported moral endorsement suggest a shared belief in the importance of the individualizing moral virtues of care and fairness. Movies are often infused with moral messages. From their exploration of overarching themes, their ascription of particular traits to heroic and villainous characters, and their resolution of pivotal moral dilemmas, movies provide viewers with depictions of morally virtuous (and morally suspect) behavior. Moral messaging in children’s movies is of particular importance, since it is targeted at an audience for which morality is actively developing. What moral messages do filmmakers (and consumers, including parents) want children’s movies to depict? Are these preferences related to people’s political identity? And what are the actual moral depictions presented in movies? In the present two studies, we draw on an influential theory of moral judgment—Moral Foundations Theory—to develop and test predictions about the depiction of morality in children’s movies.
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spelling pubmed-79969842021-04-05 Moral foundations theory, political identity, and the depiction of morality in children’s movies Gehman, Rachel Guglielmo, Steve Schwebel, David C. PLoS One Research Article Children’s movies often provide messages about morally appropriate and inappropriate conduct. In two studies, we draw on Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) to derive predictions about actual depictions of morality, and people’s preferences for different moral depictions, within children’s movies. According to MFT, people’s moral concerns include individualizing foundations of care and fairness and binding foundations of loyalty, authority, and sanctity. Prior work reveals that although there are political differences in the endorsement of these two broad categories—whereby stronger political conservatism predicts stronger binding concerns and weaker individualizing concerns—there nonetheless is broad agreement across political identity in the importance of individualizing concerns. We therefore predicted that heroes would value individualizing foundations more than villains, and that despite political differences in preferences for moral messages, there would be more agreement in the importance of messages promoting individualizing concerns. In Study 1, we coded heroes and villains from popular children’s movies for their valuation of moral foundations. Heroes valued individualizing concerns more, and binding concerns less, than villains did. Participants in Study 2 considered moral dilemmas faced by children’s movie characters, and rated their preferences for resolutions that promoted either individualizing or binding foundations. Although liberals preferred individualizing-promoting resolutions and conservatives preferred binding-promoting resolutions, there was stronger agreement across political identity in the importance of individualizing concerns. Despite political differences in moral preferences, popular depictions of children’s movie characters and people’s self-reported moral endorsement suggest a shared belief in the importance of the individualizing moral virtues of care and fairness. Movies are often infused with moral messages. From their exploration of overarching themes, their ascription of particular traits to heroic and villainous characters, and their resolution of pivotal moral dilemmas, movies provide viewers with depictions of morally virtuous (and morally suspect) behavior. Moral messaging in children’s movies is of particular importance, since it is targeted at an audience for which morality is actively developing. What moral messages do filmmakers (and consumers, including parents) want children’s movies to depict? Are these preferences related to people’s political identity? And what are the actual moral depictions presented in movies? In the present two studies, we draw on an influential theory of moral judgment—Moral Foundations Theory—to develop and test predictions about the depiction of morality in children’s movies. Public Library of Science 2021-03-26 /pmc/articles/PMC7996984/ /pubmed/33770129 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0248928 Text en © 2021 Gehman et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Gehman, Rachel
Guglielmo, Steve
Schwebel, David C.
Moral foundations theory, political identity, and the depiction of morality in children’s movies
title Moral foundations theory, political identity, and the depiction of morality in children’s movies
title_full Moral foundations theory, political identity, and the depiction of morality in children’s movies
title_fullStr Moral foundations theory, political identity, and the depiction of morality in children’s movies
title_full_unstemmed Moral foundations theory, political identity, and the depiction of morality in children’s movies
title_short Moral foundations theory, political identity, and the depiction of morality in children’s movies
title_sort moral foundations theory, political identity, and the depiction of morality in children’s movies
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7996984/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33770129
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0248928
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