CONTEMPORARY MORAL PSYCHOLOGY: EXPLORING INTRAPERSONAL AND INTERPERSONAL FACTORS LINKED TO MORAL DECISIONS.

Jordan, Kayla ; Sutton, Geoffrey W.

Mikulincer, M., and Shaver, P. R. (Eds.). (2012).

The social psychology of morality: Exploring the causes of good and evil. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Hardcover. xv 440 pp. $79.95. ISBN. 978-1-4338-1011-4.

Mario Mikulincer, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology and Dean of the New School qfPsychology at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel. His publications include over 280 scholarly articles, book chapters, and books. Phillip R. Shaver, Ph.D., is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Davis. He has published over 200 scholarly articles, books, and book chapters.

"Morality, like art., means drawing a line someplace'

Oscar Wilde

Although philosophers and theologians endlessly debate what it means to be moral, psychologists have began to explore the psychological bases for moral behavior underlying these debates. Instead of asking: What is morally correct, and how are morals justified? Psychologists ask how people determine what is moral, and how cognitions and emotions influence moral beliefs? Edited by Mario Mikulincer and Phillip R. Shaver, The Social Psychology of Morality provides a grand overview of current research in the field of moral psychology. This book, which is the culmination of an interdisciplinary conference on Personality and Social Psychology, includes the work of 40 authors, mostly psychologists. The book addresses four main areas in moral psychology: basic issues and controversies; motivational and cognitive processes; developmental, personality, and clinical aspects; and conflict and violence. The volume concludes with a synthesis. The authors critique the classical cognitive-rationalistic approach to moral psychology and explore contemporary research in the field by adopting a broader, more holistic approach to moral psychology.

The first section, basic issues in moral psychology, includes six chapters. Jesse Graham and Jonathan Haidt address the concept of sacredness from a moral foundations perspective in chapter one. The theory of moral foundations is foundational to the contemporary approach to moral psychology. In his book, The Righteous Mind, Haidt (2012) discusses the moral foundations of care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and sanctity/degradation. It is this widening of the moral domain which revolutionizes the research in this field. In chapter two, Fiery Cushman and Joshua Greene present a model that explains the possible origins of moral principles. Peter Ditto and Brittany Liu (chapter three) theorize that moral beliefs are primarily the result of affective reactions supported by post hoc justifications. In the fourth chapter, Paul Bloom explores the possibility of an innate, universal morality. David Pizarro and David Tannenbaum examine the effects of character evaluations on moral judgments in chapter five. In the final chapter of this section, Kurt Gray and Daniel Wegner advance the idea of dyadic morality, which states that for an act to have moral value, it must involve two moral beings: an agent and a patient (receiver).

The second section of the book focuses on cognitive and motivational issues in moral psychology. In the seventh chapter, Ronnie Janoff-Bulman explores a dual typology of morality represented by a proscriptive vs. a prescriptive moral system. Janoff-Bulman argues that this dual typology could explain the moral emotions of shame and guilt as well as conservative and liberal political orientations. Shahar Ayal and Francesca Gino explore justifications for honest behaviors in the eighth chapter. In the ninth chapter Benoit Monin and Anna Merritt explain moral hypocrisy. In the tenth chapter, Tal Eyal and Nira Liberman discuss psychological distance and morality from the perspective of construal level theory. Haslam, Bastian, Laham, and Loughnan explore the role of humanization in moral judgments and the moral assessment of others in chapter eleven. In the twelfth chapter, Sverdlik, Roccas, and Sagiv advance a theory of cross-cultural morality from a values perspective.

The third section of the book explores moral psychology from developmental, personality, and clinical perspectives. In chapter thirteen, Avi Assor expounds on the concept of moral motivation drawing on self-determination theory. The editors Phillip Shaver and Mario Mikulincer discuss moral and prosocial motives and behaviors from the perspective of attachment theory in chapter fourteen. In the fifteenth chapter, Walker, Frimer, and Dunlop examine the conflict between the situationalist and dispositional approaches to moral behavior. The authors conclude that an interaction between the two approaches is the best approach for explaining moral behavior. Doron, Sar-El, Mikulincer, and Kyrios explore how moral concerns relate to obsessive compulsive disorder in chapter sixteen. The final chapter of this section, written by Laurie Anne Pearlman, brings attention to the importance of moral concerns in trauma therapies.

The final section of the book examines Good and Evil with a focus on the interrelationships among morality, conflict, and violence. Hirschberger and Pyszczynski explore how individuals morally justify killing in chapter 18. The authors frame their discussion in light of terror management theory and explore the concepts of moral amplification, moral disengagement, moral identity, and self-deception. In chapter nineteen, Linda Skitka examines moral courage and convictions and argues that individual's moral convictions can be more important than group conformity and that the perception of a courageous moral action is the determinant of its goodness or evilness. Roy Baumeister, (chapter twenty) examines the construct of evil and its causes. In the last chapter of this section, Ervin Staub explores acts of genocide and intense violence along with their moral justifications. He discusses these acts in light of basic needs theory, personal goal theory, and just world thinking. He also considers the role of morality in the passivity of bystanders.

Part five consists of one summary chapter by Roy Baumeister and Jesse Graham, which addresses the present state of moral psychology as well as future directions. Current research focuses on the following categories: perceiving versus doing evil, intrapsychic factors, dyadic processes, intragroup processes, intergroup processes, and the blending of cognitive and emotive factors in moral judgments. Several missing topics offer opportunities for future research: sexual morality, the role of religion, and the concept of free will.

JPT readers will find this book worth reading for several reasons. Researchers will find one or more chapters a helpful guide in identifying key constructs within moral psychology as well as opportunities to integrate morality and religion. The future topics are clearly noteworthy given the limited empirical study of variables related to both religion and morality. Clinicians will find value in the chapters that explore explanations for moral behavior, especially the growing awareness of the importance of emotional factors in moral judgments. Given the variety of topics, the entire subject of moral psychology could be a special focus for a conference theme.

Reference

Haidt, J. (2012). The righteous mind: lithy good people arc divided by politics and religion. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.

Reviewed by: Kayla Jordan and Geoffrey W. Sutton, Ph.D.

Reviewers for This Issue

KAYLA JORDAN is completing hcr B.S. degree in psychology at Evangel University in Springfield, Missouri. She was awarded a national Psi Chi research award and plans to begin graduate work in the field of social psychology.

GEOFFREY W. SUTTON. Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology at Evangel University. Hc has published more than 70 scholarly articles, books, and book chapters. His research has focused on the psychology of religion and spirituality.