Short Abstract
Tribalism exists as part of human behavior and can be seen throughout history. Tribalism
and tribal biases impact beliefs and behavior, when political groups are so divided it can
strengthen that division. Politics and morality tie together, and with tribalism impacting the
divide between political groups, it can also impact the morality of these groups. This study aims
to look at tribalism and how it impacts loyalty to one’s groups and morality. Researchers aim to
look at the impact tribalism has on how strongly political opinions impact morality, and if
tribalism makes individuals react strongly to opposing views. The two main hypotheses are that
being primed politically would cause statistically significantly higher ratings of strength on the
political questions and politically priming would cause statistically significantly higher mean
moral strengths. While the main analysis does not support the hypothesis, the absence of the
theme found in previous research is equally as interesting. Researched did secondary analyses to
look into other hypotheses and further examine the research. Even though the main results do not
support the main hypothesis, it is still important to study how tribal biases exist and cultivating
an understanding of their impact on human behavior.
Long Abstract
Tribalism exists as part of human behavior and can be seen throughout history. Tribalism and
tribal biases impact beliefs and behavior, when political groups are so divided it can strengthen
that division. Politics and morality tie together, and with tribalism impacting the divide between
political groups, it can also impact the morality of these groups. Using past research on tribalism,
morality, and politics; the current research aims to focus on the effect tribalism and political
beliefs might have on how closely participants view issues as moral issues. Researchers aim to
look at the impact tribalism has on how strongly political opinions impact morality, and if
tribalism makes individuals react strongly to opposing views. For example, does an individual
who identifies as republican view their own beliefs as strongly relating to their moral values
because they feel a tribal loyalty or bias towards their own group. An analysis of tribalism and
political groups’ effect on morality will show that there are tribal biases in individuals that
change how strongly they believe a political issue is part of their moral values.
The two main hypotheses are that being primed politically would cause statistically
significantly higher ratings of strength on the political questions and politically priming would
cause statistically significantly higher mean moral strengths. While the main analysis does not
support the hypothesis, the absence of the theme found in previous research is equally as
interesting. Reasons such as politics being at the forefront of media attention which could have
primed the participants before they were primed by the questions in the survey, and others can
explain why the differences were not statistically significant. Regardless of the results, the
research can still be used as a stepping stone to continue learning about the interaction between
tribalism, morality, and politics. Researchers did secondary analyses to look into other
hypotheses and further examine the research. There were some significant results in the
secondary analyses of the data, which can also help to further the exploration into the way these
three topics interact. The first hypothesis that the secondary analysis looked at was that
republicans would vote strongly for their party beliefs and against others, however, there was no
statistically significant interaction with the priming condition. This secondary analysis also
looked into hypothesis such as participants who identified as republican would have statically
significantly higher ratings on the mean moral strength than democrat participants, participants
who viewed the priming first and identified as conservative would have a statically significantly
higher mean moral strength than those liberals and moderates, and others. The final secondary
analysis looked at the priming questions and age of participants, to see if age and priming
increased mean moral strength. Even though the main results did not support the main
hypothesis, it is still important to continue to study how tribal biases exist in politics and
morality, and cultivating an understanding of their impact on human behavior. Learning about
these interactions can help in understanding tribal biases in the United States, and help in
understanding the different groups and how the divide grows between them.