The Impact of Moralised Discussion on Group Polarisation

The Wednesday at IAMCR 2024 starts with a paper by Yiming Liu, whose interest is in the interplay between moralised discussion and group polarisation. She begins by noting that deliberation within a structured moral framework can effectively reduce polarisation; morality can therefore be part of the solution to group polarisation.

The mechanism here is that a position that an individual would not normally support is framed in a way that is consistent with their moral values, and thereby fosters consensus. But a moral appeal is not always productive: it can also introduce a binary distinction between good and bad, right and wrong, that promotes conflict rather than consensus. This might involve moral relativism, moral disengagement, moral kidnapping, or moral hypocrisy.

Moral foundation theory can help here: this introduces six basic universal moral foundations – care, fairness, liberty, in-group, etc. – which different groups and cultures value differently strongly. Similarly, moral contagion theory suggests that moral content generates high-arousal emotions and can lead to an overperception of moral outrage, and social media pile-ons.

The project explored this in the context of Weibo, examining several foreign events (a sandstorm in Mongolia, a South Korean traffic accident involving Chinese citizens, and North Korea severing diplomatic relations with Malaysia). Discussions of cheating aroused the greatest moral intensity, yet the moralised emotions that were aroused were different in each case. Where such emotions were aroused, they led to the greater dissemination of such content.

Such higher moral intensity also produced an increased level of affective polarisation, but again focussing on different moral dimensions. Morality can thus amplify polarisation rather than fostering consensus. Moral deliberation must therefore be reconsidered, especially in a cross-cultural context.