CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by SHAREOK repository UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA GRADUATE COLLEGE THE STORY OF MORAL CHARACTER: MORALITY, NARRATIVE, AND THE VALUE OF STRIVING A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY By JESSICA E. BLACK Norman, Oklahoma 2018 THE STORY OF MORAL CHARACTER: MORALITY, NARRATIVE, AND THE VALUE OF STRIVING A DISSERTATION APPROVED FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY BY ______________________________ Dr. Jennifer Barnes, Chair ______________________________ Dr. Robert Terry ______________________________ Dr. Ryan Brown ______________________________ Dr. Sherri Irvin ______________________________ Dr. David Liu © Copyright by JESSICA E. BLACK 2018 All Rights Reserved. For my parents, Marshall and Katie Black, who have waited a long time for me to finish my never-ending “education.” Acknowledgements This dissertation would not have been possible without the advice and support of numerous people to whom I will always be grateful. Without doubt the most important contributor to this project was my supervisor, Dr. Jennifer Barnes, who managed (mostly) to rein in my desire to study just about anything related to morality, imagination, and fiction. Dr. Robert Terry provided a further check on the complexity of my research designs by reminding me of many statistical perils in between frequent debates regarding teaching philosophy and (mutually reinforcing) political discussions. Over my five years at OU, many other professors have shared advice and knowledge that have become an integral part of how I think about research in psychology; to them, and to the staff that make it all possible, I will always be thankful. I would also like to acknowledge all the members of the Imagination and Development Lab. I’m particularly grateful Stephanie and Brian for making me no longer a club of one. I’d also like to thank all the many research assistants who helped in data collection, coding, and brainstorming; without you I would have far less data and hence far fewer papers needing to be written over the next few months or years. During this final year of my doctoral studies, I have been a dissertation fellow at the Institute for the Study of Human Flourishing, supported by a John Templeton grant. Not only did this allow me to focus on my research, it also provided a wonderful opportunity to interact with scholars from different disciplines. I am indebted to the other fellows at the Institute this year, Alex, Jing, Seth, and Jong, as well as others (especially Max and Kevin) who participated in our frequent discussions that covered not only topics vital to my own research, such as empathy and morality, but also iv tangentially related and equally fascinating subjects such as the nature of emotion, religiosity, and god. Finally, I would like to recognize the tolerance, responsibility, and independence of my two sons, Ian and Rodrigo. I have been a student for the past nine years (with one year off between Masters and doctoral programs), which amounts to half of Ian’s life and more than half of Rodrigo’s. They have tolerated moving house, a limited budget, and a mother who works at all hours and is frequently irritable. They’ve been, willingly or not, responsible and independent when it comes to money, homework, animal care, travelling alone, and occasionally living alone (academic conferences are blessings and annoyances for them). They are probably fully and forever inoculated against the desire to ever obtain a PhD (but they are undoubtedly also fully prepared to navigate any university campus, anywhere). v Table of Contents Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................... iv List of Tables ................................................................................................................. xiii List of Figures ................................................................................................................ xiv Abstract ........................................................................................................................... xv Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 1 Moral Character Judgment ......................................................................................... 3 Morality and Individual Differences .......................................................................... 6 Moral Character Judgment, Narrative, and Imagination .......................................... 11 Contribution to the literature .................................................................................... 13 Research Questions and Hypotheses ........................................................................ 14 Study 1 ................................................................................................................ 14 Study 2 ................................................................................................................ 15 Study 3 ................................................................................................................ 21 Pilot Studies .................................................................................................................... 23 Study 1 ............................................................................................................................ 25 Method ............................................................................................................................ 25 Participants ............................................................................................................... 25 Procedure .................................................................................................................. 27 Materials ................................................................................................................... 28 Demographics ..................................................................................................... 28 Vignettes ............................................................................................................. 28 Data Analyses ........................................................................................................... 29 vi Power analyses ................................................................................................... 29 Stopping rule ...................................................................................................... 29 Data exclusion .................................................................................................... 29 Analyses ............................................................................................................. 30 Results. ........................................................................................................................... 30 Preliminary Analyses ................................................................................................ 30 Gender………………………………………………………………………….31 Primary Analyses ...................................................................................................... 31 Good outcomes. .................................................................................................. 31 Bad outcomes ..................................................................................................... 35 Post Hoc Analyses .................................................................................................... 35 Discussion ....................................................................................................................... 37 Study 2 ............................................................................................................................ 44 Participants and Procedure ....................................................................................... 45 Instrumentation ......................................................................................................... 45 Moral Foundations Questionnaire ...................................................................... 45 Big Five Inventory .............................................................................................. 47 Moral Identity Questionnaire ............................................................................. 47 Moral Agency Scale ........................................................................................... 47 Machiavellianism ............................................................................................... 47 Need for Cognition ............................................................................................. 48 Multiple Stimulus Types Ambiguity Tolerance ................................................. 48 Imaginative resistance ........................................................................................ 49 vii Data Analyses ........................................................................................................... 49 Results… ........................................................................................................................ 50 Preliminary Analyses ................................................................................................ 50 Primary Analyses .....................................................................................................