[RD] Jonathan Haidt's moral foundations test

[sophie]

Neither my girlfriend (an aspiring Psychology PhD), nor her mother (a Psychology academic) has heard of this theory, and both were very skeptical both of the theory as-described and how Piaget’s work is supposed to factor into it. I echo some of the already-expressed problems with the way the questions are phrased and what they seemingly appear to have been asked with specific reactions in mind, and it’s frustrating when I don’t feel myself eliciting anything along the binary of expected responses. A lot of my reactions were, “I don’t like it/I wouldn’t choose to do it personally, but it’s not my place to judge the decisions of consenting, conscious adults.” So a lot of middle button results.

I also don’t like the political divide as created. Left-Liberal encompasses a wide array of moral systems, many of them wholly mutually exclusive or irreconcilable (e.g. does this category also include Leftism? Because Leftism and Liberal are literally contradictory terms), it doesn’t seem at all well-defined what Libertarian represents here, and Conservative, again, can represent a very wide-array if moral systems that are just lumped together into one broad category.

It just comes across as a vague iteration of the MBTI test, which is itself mostly bullfeathers. For as many problems as I have with the political compass test, I feel it is much better at producing results that track with my core political beliefs, and which are conveyed in a much clearer, more immediately understandable manner.

 

[red_elk]

Broken promises of visiting grave. Is it because of life situations (too far away, job, family, etc.) or because they want to sit on the couch and watch TV?

One of a few questions which I answered "it's ok".
Dead people don't care about visitors and promises. Visiting graves is something which alive people need. Or don't.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Dead people don't care about visitors and promises.

My Tarot Cards say: "Speak for yourself!"

 

[Gori the Grey]

I've been away from this thread for a bit and had to do some catch-up reading, so I can't go back and cull out all the posts that this is a response to. But just a couple of observations that bear on our use of the results. These things have been said, but I think they bear reiterating.

The basis for the test is, as I understand it, a treatise on our moral instincts, i.e. the moral assessments we make pre-rationally, by our gut. So the fact that it calls for gut responses is bad to us rational thinkers but a deliberate part of the design of the test, I think.

Also, the test isn't primarily about political affiliations. It's fundamentally about a set of moral intuitions that explain why people on various sides of the political spectrum seem like they're always talking past one another about moral issues (and therefore the political solutions to those issues).*

For me, its most promising use is as a vehicle for communication across the political rift created by our varying moral intuitions. I mean to try to test this theory in some unrelated thread, when a more conservative poster than me expresses some political opinion based on a moral assessment of a particular situation. See if I can talk more effectively with that person than I may have in the past, based on thinking about which of these values he or she prioritizes.

*This matters because, prior to the conversation about a possible political solution to some problem, the sides have made a moral assessment of that situation and decided what the good response to it is. So they've not only made one or another assessment of the situation in question, but they've effectively declared themselves good for holding that view. And they're not wrong. Each of these values is a good. But a first thing to be overcome if any effective practical solution is to be devised is each side's reflex feeling that the other side is bad for not having based is moral assessment of the situation on the same values that my side does.

 

[Tristan_C]

For as many problems as I have with the political compass test, I feel it is much better at producing results that track with my core political beliefs, and which are conveyed in a much clearer, more immediately understandable manner.

There is likely to be some inconsistency in this test's results due to what you and others here are saying. There are a lot of actions you have no moral objections to, and they seem to lie within the bounds of rational self-interest, but you would not do them. It seems unclear how various participants are answering these.

The questions are still more robust than the ones on the political compass test. The political compass test is popular because its questions are loaded propositions designed to make certain types of participants feel good about themselves.

 

[The_J]

I'm gonna take a wild guess that to reach zero on purity you'd have to rate the uncle having a blow up doll custom made to look like his niece as full on brilliant.

I think I acutally did.
Because:

Take for example the guy and his doll that looks like his niece. My niece is 6 years old, so my frame of reference for this question is that the doll is a child. One's immediate response is that this is especially sick, right?

My moral response is, well, if this guy is a pedophile who is sexually attracted to his niece and is trying really, really hard to overcome his urge to molest her and spare her a lifetime of dealing with the ramifications of being molested as a child, is he not making a morally correct choice?

I didn't think that far, TBH, although you can.
There's a nice German song, with the title "the thoughts are free".
Even if you have a sex doll looking like a 6 years old, or 15 years old, or your 50 years old mother: Doesn't matter. You're a pervert. That's okay, as long as you're not doing harm to anyone.
Unless you're showing the doll to a person who's involved, and explaining to whatever you might be thinking, it doesn't even do psychological harm to anyone.
So... that's okay.

I feel, as usual, that the test is flawed by not taking into account the reason why one answer is chosen. Most typically, chosing the "neutral" option can mean "I don't care", or "it's not my place to judge" or "I've no opinion about it".

I think there's a difference here in how things are evaluated.
e.g.
"Sarah gets drunk in a bar and makes out with two strangers at once."
or
"Hannah inherited an old flag of her country from her father, but has never used it. One day when Hannah is cleaning the house she discovers that she is out of rags, so she uses the flag as a rag to clean the house."
or
"When Carl's soccer team is squaring off against the team of another nation, he sings along to the other team's national anthem instead of his own."

Do I care? No, I do not.
It it my place to judge? Na, not really.
You probably picked the "neutral" option.
I picked the "totally okay" option (maybe not for the last, not sure), because I think they should be allowed to do it, and nobody should tell them otherwise. If there's no good reason against, then it should be a yes in most cases.
But that's me .

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Not sure where the Purity came from. Maybe because I answered neutral on the inflation question (is that really necessary for sex ed?). Possibly also because I never answered in green/ok, just neutral or worse.

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

• Care 100%

• Loyalty 8%

• Fairness 94%

• Authority 19%

• Purity 19%

• Liberty 44%

• Quality of Test: 5%

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I didn't think that far, TBH, although you can.
There's a nice German song, with the title "the thoughts are free".
Even if you have a sex doll looking like a 6 years old, or 15 years old, or your 50 years old mother: Doesn't matter. You're a pervert. That's okay, as long as you're not doing harm to anyone.
Unless you're showing the doll to a person who's involved, and explaining to whatever you might be thinking, it doesn't even do psychological harm to anyone.
So... that's okay.

Thinking along similar lines I gave it a positive, just not the full on brilliant. I think people have a certain amount of right to their own image so I disapproved of the company that would make a sex doll in a specific image without that person's approval.

I forget where I saw it recently, but there was an interesting morality theme in some sci-fi near future setting show where a company developed a limited function android that could carry on a simple conversation, and of course screw like a rabbit. They offered a variety of base models that could be customized to a limited degree; basically start from 'redhead number six' and add choice of skintone, hairstyle and eye color type stuff. The morality issue came in because one of the base models, with default settings on all the options, was modeled on the company owner's ex-wife. He thought it was a total hoot that any time she was out in public there was likely someone nearby who had one just like her at home. Sort of a technological advancement meets revenge porn thing.

 

[Tristan_C]

I forget where I saw it recently, but there was an interesting morality theme in some sci-fi near future setting show where a company developed a limited function android that could carry on a simple conversation, and of course screw like a rabbit. They offered a variety of base models that could be customized to a limited degree; basically start from 'redhead number six' and add choice of skintone, hairstyle and eye color type stuff.

Oh yeah, I believe the company's name was Tinder.

 

[metatron]

Of course. After all, those are US conservatives, who frequently believe they need to own grenade launchers to oppose government tyranny.

Yeah, that's not what i did.

[...] vision of what is "liberty" (which I tend to simply define as "egocentrism" ).

Oh, thank you too.

But the reason why you think something is ok or not IS part of the context.
If I say "it's okay" because some girl use the flag or her previous country as a makeshift bathrobe, is it because I don't see value in flags (=> low loyalty) or because I only put value in MY flag (=> high loyalty) ?

In the latter case you are supposed to assume the relevant position of being a citizen of that country.
Also... this is the question:

"Hannah inherited an old flag of her country from her father, but has never used it. One day when Hannah is cleaning the house she discovers that she is out of rags, so she uses the flag as a rag to clean the house."​

Where do you read that Hannah has a "previous country"?

@GoodSarmatian, the above is a heavyweight loyalty question, because they stack it up here: Family and country on the same side of the equasion. It's an heirloom, both ways.
Remember 2014 (i'm paraphrasing Ms. Maddow):
"Uber conservative Wyoming primary voters sure as heck don't like gay marriage.
You know what they like less? When someone is so low as to throw their own sister under the bus for personal advancement."
Family, Church, Country. Most people with sky-high loyalty have one rank order or another for this stuff.

First question tells me I will hate this test. Will the kid actually use all the toys (OK, first come, first served), or is he just getting them to deny it from others "Timmy will be the coolest kid in the neighborhood because he has the newest toy that nobody else has" (Not ok, since the toys won't be utilized very well).

[...]
Broken promises of visiting grave. Is it because of life situations (too far away, job, family, etc.) or because they want to sit on the couch and watch TV?
Kid wants to stay up late to go to party. How old is the kid? (even 'teenager' there is a huge difference between 13 and 17) How late? How much other 'freedom' and socializing opportunities does the kid get? I'll error on the side of the parents unless there is evidence the kid is being 'locked up at home like it's a prison'.
Singing other team's national anthem. Did he sing it properly, and not mockingly? Did he also sing his own?
Unlicensed medical practice. Is it clearly explained to them, or hidden in the fine print?
Guy says woman is too ugly, man says the homeless man is lazy, I'm assuming the question is whether or not it is OK/not OK to actually say those words to their face, and not just think it in his head.

Well, i suppose, just go with the easiest explanation involving the generic, conventional etc.

• Graves: Probably a bit of both. It happens in real life a lot and usually it's a bit of both.
• Door-slamming kid: The question is not about them going to the party or not, not about the parent making the prohibition or not, it's about them slamming the door. Of course you're free to decide that the other stuff matters.
• Anthem: I imagined this would be on the news and some people were upset about and others not. What would likely have happened? So, probably he sang the the anthem sincerely; and probably it doesn't matter much at all to the whole drama whether he sang his own, too. It might to us, sure.
  
• Unlicensed medical practise: I suppose: It's obvious and (some) people insist to ignore the disclaimer. We actually have this in real life after all. Long list, starting with homeopathy.
• Guy? "When Lily tells her classmate Sue that it's her dream to be prom queen," Maybe its me being a retrograde deplorable but i occam's razored Sue into being probably, kinda likely... well... a woman.
  
• Lazy isn't even part of the charge: When a homeless man asks Matt for spare change, Matt keeps on walking and says, “Don't talk to me, loser.”
  I would have given the max negative response either way, but i feel this makes it worse. Matt may implicitly accept life being largely a matter of random chance and the hobo having "lost" merely due to such chance. Which opens totally new dimensions to Matt being the tool that he is.

(For the record: I gave some approval to the kid, mildly disaproved of or stayed neutral to most of the other stuff.
Yeah, well, and the max negative for Matt.)

Neither my girlfriend (an aspiring Psychology PhD), nor her mother (a Psychology academic)

Ok. Excellent appeal to authority.
I suppose we could spend a page or two comparing girlfriends and prospective mothers-in-law.

and it’s frustrating when I don’t feel myself eliciting anything along the binary of expected responses. A lot of my reactions were, “I don’t like it/I wouldn’t choose to do it personally, but it’s not my place to judge the decisions of consenting, conscious adults.” So a lot of middle button results.

Are you not kind of half-judging then?
(I did that with some questions, and i saw it as such.)

Also does this not also reflect the way we have to credit the mens rea of these persons? Like, if it is so important for you to know the details, is it then not easier for the person to have stumbled into what they themselves might judge as wrong.
Like, in contrast to cases where we'd go: "Dude, that's not ok, that's never effing ok!"
There we would have to suppose that the person knows more clearly what they are doing and just disagrees with us.
@Bamspeedy's examples above speak to this point. Like i didn't give that many answers that were anything but full plus or full minus, and Bam hit a lot of them, for the above reason.
Like, the teenager with the party acts in the heat of the moment (to the point that door-slamming is a tired trope), the lady with the dead mother very possibly had meant what she said, then failed and is unsatisfied with that herself etc.

it doesn’t seem at all well-defined what Libertarian represents here

Of course it doesn't.
If the test was not totally wrong with this liberty stuff that would be so inconvenient...

 

[Gori the Grey]

By the way, I don't think there are just "loyalty" questions, e.g. I think the questions pit one value against another. The kids with the money pit authority vs fairness. The blow-up doll pits purity against freedom. The one friend dating another friend's ex pits loyalty against freedom. Pitting six things against one another is 15 pits, no? (I suck at math). And there were 30 questions, so 15 twice over?

 

[metatron]

By the way, I don't think there are just "loyalty" questions, e.g. I think the questions pit one value against another. The kids with the money pit authority vs fairness. The blow-up doll pits purity against freedom. The one friend dating another friend's ex pits loyalty against freedom. Pitting six things against one another is 15 pits, no? (I suck at math). And there were 30 questions, so 15 twice over?

This is evidently not correct. I refer you to @Hrothbern's experiments in post #87.

 

[The_J]

It's 36 questions in total.
I think it's 6 per category, where ever point positive/negative gives you....where's the calculator...2,7something +/- in that category.
Just by guessing it might in some cases be hard to figure out the category, but we could just go through the test and only change single questions to get a definitive answer.

EDIT: Yeah, tested a few, it's the case, and it's 2,66% per level.

Guess that makes especially the loyalty category too US centric, with the stuff about the flags, anthem and military service. Not exactly stuff Europeans care about, and therefore do not score high in.

 

[Gori the Grey]

This is evidently not correct. I refer you to @Hrothbern's experiments in post #87.

Hrothbern took up the scoring of the quiz. I'm not sure my oppositions bear on the scoring, but I think they're how the test-makers constructed the scenarios.

Look how many of the questions split cleanly into a this-versus-that of the six values.

I learn from wiki that it was originally 5; it was Haidt who added the sixth, freedom.

 

[Hygro]

• Your scores:

• Care 100%

• Loyalty 69%

• Fairness 81%

• Authority 36%

• Purity 56%

• Liberty 58%

Your strongest moral foundation is Care.

Your morality is closest to that of a Left-Liberal.

I think I was reacting to things on the test that were unintended. I don't think kid's should be asked to inflate condoms in class because they shouldn't be asked to inflate latex things generally. The condom part didn't really matter. Bang, up goes my purity score. Etc.

 

[metalhead]

On the condom one, I think the answer kinda depends on the reason. If there is a valid educational reason for it, sure, why not. 2 thumbs up. If not, then it's a waste of the kids' time for the instructor to get a cheap thrill. 3 thumbs down.

Another question where the context kinda depends, and I don't think it's totally self-evident that there isn't a valid educational reason for it. And I wouldn't simply just trust the teacher's expertise, not without asking at least.

 

[uppi]

Hrothbern took up the scoring of the quiz. I'm not sure my oppositions bear on the scoring, but I think they're how the test-makers constructed the scenarios.

Look how many of the questions split cleanly into a this-versus-that of the six values.

I learn from wiki that it was originally 5; it was Haidt who added the sixth, freedom.

Why would they bother setting these question up as opposites and then totally disregard that when it comes to scoring? The scoring certainly does not treat them as opposites in any way, because it is possible to get high scores in all categories.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Why would they bother setting these question up as opposites and then totally disregard that when it comes to scoring?

To heighten your response by juxtaposition.

 

[metatron]

It's 36 questions in total.
I think it's 6 per category, where ever point positive/negative gives you....where's the calculator...2,7something +/- in that category.
Just by guessing it might in some cases be hard to figure out the category, but we could just go through the test and only change single questions to get a definitive answer.

Ok, hold my beer...

Step 1:
We suppose what you did and then some:
1) Questions are symmetrical and affect only one value.
2) It's two and feces per box or eight and a third for three boxes (i.e. 1/12 out of 100).
The whole bar being 1/6 out of 100 - six questions per metric.
3) Most questions work one way (adding to the value by disapproving, removing from it by approving).
Some work in reverse to avoid language awkwardness.

Step 2:
Checking @Hrothbern's work.
And there's a defect, maybe a misclick.
Anyway: Care is actually straight one way. (As are Fairness and Purity)
One answer each in Loyalty and Authority works in reverse.
Two answers in Liberty work in reverse.

Step 3:
I tested most of the questions by disagreeing.
Only most because some are bloody obvious.
I reverse tested some - yeah, one-dimensional.

Here's the test:

Care:

• When a homeless man asks Matt for spare change, Matt keeps on walking and says, “Don't talk to me, loser.” (+C)
• While on a live on-air tv show, a man kills a baby rabbit with a knife. (+C).
• When Lily tells her classmate Sue that it's her dream to be prom queen, Sue laughs out loud and says: “You're too ugly for that.” (+C).
• Jack and Will are classmates. Will's father is a lawyer. When he picks up Will from school, he refuses to say hi to Jack's father because he is only a janitor. (+C).
• When Kelly asks Steven out on a date, he sneers and says: “Like I'm gonna date a woman who looks like my overweight bulldog.” (+C)
• Sarah's dog has four puppies. She can only find a home for two of them, so she kills the other two with a stone to the head. (+C)

Fairness:

• Adam and Beth have been dating for three years. Adam is reluctant to have children, so Beth tells him that she's on the pill when she isn't. (+F)
• Amy and Mia are coworkers. One day, Amy offers Mia to take one of her shifts, “no strings attached.” Some time later, Amy could really use someone to fill in for her, but Mia doesn't feel compelled because Amy's original offer had “no strings attached.” (+F)
• Bob and Pam are siblings. Bob is given $10 by their father and is told to distribute it between them as he likes. Bob gives $1 to Pam and pockets the $9 himself.
• A new action figure becomes all the rage among the boys in Timmy's class. When Timmy's parents get to the store, they buy all of the action figures for Timmy, leaving none for the other children.
• Emma and Cindy are summer interns at Chris' office. Emma does slightly better than Cindy. At the end of the summer there's only one job opening, but Chris gives it to Cindy because he finds her more attractive. (+F)
• Tom and Linda have been dating for almost a year. Since they've never agreed to be exclusive, Tom sleeps with other women without telling Linda. (+F)

Loyalty:

• Julie asks her friends not to fraternize with her ex-boyfriend Jake, since he cheated on her with other women. Three weeks later, Julie's friend Melissa is dating him. (+L)
• When Carl's soccer team is squaring off against the team of another nation, he sings along to the other team's national anthem instead of his own. (+L)
• Hannah inherited an old flag of her country from her father, but has never used it. One day when Hannah is cleaning the house she discovers that she is out of rags, so she uses the flag as a rag to clean the house. (+L)
• An army lieutenant neglects to file a report on a civilian killing done by his troops because he knows it was an accident. (-L) rev.
• Tina promises her dying mother that she'll visit her grave once a month. After the mother has passed away, Tina finds it hard to squeeze in the time, and her visits drop to about once a year. (+L)
• John's soccer coach decides that everyone on the team must wear black soccer shoes, but on the day of the match, John turns up in white soccer shoes instead. (+L)

Authority:

• Brian does not cooperate with law enforcement. Whenever he is pulled over, he refuses to answer questions and starts bickering with the officer about his rights.
• Tim asks his father for permission to stay out late because his classmates are throwing a party. When his father refuses, Tim slams the door in his face. (+A)
• Dan turns up the TV just as his father is talking about his military service. (+A)
• Jane's boss calls all of his employees by their first names but does not allow any of them to call him by his first name. When Jane insists that it must be a two-way street, he fires her. (-A) rev.
• Scott is hosting a dinner party. For dessert, he serves chocolate cake, shaped to look like dog poop. (+A)
• In sex education class, the students are taught that since the sexes are equal, the girls should sleep with as many guys as they want without fear of being considered "sluts." (+A)

Purity:

• In biology class, a human hand, preserved in a jar, is passed around among the students. (+P)
• In sex education class, the students are asked to inflate a condom with their mouth. (+P)
• Using both a condom and the pill, a brother and a sister decide that they want to sleep with each other - just once, to see what it would be like. (+P)
• A pair of parents read about the exotic delicacies of Africa and the Far East. In the coming week, they serve dog meat to their children. (+P)
• A man orders a custom-built sex doll designed to look just like his niece. (+P)
• Sarah gets drunk in a bar and makes out with two strangers at once. (+P)

Liberty:

• The principal of a school says that none of her students are allowed to draw Muhammad on the school premises, or to bring Muhammad cartoons to school. (+L)
• The head of a public department says that none of her employees are allowed to smoke at all, not even in their free time. (+L)
• Some men have a private, all-male club and feminists take them to court, demanding that they open it up to women. (+L)
• A man sets up an unlicensed medical practice but makes all of his customers sign a contract acknowledging that he is not a licensed physician. (-L) rev.
• A Christian bakery refuses to custom decorate a cake with chocolate letters that would carry a pro-gay message. (-L) rev.
• A group of parents, concerned about their children's risk of obesity, demand that the local store stops selling XL sized candy bars and soft drinks. (+L)

You're welcome.

PS:
Now that we have figured this all out, i will soon deliver a justification for a 89% Liberty score.