Morality and Norm Violation
Niklas Fransson and Anders Biel
Department of Psychology
Göteborg University
Fransson, N., & Biel, A. Morality and norm violation. Göteborg
Psychological Reports, 1997, 27, No. 3 Undergraduate students were
asked to judge each of 24 real-life events associated with eight different
moral values. In a proposed model moral values were seen as mentally
represented by schemas and a norm. The main purpose was to test the
hypothesis that events that have been categorised as activating the
same moral value violate the same norms. The results supported the
hypothesis and it was concluded that the results are compatible with a
view of norms as part of the mental structure representing moral values.
Key words: Norms, mental representation, moral.
Most psychological research on moral has viewed values as an important factor
guiding judgment and/or action (Feather, 1994; Haan, 1982; Haan, Aerts, & Cooper,
1985; Kohlberg, 1971; 1986). This is in line with two of the most widely recognised
frameworks for studying values (Rokeach, 1973; Schwartz, 1992; Schwartz & Bilsky,
1987; 1990). Both conceive of values as enduring beliefs concerning modes of conduct
and end states that are socially and personally desirable. Values are also viewed as a
criterion that individuals use to evaluate people and events and to justify and select
actions rather than as qualities inherent in objects. The frameworks by Rokeach and
Schwartz have offered clarity and gone a long way toward identifying general
values, and a psychological structure of human values (in particular Schwartz &
Bilsky). Nevertheless, since their aim was to derive values that transcend specific
objects or situations, the conceptual content proposed for these general values are
not action specific (Schwartz & Bilsky, 1987).
Our aim is to provide a more detailed account of the conceptual content of
potential moral values. In doing so we follow the approach put forth by Medin
(Medin, 1989; Murphy & Medin, 1985). Medin proposed a theory-based approach to
concepts in contrast to similarity-based approaches. Briefly, this approach holds that
people’s theories about the world connect features of a concept, that is, make the
features understandable and coherent. Medin also proposed that a concept is an idea
(i.e., a mental structure), including all that is typically associated with it, and that a
category is a grouping to which some assertion or set of assertions might apply.
______________________________________
The authors wish to thank Ulf Dahlstrand and Tommy Gärling for valuable comments.
No. 3:27, 2
In relation to these theoretical proposals a model was suggested (Biel, Fransson,
& Dahlstrand, in press) where moral values are seen as concepts and information
about these concepts is structured in schemas and norms. In line with Medin, it is
assumed that a schema contains features of a concept. We also posit that such
features are represented at more than one level of abstraction. Assume that all
features were represented at a very concrete level. If this was the case, the number of
schemas would be extremely large and the effectiveness of a schematic
representation lost. On the other hand, if all features were represented at a very
abstract level, schemas would be nondiscriminating between different moral values.
We propose that schemas consist of features at two levels of abstraction in which
information at a higher level is called elements and at a lower, more specific level
attributes. Most schemas are assumed to differ between values with respect to which
combination of elements they contain and each particular combination of attributes
in a schema is assumed to be a unique representation. Elements are assumed to
correspond to components of events that are important for activating a particular
moral value. Expressed differently, it is a particular combination of elements that is
important in order to activate a specific moral value.
This hypothesis was tested in a previous study (Biel et al., in press) where real-life
events were sampled. In that study, the subjects’ task was to recall events or
situations they had interpreted as unrighteous. In a second phase, 125 such events
were used. The events were divided into nine sets, each containing 13-14 unique
events and two in common. Respondents were asked to describe what they thought
the original story teller had reacted to with one or few words related to moral. Each
event was described by approximately 60 respondents. A factor analysis was
performed on the product-moment correlations between events across words. An
eight factor solution accounted for 82% of the variance. In this way the
categorisation of events was based on frequency profiles of different value-laden
words used by respondents to describe the content of each event. As an example the
most frequent words for one group of events were injustice, unfair, lack of
understanding, and exploitation. For another group lack of respect, humiliating,
distrust, and offensive were the most frequently applied words to describe the
content of the events. The most frequently used words for each group are
represented in Table 1 below. It was assumed that events in the same category had
activated the same moral value.
In a second experiment, events from different categories were shown to differ with
regard to which components of the events that were important for an activation of
the moral value. For events from one category components of the events
corresponding to the elements ”act”, ”agent” and ”the wronged individual” were
important for activating that moral value. Such an event could be that parents have
beaten their own child. For events activating another moral value, information about
the elements ”act” and the ”agent’s intention” were the most important. As an
example, people in the Baltic States have been reported to sell false visa in order to
gain money.
The elements are rather abstract. It is thus rather unlikely that an event is
evaluated directly against a particular combination of elements in a schema. If a
particular combination of elements was all that was mentally represented, say
”agent” together with ”act” and ”the wronged individual”, this representation would
No. 3:27, 3
not enable a discrimination between various events since almost all events, moral as
well as immoral, include information about these elements. This calls for an
additional and more specific mental representation, that is, attributes. As an
example, the element ”agent” may be linked to the attribute ”someone close to
oneself” or to the attribute ”somebody with power”. Since the element ”agent” is
likely to be part of the representation of several moral values, attributes will provide
information that is more distinct with regard to a particular value. At the same time,
there may be several schemas representing one moral value. They will all have the
same combination of elements but differ with regard to attributes. Thus one schema
will contain the attribute ”someone close to oneself” while another may include the
attribute ”colleagues”.
The purpose of the present study was to test that not only combinations of
elements but also norms is a distinct part of moral values. A norm combines and
connects features in the schema into a prescriptive statement of conduct. For
example, if a schema contains the following elements and connected attributes;
”agent” - friend, ”agent’s intention” - to gain something, and ”act” - telling a lie, the
associated norm could prescribe that one should be true and sincere with persons
close to oneself. In relation to Murphy’s and Medin’s (1985) account, a norm functions
as a theory or an underlying principle.
The norm concept has been used in various ways in psychology such as personal,
moral, and social. Regardless of connotation, norms are usually understood as
implicit or explicit rules that, if in effect, regulate thought and behaviour. The
different connotations narrow down the meaning of the concept, although they are
not mutually exclusive. These somewhat blurred distinctions are probably part of the
answer to the controversy among social psychologists over the concept’s usability. In
a quest to clarify the role of social norms, Cialdini, Reno, and Kallgren (1990; Reno,
Cialdini, & Kallgren, 1993) distinguished between two types: descriptive norms that
specify common behaviour in a situation, and injunctive norms that specify what
behaviour is approved and disapproved within the culture. They further argued that
any or both types can be salient or focused simultaneously and hence activated. Once
activated, a norm is assumed to direct behaviour. The injunctive norm is similar to
what Fiske (1992) termed a moral standard, defined as a norm that individuals
insist that they and others must follow. Our view of moral norms coincides with the
definition of moral standard proposed by Fiske.
In accordance with the distinction between personal and social norm proposed by
Kerr (1995) and Schwartz (1977), we view moral norms as personal norms. Schwartz
and Kerr proposed that a norm is a social norm when reactions to consequences of
norm adherence/violation are administered by those other than the actor, and a
personal norm when adherence or violation results in a positive or negative selfevaluation by the acting individual. A personal norm guiding behavior in a situation
can have two different origins apart from being constructed in the situation by
reference to previously internalised values according to Schwartz (1977); a social
norm that has been internalised, or a prexisting stable general norm related to
internalised values. Our view of moral norms coincides with the latter two types.
Feather’s (1994) conception of values as relatively stable across an individual’s life
span, and that they function as a prescriptive standard of conduct support our view
of moral norms as stable cognitive structures representing moral values held by the
individual.
No. 3:27, 4
A norm is assumed to be quite abstract and general in order to encompass the
information contained in various schemas representing a single moral value. The
assumption that norms are abstract and general is also made by Sabini and Silver
(1992). It is suggested that when there is a match between components and specific
attributes of an event and attributes in a schema, this match signals that the
associated norm has been violated. Following the previous example such a schema
would match the perception of an event where three friends lie to a fourth goodlooking friend about to where to go and meet potential girlfriends on a friday
evening. This match signals that the norm one should be true and sincere with
persons close to oneself has been violated and leds to an activation of the moral value.
Thus, we assume that events activating a specific moral value violate a particular
norm.
In order to test this assumption, three events from each of the eight categories
(Biel et al., in press), that is, 24 in total, were selected as stimuli. Two of these three
had unambiguously been categorised to one moral value, that is, loaded significantly
(>. 65) only on one factor while the third event was also categorised to another value,
that is, loaded significantly, but slightly lower than the unambigously categorised to
one moral value, on two factors. The eight norms that subjects had to judge by its
applicability to each event were formulated by the authors (see Table 1). The content
of each norm statement was based on common characteristics of all events
categorised to each moral value in the study by Biel et al. (in press). In this way, the
norms used were expressed in an abstract and general form as proposed by previous
research (Sabini & Silver, 1992).
The hypothesis that different norms had been violated by events from different
groups was tested in three ways. In all three, data were analysed by means of
multiple t-tests for the eight à priori planned contrasts. For the first test, that events
were expected to violate a particular norm, the mean score of norm violation for each
pair of events on their expected norm was contrasted with the mean score of norm
violation for the same pair across the other seven norms. In the second test, that
each norm was violated by the expected events rather than by the other events, the
mean score of norm violation for each pair of events on the expected norm was
contrasted with the mean across the other seven pairs of events on that same norm.
Finally, in order to test if events that had high factor loadings on two factors also
were judged to violate the two norms representing these moral values rather than
the other six norms, the mean judged norm violation for the two expected norms was
contrasted with the mean across the other six norms.
No. 3:27, 5
Table 1
The Eight Norms Followed by Two of the Most Frequently Used Words to Describe
each Category of Events in the Former Study
Norm
Frequent words
1. Resources and burden should be fairly distributed.
Injustice, Unfair
2. One should take responsibility for one’s duties.
Irresponsible, Reckless
3. One should be true and sincere with persons close
to oneself.
Deceitful, Dishonest
4. The value of (human) life should be sacred.
Inhuman, Cruelty
5. People in exposed positions should be met with
understanding
Lack of sympathy, Lack
of empathy.
6. People should be treated with respect and trust.
Lack of respect,
Humiliating
7. One should not abuse power.
Abuse of power,
Ruthless
8. One should not betray one’s values or principles
out of sheer greed.
Exploitation, Dishonest
Method
Subjects
Respondents were 70 university students, 40 women and 30 men, attending
summer courses. Their mean age was 27.5 years, varying between 18 and 57 years of
age. Participation was voluntary and the answers anonymous. Subjects were paid 50
SEK (appr. $7) for their participation.
Procedure
Subjects received a questionnaire containing descriptions of all 24 different
events. To control for order effects, events were presented in randomised orders in
the questionnaire. The eight norms were listed below each event. After reading
through an event description, subjects were asked to judge to what extent it violated
each norm on an eight-point scale. The scale ranged from ”not at all” to ”to a very
No. 3:27, 6
high degree”. Thus, subjects made eight judgements for each event adding up to 192
ratings per subject.
Results
To test if the unambiguously categorised events had the expected relation to the
norms, mean scores for each pair of events across subjects were calculated for each
norm (see Table 2). Higher values indicate a clearer example of norm violation.
Table 2
Mean Ratings of Norms for Pair of Events Associated with each Moral Value
Events from
category
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Norm
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
3.39
1.35
1.01
2.34
1.21
1.15
3.01
1.49
1.31
5.19
3.57
4.73
2.24
1.47
2.61
1.86
.86
1.59
6.17
2.02
1.45
.97
1.04
1.88
.71
1.78
.72
6.03
1.44
1.59
3.34
1.01
1.87
1.79
1.88
4.89
4.79
4.61
3.14
3.44
2.13
4.17
5.49
5.91
3.81
6.19
4.39
3.71
2.06
3.04
1.91
5.14
1.39
3.21
5.56
3.80
1.14
3.61
3.82
2.42
1.21
1.66
3.60
3.46
The first hypothesis to be tested was that the two events associated with each
moral value were judged to violate the expected norm to a higher degree than the
other seven norms. A t-test was performed for each pair of events to test the planned
contrasts. The results are depicted in Table 3.
All eight contrasts proved highly significant in the hypothesised direction (p <
.001) . But as can be seen, the magnitude of the differences between the rating of the
hypothesised norm and the other norms vary over pairs of events. The highest
contrast was for events from category 6 and the lowest for category 8. The
assumption about homogeneity of variance associated with the statistics were not
fulfilled for all eight contrasts, but since the sample sizes were equal and the
magnitude of t values were high we judged the risk of making type I error to be
small (Kirk, 1995).
The second hypothesis to be tested was that respondents perceived each norm to
be more clearly violated by the predicted pair of events than by the other pairs of
events. That is, the contrasts included the columns of Table 2. The same statistics as
above were used. As in the previous tests all eight contrasts proved highly significant
No. 3:27, 7
in
the
hypothesized
direction
(see
Table
4).
Taken
together
with
the
Table 3
Resulting Contrasts for each Pair of Events over Norms
Events from
category
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
***p < .001
Expected norm
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Contrast
1.82
2.53
3.31
1.97
2.73
3.83
2.38
.94
SE
t
.23
.19
.18
.20
.17
.19
.23
.25
7.85***
13.05***
18.35***
9.88***
16.20***
20.41***
10.49***
3.80***
former analysis, the results support the hypothesis that events categorised as
activating the same moral value violate the same norm. Again, the results pointed
toward the connection between pair of events from category 8 and norm 8 being the
weakest.
Table 4
Resulting Contrasts for each Norm over Pairs of Events
Norm
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
***p < .001
Expected pair of events
from category
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Contrast
SE
1.58
2.47
4.46
4.22
1.59
1.84
2.46
.91
.23
.20
.24
.19
.19
.19
.19
.26
t
6.80***
12.36***
18.56***
22.16***
8.56***
9.76***
12.67***
3.52***
The third event from each category that was used in the questionnaire had also
been associated with a second moral value. That is, these events loaded significantly
on two factors in the former study (Biel et al., in press) and hence were related to two
categories. We hypothesised that these events to a higher degree would be judged to
No. 3:27, 8
violate the two norms related to both their moral values than the other six norms.
The same statistics as before were used but contrasts were calculated between
ratings of these two norms and the other six. Again all contrasts were significant in
the hypothesised direction (see Table 5) lending support to the assumption that
events categorised to two different moral values involve violation of two different
norms.
Table 5
Resulting Contrast for Events Associated with Two Moral Values
Event connected
t
to category
1, 8
2, 5
3, 8
4, 2
5, 7
6, 5
7, 2
8, 3
***p < .001
Expected norms
1, 8
2, 5
3, 8
4, 2
5, 7
6, 5
7, 2
8, 3
Contrast
1.15
.90
2.59
1.95
1.80
3.21
1.29
2.21
.18
.14
.20
.15
.14
.18
.17
.19
SE
6.38***
6.47***
13.09***
12.92***
12.96***
17.88***
7.53***
11.53***
Discussion
According to the proposed model, a norm and schemas represent the conceptual
content of moral values. The content of each moral value is represented by one
general norm and one or more schemas containing information on two levels of
abstraction; elements and attributes. Each norm is assumed to capture the essence
of associated schemas and relate that information into a statement that prescribes
approved conduct. The present study examined if events categorised as activating
the same moral value violated the same norm. The results suggested that this was
the case.
Although each planned contrast regarding pairs of events that had been
unambiguously connected to one category was statistically significant, an
examination of mean ratings over norms (see Table 1) can be informative. Across
rows, events from categories 1 to 7 were judged to violate the predicted norm to a
higher degree than any of the other seven norms. This was not the case for events
from group 8 where norms 6 and 7 were rated marginally higher than norm 8.
Examination of columns reveal two departures from the expected pattern. Firstly,
norm 5 was rated somewhat higher in connection with events from category 4 than
with events from category 5. Secondly, norm 8 was rated higher in connection with
events from categories 2, 3, and 7 than with events from category 8. One plausible
explanation to these departures is that the formulations of norm 5, and especially of
No. 3:27, 9
norm 8, do not capture the essential content of the moral value that it is supposed to
represent.
Another possible explanation can be attributed to our assumption about the high
level of abstraction and generality of norms. Take for instance norm 8 that reads,
”One should not betray one’s values or principles out of sheer greed”, or norm 2 ”One
should take responsibility for one’s duties” and norm 7 ”One should not abuse
power”. It is assumed that moral norms are general so that they can be applied to a
wide variety of situations or events. If so, it would imply that some immoral events
may be perceived as violating more than one norm and thus activate more than one
moral value. The results of the previous study (Biel at al., in press) where some
events were categorized to two groups indicated that some events activated two
moral values. If nuanced immoral events are compared with generally formulated
norms they will probably be interpreted as violating more than one norm to some
extent.
As indicated by the results, there was a considerable agreement in judgements
about norm applicability to different unrighteous events. We take this result as a
support for the usability of the norm concept in a moral context. However, in this
study both social and personal norms may have been used by respondents to
accomplish the task facing them. That is, in order to judge norm applicability to reallife unrighteous events, the norm does not have to be internalised. Therefore, the
obtained results could not with certainty confirm the assumption in our model that
norms and schemas mentally represent moral values. Since the model proposes that
affective reactions in the moral sphere signify that a person subscribes to a moral
value, a possible avenue to study personal norms is to focus on affective reactions to
unrighteous events. If negatively valenced emotions are elicited by a norm violation,
this indicates that the norm is personal.
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