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Moral Foundations in the 2015-16 U.S. Presidential Primary Debates: The Positive and Negative Moral Vocabulary of Partisan Elites

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  • Paul G. Lewis

    (School of Politics and Global Studies, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-3902, USA)

Abstract

Moral foundations theory (MFT) suggests that individuals on the political left draw upon moral intuitions relating primarily to care and fairness , whereas conservatives are more motivated than liberals by authority , ingroup , and purity concerns. The theory of conservatism as motivated social cognition (CMSC) suggests that conservatives are more attuned than liberals to threat and to negative stimuli. Because evidence for both accounts rests on studies of mass publics, however, it remains unclear whether political elites of the left and right exhibit these inclinations. Thus, this analysis uses the 2015-16 United States presidential primary season as an occasion to explore partisan differences in candidates’ moral rhetoric. The analysis focuses on verbal responses to questions posed during party primary debates, a setting that is largely unscripted and thus potentially subject to intuitive influences. The Moral Foundations Dictionary is employed to analyze how frequently candidates used words representing various moral foundations, distinguishing between positive and negative references to each. Consistent with CMSC, the Republican candidates were more likely to use negative-valence moral terminology, describing violations of moral foundations. The direction of some partisan differences contradicts the expectations of MFT. Donald Trump, a novice candidate, was an exception to the typical Republican pattern, making markedly lower overall use of moral-foundations vocabulary.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul G. Lewis, 2019. "Moral Foundations in the 2015-16 U.S. Presidential Primary Debates: The Positive and Negative Moral Vocabulary of Partisan Elites," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 8(8), pages 1-25, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:8:y:2019:i:8:p:233-:d:255226
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Gerber, Alan S. & Huber, Gregory A. & Doherty, David & Dowling, Conor M. & Ha, Shang E., 2010. "Personality and Political Attitudes: Relationships across Issue Domains and Political Contexts," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 104(1), pages 111-133, February.
    2. Luciana Carraro & Luigi Castelli & Claudia Macchiella, 2011. "The Automatic Conservative: Ideology-Based Attentional Asymmetries in the Processing of Valenced Information," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(11), pages 1-6, November.
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    Cited by:

    1. Mengyao Xu & Lingshu Hu & Glen T. Cameron, 2023. "Tracking moral divergence with DDR in presidential debates over 60 years," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 6(1), pages 339-357, April.
    2. Meng-Jie Wang & Kumar Yogeeswaran & Kyle Nash & Sivanand Sivaram, 2024. "Morality and partisan social media engagement: a natural language examination of moral political messaging and engagement during the 2018 US midterm elections," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 7(2), pages 1699-1726, October.

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