Citation

van der Linden S, Panagopoulos C. Pers. Individ. Dif. 2019; 139: 198-201.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.paid.2018.11.022

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Liberals and conservatives are known to differ in the extent to which they prioritize moral concerns about harm, justice, and particularly, in-group loyalty. Accordingly, here we evaluate ideological differences in the context of an important societal issue: sexual harassment. In a national US sample (N = 1000) participants were asked how big of a problem sexual harassment is in the United States and, following random assignment to one of two conditions, whether they think a prominent liberal (Harvey Weinstein, n = 500) or conservative (Bill O'Reilly, n = 500) should go to jail following sexual harassment accusations. Main results reveal two clear findings; 1) conservatives are generally less concerned about sexual harassment in society and 2) while the probability of condemning Weinstein or O'Reilly was about equal among liberals, conservatives were significantly and substantially more likely to condemn the out-group (Weinstein) than they were to condemn their own in-group (O'Reilly). These findings uncover an important ideological asymmetry in judgments about sexual harassment.

Language: en

Keywords

In-group favoritism; Moral foundations; Political ideology; Sexual harassment