Deviant Behavior Beyond Harm and Fairness: a Study of Deviance and Morality

Deviant Behavior

Volume No. 37 | Issue No. 5

2016-03-08 Beyond Harm and Fairness: A Study of Deviance and Morality

Leslie Abell California State University Channel Islands

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Repository Citation Abell, L., Silver, E. (2016). Beyond harm and fairness: A study of deviance and morality. Deviant Behavior, 37(5), 496-508. https://doi.org/10.1080/01639625.2015.1060746 DEVIANT BEHAVIOR 2016, VOL. 37, NO. 5, 496-508 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01639625.2015.1060746

Beyond Harm and Fairness: A Study of Deviance and Morality Eric Silvera and Leslie Abellb aPenn State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA; bCalifornia State University-Channel Islands, Camarillo, California, USA

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY Using data from 1,429 students, we test whether a moral foundations Received 19 August 2014 approach focusing on both individual- and group-oriented measures of Accepted 10 February 2015 morality improves our ability to predict deviant behavior over and above the effects of individual-oriented measures alone. Results show that the emphasis individuals place on group-oriented moral concerns is inversely associated with a range of deviant behaviors. Moreover, these associations are stronger and more pervasive than the emphasis placed on individual level moral concerns. Additionally, we find that a recently developed “moral identity” measure does not add to the prediction of deviant behavior over and above group-oriented measures.

Prior studies of the relationship between morality and deviance have tended to measure morality in terms of justice and care (for a review, see Stets and Carter 2012). The underlying assumption of this approach is that deviant behavior is less likely among those whose morality emphasizes protecting the rights and safeguarding the welfare of other individuals. Less understood are the effects of group- oriented dimensions of morality, such as ingroup loyalty, respect for authority and tradition, and adherence to group norms regarding purity and sanctity in leading people to abstain from deviance. Are people whose morality centers on loyalty to others or respect for authority or tradition less likely to engage in deviant behavior? Prior research has found that when individuals are asked to define morality in their own words, they often mention duty, obedience, respect, preserving traditions, religious norms, God, decency, and the soul—in addition to notions of care and justice (Graham, Haidt, and Nosek 2009; Haidt and Hersh 2001). This raises the question of whether focusing exclusively on care and justice provides a sufficiently rich picture of the relationship between morality and deviant behavior. Drawing on moral foundations theory (Haidt and Joseph 2004; Haidt 2012), this study extends our understanding of the relationship between morality and deviance by comparing the effects of individual- and group-oriented dimensions of morality (e.g., care and justice versus loyalty, author ity, and purity) on a range of deviant behaviors. If group-oriented measures of loyalty, authority, and purity turn out to be as, or more, predictive than the more traditional individual-based measures of care and justice, then our entire understanding of the relationship between morality and deviance must be revised.

Prior research Morality has long been a concern of sociologically oriented thinkers. Foundational theorists such as Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Karl Marx made morality a key focal point of their works (Hitlin and Vaisey 2013). Yet, up until very recently, mainstream sociological interest in morality has been lacking (Hitlin and Vaisey 2010) while other fields such as law (e.g., Sunstein 2003), neuroscience

(e.g., Greene et al. 2004), philosophy (e.g., Knobe and Leiter 2007), and psychology (Hauser 2006; Haidt 2001) have increased their focus. One reason for sociology’s relatively weak engagement with morality is that “morality” is an all-encompassing term touching on both individual values and group oriented norms, and is notoriously difficult to measure (Maguire, Weatherby, and Sandage 2000; Ostini 2010). Thus, sociologists who study morality have tended to parse it out into more conceptually distinct and measureable constructs, such as altruism (Hoffman 1981), norms (Terry and Hogg 1996; Gorsuch and Ortberg 1983), cooperation (Stone et al. 2002), truthfulness (Matsueda 1989), and, more recently, moral identities (Stets and Carter 2012). A second reason for mainstream sociology’s weak engagement with morality can be attributed to the growth of criminology, a field based on the notion that laws reflect moral codes and that law violators (criminals) are also moral violators (Gallupe and Baron 2014). Although morality has been shown to play a role in predicting crime and deviance (Bachmann, Paternoster, and Ward 1992; Burkett and Ward 1993; Gallupe and Baron 2014; Grasmick and Bursik Jr. 1990; Grasmick and Green 1981; Hindelang 1974; Mears, Ploeger, and Warr 1998; Paternoster and Simpson 1996; Rogers, Smoak, and Liu 2006), the term “morality” is seldom used in the criminological literature (but, see Wikstrom and Treiber 2007). At the time of this writing, morality remains a vaguely conceptualized construct, and its role in predicting deviant behavior relative to other predictors remains unclear (Antonaccio and Tittle 2008).

Moral foundations theory The question of what should be included in the domain of morality has long been debated in the literature in moral psychology. For decades, cognitive psychologists have largely conceptualized morality as a universal construct rooted in principles of care and justice (Gilligan 1982; Kohlberg 1969, 1971); whereas cultural psychologists have argued that moral concerns vary across cultures and extend beyond care and justice (Haidt, Koller, and Dias 1993; Miller 1994). For instance, Shweder et al. (1997) found that moral judgments are often based on ethics of community (belonging to a group) and ethics of divinity (thinking of oneself as a spiritual entity striving for purity and sanctity). However, it is currently unclear whether these broader conceptions of morality have much to do with deviant behavior. To address this question we draw on moral foundations theory. Moral foundations theory describes the psychological mechanisms underlying human moral intuitions, which consist of the more or less instantaneous flashes of judgment that arise in human consciousness in response to morally charged stimuli. The theory was developed by Haidt and colleagues (Haidt and Joseph 2004; Haidt and Graham 2007; Graham et al. 2009, 2011) based on reviews of the literature in evolutionary psychology and anthropology in which common themes regarding moral regulation were sought across cultures. The reviews produced five top candidates for the psychological “foundations” on which morality is based: (1) Harm/Care, (2) Fairness/ Reciprocity, (3) Ingroup/Loyalty, (4) Authority/Respect, and (5) Purity/Sanctity. Harm/Care and Fairness/Reciprocity generally correspond to the ethics of care and justice in which protecting individuals from harm and unfair treatment is paramount. Ingroup/Loyalty and Authority/Respect generally correspond to the ethic of community in which the maintenance of group coherence and appropriate relations among group members is paramount. Purity/Sanctity generally corresponds to the ethic of divinity in which cultural practices pertaining to the body, the handling of food, and so on are paramount.1 Haidt and Graham (2007) initially applied moral foundations theory to understand the cultural divide between liberals and conservatives in the United States. Drawing on Shweder et al. (1997) and a long line of political theorists (Burke 1790/2003; Lakoff 2002; Mill 1859/2003; Muller 1997; Sowell

1These five moral foundations are consistent with, but expand on, several existing taxonomies of moral concern, including Fiske’s (1992) four models of social relationships; Shweder et al.’s (1997) three ethics of autonomy, community, and divinity; and Hogan, Johnson, and Emler’s (1978) theory of moral development. 498 E. SILVER AND L. ABELL

2002), liberalism was hypothesized to be the expression of a morality in which the individual is the primary locus of moral concern. From this perspective, moral regulation centers on protecting individuals from involuntary harm or unfair treatment by others, including social institutions such as the government. In contrast, conservatives were hypothesized to value more tightly ordered communities in which proper relationships between parents and children, men and women, and humans and God are the primary locus of moral regulation. From the conservative perspective, the individual is not the sole focus of moral concern; instead, emphasis on the individual is balanced against an emphasis on group-oriented virtues, such as loyalty, and on social institutions, such as family and church that bind people into roles, duties and mutual obligations (for a detailed discussion, see Graham et al. 2011). In empirical tests using a variety of methodological approaches, Graham et al. (2009) found that liberals endorsed and used the Harm/Care and Fairness/Reciprocity foundations to make decisions and judgments more frequently than they used the other three foundations, while conservatives endorsed and used all five foundations more or less equally. They also found that conservatives placed greater emphasis on Ingroup/Loyalty, Authority/Respect, and Purity/Sanctity than liberals.2 This approach demonstrated that, from an empirical standpoint, morality is more multifaceted than was previously understood, consisting of more than the prescriptive judgments of justice, rights, and welfare that are typically captured under the rubric of care and justice (Turiel 1983:3). Graham et al. (2011) found that concerns about harm and fairness were widespread, with cultures constructing different ideas of what counts as harm and what counts as fair. However, they also found that many people and cultures are concerned about proper relationships of individuals to groups, authorities, institutions, and roles, and many are concerned with how people treat their own bodies—whether they treat them as playgrounds for their own pleasure or as temples that house a Godly soul. These additional moral concerns have not yet been included in studies of the relation ship between morality and deviant behavior. Instead, morality, when it has been included at all, has typically been operationalized as the perceived “wrongness” of an act or as religiosity (Bachman et al. 1992; Grasmick and Green 1981; Mears et al. 1998; Paternoster and Simpson 1996; Wikstrom 2006), providing only blunt insight into the nature of the relationship between morality and deviance.

The current study By incorporating both the individual and the group as sources of moral concern, moral foundations theory provides the most comprehensive conceptual framework for measuring morality currently available. Thus, moral foundations theory has broad and untapped implications for understanding and predicting rule-violating behaviors across a wide range of domains. Our specific interest lies in examining deviant behaviors as a function of the range of moral concerns specified by moral foundations theory. We expect that the expanded conceptualization of morality provided by moral foundations theory will yield a more nuanced portrait of the association between morality and deviance than currently exists. We test this approach on a sample of more than 1,400 young adults at a large northeastern university. Because lifestyles vary between students, non-students, and older adults, we focus here on deviant behaviors that are relevant in the lives of students. Specifically, we asked students to report whether or not they engaged in the following behaviors during the past month, past year, and ever: a physical fight in which someone was hurt, viewing pornography, stealing or shoplifting, cheating on college work (including exams, quizzes, papers, etc.), drinking alcohol to the point of being extremely drunk, using marijuana or other recreational drugs, and being arrested. Our goal is to

2This difference was observed in abstract assessments of the moral relevance of foundation-related concerns such as violence and loyalty, moral judgments of statements and scenarios, reactions to trade-offs involving violations of sacredness, and the use of foundation-related terms in the moral texts of religious sermons (Graham et al. 2009). DEVIANT BEHAVIOR 499 determine which moral foundations are most associated with involvement (or non-involvement) in each of these behaviors. In addition to answering this question, we also wish to compare the measures of morality drawn from moral foundations theory with Stets and Carter’s (2012) measure of morality, drawn from identity theory. The main difference between the two measures is that in identity theory the primary concern is with how people view themselves along the justice and care dimensions (e.g., some people view themselves as more caring or just than others; Stets and Carter 2012:128), whereas in moral foundations theory the primary concern lies in measuring both the individual- and group-based moral concerns that come into play as individuals react to morally charged stimuli and situations. Moreover, since the moral identity measure used by Stets and Carter is most typical of what is found in the sociological literature, this comparison will enable us to determine whether the moral foundations approach improves our understanding of the relationship between morality and deviant behavior.

Methods Data The data for this study were collected during the fall of 2012 at the Pennsylvania State University. Students were recruited from large general education sociology and criminology courses. The investigators used Qualtrics (http://www.qualtrics.com), an on-line survey administration plat form, to send recruitment e-mails to students explaining the purpose of the study as well as individualized links that connected to the survey instrument. Students received one percentage point of extra credit added to their final course grade for their participation. To ensure individual responses remained anonymous, course instructors were not given access to the data. The investigators were solely responsible for data management and analysis and, as per an Institutional Review Board (IRB) agreement, removed all personally identifying information from the data prior to analysis. Of the 1,854 students recruited, 1,429 completed the survey, yielding a 77% response rate.

Measures Deviant behaviors We examined participation in rule breaking behaviors that are relevant in the lives of college students. As Stets and Carter (2012) point out, past research on morality has tended to rely on a class of hypothetical moral dilemmas known as the trolley car problem to assess moral decision making (Greene et al. 2001; Hauser 2006). However, some scholars have argued that we need more research on real-life dilemmas (Walker and Pitts 1998; Walker et al. 1995), which, following Stets and Carter (2012), is what we examine here. We do not claim that the scenarios we examine represent the full range of morally charged situations, only that they are situations students are likely to identify as morally charged in their daily lives. For each of the following behaviors, students were asked: (1) Have you ever done any of the following? (2) Have you done any of the following in the past year? and (3) Have you done any of the following in the past month? The behaviors were: watched pornography, been in a physical fight where someone was hurt, shoplifted or stolen an item from a person or store, drank alcohol to the point of being extremely drunk, smoked marijuana, used other recreational drugs (excluding marijuana), and cheated on college work (exams, quizzes, papers, etc.). Because we did not gather our independent measures with the past month, past year, and ever time frames in mind, and because similar patterns of results were observed across the three time frames, for ease of presentation, we show only the results for the middle time period, which focuses on past year deviance. Departures from the main pattern of results are noted where relevant. 500 E. SILVER AND L. ABELL

Morality We use two approaches to measure morality. The first approach derives from moral foundations theory, where morality is conceptualized as a set of five moral foundations that come into play in varying degrees in the course of moral decision making. As discussed above, the five moral foundations are: (1) Harm/Care, (2) Fairness/Reciprocity, (3) Ingroup/Loyalty, (4) Authority/ Respect, and (5) Purity/Sanctity. To measure these moral foundations, we employed the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ) developed and validated by Graham and colleagues (2011). The questionnaire asks respondents to indicate the importance given to each moral foundation in their own moral decision making using a Likert scale. The MFQ has been shown to exhibit excellent internal and external reliability (Graham et al. 2011). The MFQ items are provided in Appendix A, along with an indication of which items correspond to which moral foundation subscales. In preliminary analyses, and consistent with results reported by Haidt (2012), we observed significant bivariate correlations between the Harm/Care and Fairness/Reciprocity foundations (r = .53), and also among the Ingroup/Loyalty, Authority/Respect, and Purity/Sanctity foundations (r ranged from .42 to .54). Moreover, both principle components (PC) factor analysis and principle axis factoring (PAF) provided two-factor solutions. The PAF model with both orthogonal (varimax) and oblique (oblimin) rotation yielded two factor solutions with the Harm/Care and Fairness/Reciprocity measures grouping together and the Ingroup/Loyalty, Authority/Respect, and Purity/Sanctity group ing together.3 In addition, a PC factor analysis yielded a similar two-factor solution that explained 71% of the variation in the measures. Therefore, we reduced the data by combining the Harm/Care and Fairness/Reciprocity subscales into a single scale called Harm-Fairness (HF Scale), and we combined the Ingroup/Loyalty, Authority/Respect, and Purity/Sanctity subscales into a single scale called Loyalty-Authority-Purity (LAP Scale). The combined scales are used in the multivariate analyses reported below. The second approach we use to measure morality derives from recent work by Stets and Carter (2012). Grounded in identity theory, this approach measures “moral identity” by asking respondents to rate themselves using a series of 12 semantic differential items. Used in prior studies (Aquino and Reed II 2002; Stets and Carter 2006; Walker and Hennig 2004), the moral identity approach has been shown to exhibit excellent item reliability, and to be predictive of rule-breaking behavior among college students (Stets and Carter 2012). Bipolar items include: honest/dishonest, caring/uncaring, unkind/kind, unfair/fair, helpful/not helpful, stingy/generous, compassionate/hardhearted, untruth- ful/truthful, not hardworking/hardworking, friendly/unfriendly, selfish/selfless, and principled/ unprincipled. For each pair of characteristics, respondents were told to think about what kind of person they thought they were and to place themselves along the continuum between the two contradictory characteristics. The 12 items were factor analyzed into two dimensions: Care (selfless, generous, compassionate, caring, kind, helpful, friendly) and Justice (fair, truthful, honest, hard working, principled). Due to the high correlation between the care and justice dimensions (r = .60 in both Stets and Carter’s study and in our own data), we follow Stets and Carter (2012) by combining all 12 items into a single indicator of moral identity.4

Control variables To reduce spuriousness in our models, we include the following control variables. Gender was measured as a dichotomous variable coded 0 for females and 1 for males. Race/ethnicity was measured as three dummy variables—black, Hispanic, and Asian—with non-Hispanic white as the

3This solution accounted for 53% of cumulative variance (with factor 1 accounting for 37% and factor 2 accounting for 16%). The rotated (varimax) solution indicated that the Ingroup/Loyalty, Authority/Respect, and Purity/Sanctity measures loaded on factor 1 (with coefficients of .626, .854, .613, respectively) and that the Harm/Care and Fairness/Reciprocity measures loaded on factor 2 (with coefficients of .815 and .618, respectively). 4Not only are the care and justice identity dimensions highly correlated, according to Stets and Carter (2012:129), “[f]rom an identity perspective, a care identity and a justice identity are very close in semantic space, such that measuring one identity would capture important meanings in the other.” DEVIANT BEHAVIOR 501

reference category. Political orientation was measured using the following categories: 1 = Very conservative, 2 = Moderately conservative, 3 = Slightly conservative, 4 = Moderate (middle of the road), 5 = Slightly liberal, 6 = Moderately liberal, 7 = Very liberal. Religiosity was measured with the question, “How important is religion in your daily life?” Responses ranged from 1 = Extremely important to 4 = Not at all important. Both political orientation and religiosity have previously been used as proxies for morality due to their inherent value-laden nature; they are included as controls in order to test whether the moral foundation measures add to our understanding of morality above and beyond what political orientation and religiosity can tell us. By including political orientation and religiosity as controls we provide a more conservative (so to speak) test of our hypotheses than would otherwise be the case. Finally, we used the 24-item scale developed by Grasmick et al. (1993) to measure self-control (alpha = .80). Items were coded from 1 = strongly agree to 4 = strongly disagree, so that higher scores on the self-control scale indicate higher amounts of self-control. Low self-control is one of the most consistent predictors of criminal and deviant behavior (Pratt and Cullen 2000) and has long been considered an important correlate of moral behavior (Baumeister and Tierney 2011; Wilson 1993; Elias 2000).

Analysis We present our analysis in four steps. First, we present descriptive statistics for the sample, including demographic and control variables, morality scores, and deviant behaviors. Then we present multi variate results for the control variables predicting the various deviant behaviors. Then we show multivariate results for the moral foundations measures predicting the deviant behaviors net of controls. Finally, we present results for Stets and Carter’s (2012) moral identity measure predicting the deviant behaviors net of controls. This sequence of analyses enables us (1) to ascertain which moral foundation measures are associated with which deviant behaviors and (2) to compare the predictive power the moral foundations approach to the moral identity approach. Since our deviant behavior measures are all coded dichotomously, we use binary logistic regression for all multivariate analyses. For those interested in the bivariate associations among the morality and deviance measures, a correlation matrix is provided in Appendix B.

Results Table 1 reports descriptive statistics for the sample. As shown, the sample was 41% male and 76% non-Hispanic white. The comparable figures for the university at the time of the survey were 54% and 70%, respectively. On average, respondents scored above the scale midpoint on liberality of political views and self-control, and they scored close to the midpoint on the importance of religion in their lives. Descriptive statistics for the moral foundations measures show that respondents scored above the scale midpoint in the extent to which harm, fairness, loyalty, and authority are taken into account in moral decision making, and they scored at the scale midpoint in the extent to which purity is taken into account. Table 1 also shows that the least common deviant behaviors engaged in by respondents during the past year were stealing from a store or person (9%), being in a physical fight in which someone was hurt (12%), using recreational drugs other than pot (14%), and cheating on college work (23%). The most common deviant behaviors were smoking pot (45%), viewing pornography (59%), and drinking alcohol to the point of getting drunk (79%). Table 2 presents the multivariate results for the control variables predicting each deviant behavior. To facilitate interpretation, results are presented as odds ratios rather than log odds. In each of the models, except for the one predicting pornography viewing, self-control has a significant negative relationship with deviant behavior, such that as self-control increases, the odds of engaging in the deviant behavior decreases. This finding is consistent with much prior literature. Men are significantly more likely to engage in almost all of the deviant behaviors, except for stealing and smoking pot, and are significantly less likely to have gotten extremely drunk. The largest behavioral 502 E. SILVER AND L. ABELL

Table 1. Descriptive statistics (N = 1463). Mean (SD) Range Demographic and control variables Male 41% 0-1 Female 59% 0-1 Non-Hispanic white 76% 0-1 Black 10% 0-1 Asian 7% 0-1 Hispanic 7% 0-1 Liberality of political views 4.2 1.7 1-7 Self-Control 2.7 .36 1-4 Importance of religion 2.0 .93 1-4 Moral foundations Harm 3.63 .765 .25-5.00 Fairness 3.73 .674 .00-5.00 Loyalty 2.95 .750 .00-5.00 Authority 3.08 .712 .33-5.00 Purity 2.54 .874 .00-5.00 Deviant behaviors (past year) Stole from store or person 9% 0-1 Physical fight, someone was hurt 12% 0-1 Used recreational drugs (not pot) 14% 0-1 Cheated on college work 23% 0-1 Smoked pot 45% 0-1 Viewed porn 59% 0-1 Drank to the point of drunkenness 79% 0-1

differences between men and women are for fighting—men are 5.25 times more likely to fight and injure someone—and viewing pornography—men are 18.33 times more likely to view pornography. Some race differences exist with blacks being significantly less likely to become extremely drunk or use recreational drugs, but more likely to view pornography, compared to whites. Asians are also significantly less likely to become extremely drunk or smoke pot compared to whites. More liberal political views are associated with a greater likelihood of stealing, cheating, smoking pot, using recreational drugs, and viewing pornography. The odds of becoming extremely drunk, smoking pot, and viewing pornography decrease as religion becomes more important in a person’s life. Overall, these results are consistent with prior research, though we believe the finding that pornography viewing is not associated with self-control is new (we return to this in the discussion section). Table 3 presents the multivariate results including the moral foundations measures. When the moral foundations measures are included, we see that the effect sizes of the control variables remain more or less the same as in Table 2. However, we do see some change in

Table 2. Odds ratios from logistic regressions predicting past year deviant behaviors. Fought, Became Stole from someone Cheated on extremely Smoked Recreational Viewed person or store injured college work drunk pot drugs pornography Male 1.18 5.25 ** 1.44 0.61 ** 0.86 1.65 * 18.33 ** Black1 0.57 1.73 0.70 0.32 ** 1.05 0.21 ** 2.44 ** Asian1 1.09 0.73 0.92 0.23 ** 0.59 0.61 1.31 Hispanic1 1.05 0.42 0.86 0.65 0.91 0.71 0.88 Liberality of 1.25 ** 0.99 1.14 * 1.00 1.16 ** 1.29 ** 1.18 ** political views Importance of 0.97 0.85 1.13 0.77 ** 0.75 ** 0.83 0.79 * religion Self-Control 0.20 ** 0.28 ** 0.36 ** 0.53 * 0.38 ** 0.23 ** 0.73 n 1,215 1,197 1,219 1,202 1,224 1,233 1,200 Nagelkerke R2 0.09 0.18 0.06 0.10 0.08 0.12 0.40 *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001 1Compared to non-Hispanic whites (reference category) DEVIANT BEHAVIOR 503

Table 3. Odds ratios from logistic regression predicting past year deviant behaviors with moral foundations. Fought, Became Stole from someone Cheated on extremely Smoked Recreational Viewed person or store injured college work drunk pot drugs pornography Male 1.22 4.63 *** 1.42 * 0.63 ** 0.95 1.81 ** 19.43 *** Black1 0.58 1.79 0.69 0.32 *** 1.04 0.22 ** 2.52 *** Asian1 1.17 0.75 0.90 0.24 *** 0.61 0.67 1.42 Hispanic1 1.04 0.42 0.86 0.64 0.90 0.70 0.89 Liberality of 1.20 ** 1.04 1.16 ** 0.98 1.09 * 1.19 ** 1.14 ** political views Importance of 1.06 0.87 1.10 0.79 ** 0.79 *** 0.92 0.85 religion Self-Control 0.19 *** 0.31 *** 0.37 *** 0.51 ** 0.34 *** 0.21 *** 0.71 HF scale2 1.11 0.63 * 0.97 1.15 1.40 ** 1.29 1.00 LAP scale3 0.66 * 1.05 1.14 0.85 0.66 *** 0.57 *** 0.65 ** n 1,215 1,197 1,219 1,202 1,224 1,233 1,200 Nagelkerke R2 0.10 0.19 0.06 0.10 0.09 0.14 0.41 *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001 1Compared to non-Hispanic whites (reference category) 2Harm and Fairness subscales combined 3Loyalty, Authority, and Purity subscales combined significance levels, with effects becoming slightly less significant for liberal political views in the stealing, smoking pot, recreational drug use, and viewing pornography models. The effect of religious importance also becomes less significant for becoming extremely drunk and becomes nonsignificant for viewing pornography when the moral foundations measures are included. Furthermore, there is no longer a significant difference between Asians and whites regarding smoking pot, and the black-white difference in recreational drug use becomes slightly less significant. These findings suggest that morality (as measured by the moral foundations) may play a role in the relationship between personal characteristics—such as political orientation, religiosity, and ethnicity—and deviant behavior. However, since we are using cross-sectional data, causal inferences must remain speculative. The key finding from Table 3, however, is that including the moral foundation measures significantly improves our ability to predict deviant behavior, above and beyond traditional proxies for morality, such as political views, religiosity, or self-control. For instance, although liberal political views and self-control remain significant in predicting stealing, the Loyalty Authority-Purity scale is also significant and is associated with a 52% decrease in the odds of stealing for every unit increase in the Loyalty-Authority-Purity scale [(1/.66-1)*100). The Loyalty Authority-Purity scale also brings about a 52% decrease in the odds of using recreational drugs and a 54% decrease in the odds of viewing pornography. Generally, the Harm-Fairness scale has fewer effects, but does significantly contribute to the fighting model, resulting in a 59% decrease in the odds of fighting and seriously injuring someone for every unit increase in the Harm-Fairness scale. The model predicting smoking pot is the only model in which both of these moral foundation scales are significant. In the smoking pot model, the Loyalty-Authority-Purity scale is associated with a 52% decrease in the odds of smoking pot, whereas the Harm-Fairness scale is associated with a 40% increase.5

5Parallel analyses were conducted for ever engaging in each of the deviant acts and for engaging in these acts during the past month. The effects for the moral foundation measures were strikingly consistent with those reported above (for the past year) in terms of the size, direction, and significance of the coefficients. With respect to the control variables, only Black showed a change in the direction of its coefficient, and only in the model for ever having stolen from a person or store: while the coefficient was negative and non-significant in the past year model (shown above) it was positive and significant (odds ratio = 1.56, p < .05) in the ever model. All other control variable coefficients in both the past month and ever models were in the same direction as those reported above for the past year, although the p-values varied somewhat across models. Results for the past month and ever models are available from the authors on request. 504 E. SILVER AND L. ABELL

These models were also tested with the moral identity measure developed by Stets and Carter (2012); however, the moral identity measure did not significantly predict any of the deviant behaviors either as a stand-alone predictor or when the moral foundations measures were included. These results are available on request.

Discussion This study is based on the idea that deviant behavior and morality are linked and that in order to understand people’s rule violating behavior we must better understand their moral values. Moral foundations theory provides a framework for measuring morality that extends beyond the typical focus on harm and fairness that has characterized most prior studies of morality (Haidt 2012), and our findings indicate that the moral foundations approach has value for the study of deviant behavior. Specifically, we found that the emphasis individuals place on loyalty, authority, and purity when making moral decisions is significantly associated with abstinence from deviant behavior, and that these associations are generally stronger and more pervasive than the emphasis individuals place on harm and fairness. This is an important finding since most prior studies of morality and deviance either do not measure specific dimensions of morality (Bachman et al. 1992; Grasmick and Green 1981; Mears et al. 1998; Paternoster and Simpson 1996; Wikstrom 2006) or, when they do, tend to focus exclusively on harm and fairness (Stets and Carter 2012). Expanding our conception of morality beyond harm and fairness is important in light of recent research findings suggesting that morality encompasses a wide range of value systems, only some of which place individual-level concerns with harm and fairness above those of the group (Haidt 2012). In particular, value systems associated with conservatism tend to promote group-level obligations aimed at constraining individual behaviors, including some that are perfectly legal for adults, such as viewing pornography, when such behavior is seen as undermining a group’s social organization, authority structure, or purity norms. In contrast, value systems associated with liberalism tend to emphasize the rights of individuals to engage in a wide range of behaviors, including some that are illegal, such as pot smoking or viewing pornography, as long as those behaviors do not result in direct harm or appear as unfair toward other individuals. Given the prevalence of liberal thinking in today’s Western, industrialized societies, it is not surprising that most prior studies of morality have focused largely on individual-level concerns with harm and fairness (Haidt 2012). But, as this study suggests, there is more to morality than harm and fairness, particularly when it comes to predicting deviant behavior. Indeed, our results suggest that expanding the conceptualization of morality to include group-level concerns with loyalty, authority, and purity significantly increases our ability to predict deviant behavior, over and above concerns with harm and fairness, and over and above the effects of known correlates of morality, including the individual’s level of self-control, political orientation, and religiosity. This is not to say that harm and fairness are not important. Indeed, our results indicate that individuals who are highly concerned with avoiding harm to others are significantly less likely to get into fights in which another person is injured. On the other hand, we find that these same individuals are significantly more likely to smoke marijuana, suggesting that their above-average concern with harm and fairness does not prevent them from engaging in deviant behaviors that result in no direct harm to or unfair treatment of others, even when those behaviors are illegal. For all of the other deviant behaviors examined, we found no effect of harm and fairness. Thus, while concerns with harm and fairness are certainly relevant to behavior, they tend to coincide with an individualistic ethic whereby deviant behavior that produces little or no perceived harm to others (such as cheating, drinking and drug use, and pornography viewing) may be interpreted as having minimal moral relevance. Future studies of the relationship between morality and deviance should, therefore, continue to examine the expanded range of moral concerns suggested by moral founda tions theory. DEVIANT BEHAVIOR 505

Finally, we found that the moral identity measure used by Stets and Carter (2012), which asks individuals to rate themselves on items that coalesce around the individual-oriented concerns of justice and care, did not add any predictive power to our models. This, however, does not imply that the moral identity approach is without merit. Rather, it suggests that for the moral identity approach to reach its full potential researchers in this tradition should seek to expand their substantive focus beyond justice and care. Stets and Carter (2012:124) make a similar point when they write: “In studying justice and care, we do not claim that they characterize all meanings of morality, only that they represent important meanings.” Clearly, the generalizability of our study is limited by the sample we used, which consists of over 1,400 college students selected on the basis of convenience from large-enrollment classes at a single university. This limitation is offset, however, by the fact that we examined deviant choices that college-aged students are likely to face, and that we introduce and test a theoretical framework— moral foundations theory—that has not yet been used in the study of deviant behavior. Thus, what we lack in external validity we have attempted to make up for in internal validity and theoretical contribution, and our results suggest that the approach is worthy of continued study. Therefore, we encourage future researchers to continue to explore moral foundations theory as it promises to add new and useful insights to our understanding of the relationship between morality and deviant behavior. Particularly, extending the approach to a more diverse sample in terms of age and to more serious offenders would be beneficial next steps in this line of inquiry.

Notes on contributors

ERIC SILVER is Professor of Sociology and Criminology and Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies in the College of the Liberal Arts at Penn State University. Dr. Silver’s research focuses on deviance and social control. His publications appear in Criminology, Social Problems, American Journal of Public Health, Social Science and Medicine, and Deviant Behavior, among other outlets.

LESLIE ABELL is a Lecturer in the Sociology Program at California State University, Channel Islands. Her research focuses on deviance, gender, and desistance.

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Appendix A: Moral foundations questionnaire item key

—Below are the items that compose the M FQ. —Besides the 30 test items there are 2 “catch” items, MATH and GOOD —For more information about the theory, or to print out a version of this scale formatted for participants, or to learn about scoring this scale, please see: www.moralfoundations.org ——————————————————————————————————————————————————— PART 1 ITEMS (responded to using the following response options: not at all relevant, not very relevant, slightly relevant, somewhat relevant, very relevant, extremely relevant) MATH—Whether or not someone was good at math [This item is not scored; it is included both to force people to use the bottom end of the scale, and to catch and cut participants who respond with last 3 response options] Harm: EMOTIONALLY—Whether or not someone suffered emotionally WEAK—Whether or not someone cared for someone weak or vulnerable CRUEL—Whether or not someone was cruel Fairness: TREATED—Whether or not some people were treated differently than others UNFAIRLY—Whether or not someone acted unfairly RIGHTS—Whether or not someone was denied his or her rights Ingroup: LOVECOUNTRY—Whether or not someone’s action showed love for his or her country BETRAY—Whether or not someone did something to betray his or her group LOYALTY—Whether or not someone showed a lack of loyalty Authority: RESPECT—Whether or not someone showed a lack of respect for authority TRADITIONS—Whether or not someone conformed to the traditions of society CHAOS—Whether or not an action caused chaos or disorder Purity: DECENCY—Whether or not someone violated standards of purity and decency DISGUSTING—Whether or not someone did something disgusting GOD—Whether or not someone acted in a way that God would approve of 508 E. SILVER AND L. ABELL

PART 2 ITEMS (responded to using the following response options: strongly disagree, moderately disagree, slightly disagree, slightly agree, moderately agree, strongly agree) GOOD—It is better to do good than to do bad. [Not scored, included to force use of top of the scale, and to catch and cut people who respond with first 3 response options] Harm: COMPASSION—Compassion for those who are suffering is the most crucial virtue. ANIMAL—One of the worst things a person could do is hurt a defenseless animal. KILL—It can never be right to kill a human being. Fairness: FAIRLY—When the government makes laws, the number one principle should be ensuring that everyone is treated fairly. JUSTICE—Justice is the most important requirement for a society. RICH—I think it’s morally wrong that rich children inherit a lot of money while poor children inherit nothing. Ingroup: HISTORY—I am proud of my country’s history. FAMILY—People should be loyal to their family members, even when they have done something wrong. TEAM—It is more important to be a team player than to express oneself. Authority: KIDRESPECT—Respect for authority is something all children need to learn. SEXROLES—Men and women each have different roles to play in society. SOLDIER—If I were a soldier and disagreed with my commanding officer’s orders, I would obey anyway because that is my duty. Purity: HARMLESSDG—People should not do things that are disgusting, even if no one is harmed. UNNATURAL—I would call some acts wrong on the grounds that they are unnatural. CHASTITY—Chastity is an important and valuable virtue.

Appendix B: Bivariate correlations among morality and past year deviance measures. Stole from Fought, Cheated, Became Used Moral foundation person or someone college extremely Smoked recreational Watched measures store injured work drunk pot drugs pornography Harm -.02 -.15*** -.01 .01 .03 -.01 -.09** Fairness -.07* -.11*** -.01 -.03 .03 -.04 -.06* Harm+Fairness -.04 -.18*** -.02 -.01 .04 -.04 -.15*** (combined scale) Loyalty -.08** .05 .01 .01 -.08** -.05 .01 Authority -.13*** -.01 .02 -.05 -.09** -.11*** -.02 Purity -.08** -.06* .02 -.12*** -.15*** -.18*** -.15*** Loyalty+Authority -.12*** -.01 .02 -.07* -.13*** -.14*** -.07** +Purity (combined scale) Stets/Carter Care scale -.10*** -.13*** -.07** .02 -.03 -.09** -.15*** Stets/Carter Justice -.11*** -.07** -.10*** -.03 -.10*** -.12*** -.11*** scale Stets/Carter Care -.12*** -.12*** -.10** -.01 -.07* -.11*** -.15*** +Justice (combined scale) *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.