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Objective: What types of moral improvements do people wish to make? Do they hope to become more good, or less bad? Do they wish to be more caring? More honest? More loyal? And why exactly do they want to become more moral? Presumably, most people want to improve their morality because this would benefit others, but is this in fact their primary motivation? Here, we begin to investigate these questions. Method: Across two large, preregistered studies (N = 1818), participants provided open‐ended descriptions of one change they could make in order to become more moral; they then reported their beliefs about and motives for this change. Results: In both studies, people most frequently expressed desires to improve their compassion and more often framed their moral improvement goals in terms of amplifying good behaviors than curbing bad ones. The strongest predictor of moral motivation was the extent to which people believed that making the change would have positive consequences for their own well‐being. Conclusions: Together, these studies provide rich descriptive insights into how ordinary people want to be more moral, and show that they are particularly motivated to do so for their own sake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on national identity distinguishes between national glorification and attachment. We tested whether glorification and attachment differentially predicted support for military and diplomatic conflict resolution strategies (CRS) in response to international conflicts. Using data collected in seven countries (Australia, United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Israel, China; total N = 1784), we investigated whether glorification and attachment can be equivalently measured (using tests of measurement invariance) and whether their relationships with CRS were generalizable across countries. The results revealed metric, but not scalar, measurement invariance of the two‐factor structure of national identification across six countries, excluding China. Among these six countries, glorification predicted more support for military CRS, whereas attachment predicted more support for diplomatic CRS. Our study is novel in scrutinizing the cross‐cultural generalizability of the bi‐dimensional model of national identification. Implications for studying national identification and intergroup conflict cross‐culturally are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We remember the past in order not to repeat it, but does remembrance of war in fact shape support for military or diplomatic approaches to international conflict? In seven samples from five countries (collected online, total N = 2,493), we examined support for military and diplomatic approaches to conflict during war commemorations (e.g., Veterans Day). During war commemorations in the United States, support for diplomacy increased, whereas support for military approaches did not change. We found similar results in the United Kingdom and Australia on Remembrance Day, but not in Germany, or France, nor in Australia on Anzac Day. Furthermore, support for diplomacy was predicted by concern about loss of ingroup military lives during war, independently of concern about harm to outgroup civilians. These studies expand our understanding of how collective memories of war may be leveraged to promote diplomatic approaches to contemporary geopolitical conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tackling climate change presents an intergenerational dilemma: People must make sacrifices today, to benefit future generations. What causes people to feel an obligation to benefit future generations? Past research has suggested "intergenerational reciprocity" as a potential driver, but this research is quite domain specific, and it is unknown how well it applies to climate change. We explored a novel means of invoking a sense of intergenerational reciprocity: inducing reflection on the sacrifices made by previous generations. Our studies revealed that such reflection predicts and causes a heightened sense of moral obligation towards future generations, mediated by gratitude. However, there are also some downsides (e.g., feelings of unworthiness), and perceptions of obligation do not substantially affect pro-environmental attitudes or motivations. Thus, while reflecting on past generations' sacrifices can generate a sense of intergenerational obligation, it is limited in the extent to which it can increase pro-environmental concern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The principle of discrimination states that soldiers are legitimate targets of violence in war, whereas civilians are not. Is this prescriptive rule reflected in the descriptive judgments of laypeople? In two studies (N s = 300, 229), U.S. Mechanical Turk workers were asked to evaluate the character traits of either a soldier or a civilian. Participants also made moral judgments about scenarios in which the target individual (soldier or civilian) killed or was killed by the enemy in war. Soldiers were consistently viewed as more dangerous and more courageous than civilians (Study 1). Participants also viewed killing by (and of) soldiers as more permissible than killing by (and of) civilians, in line with the principle of discrimination (Study 1). Altering the war context to involve a clearly just and unjust side (in Study 2) did not appear to moderate the principle of discrimination in moral judgment, although soldiers and civilians on the just side were evaluated more positively overall. However, the soldiers on the unjust side of the war were not attributed greater courage than were civilians on the unjust side. Theoretical and practical implications of these descriptive findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does war influence moral judgments about harm? While the general rule is "thou shalt not kill," war appears to provide an exception to the moral prohibition on intentional harm. In three studies (n = 263, n = 557, n = 793), we quantify the difference in moral judgments across peace and war contexts, and explore two possible explanations for the difference. The findings demonstrate that third‐party observers judge a trade‐off of one life for five as more morally acceptable in war than in peace, especially if the one person is from an outgroup of the person making the trade‐off. In addition, the robust difference in moral judgments across "switch" and "footbridge" trolley problems is attenuated in war compared to in peace. The present studies have implications for moral psychology researchers who use war‐based scenarios to study broader cognitive or affective processes. If the war context changes judgments of moral scenarios by triggering group‐based reasoning or altering the perceived structure of the moral event, using such scenarios to make decontextualized claims about moral judgment may not be warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proponents of the linguistic analogy suggest that methodologies originally developed for investigating linguistic grammar can also be fruitfully applied to the empirical study ofmoral grammar: the causal and intentional representations of moral events which – according to the linguistic analogy – drive moral judgements. In the current study, we put this claim to the empirical test. Participants were presented with moral dilemmas which previously have been shown to implement a central principle in moral judgements: the principle of double effect (PDE). Participants responded tobyandin order toprobes to assess causal and intentional representations of this principle. Results show that these linguistic probes do not relate to moral judgement in the manner predicted by proponents of the linguistic analogy and moral grammar. Although the linguistic analogy is a theoretically rich framework, the procedures posited to give it empirical traction require revision. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]