New paper in early publication at Annual Review of Psychology: @kurtjgray and I review how the mind makes sense of morality. We argue that morality is fundamentally tied to perceptions of harm/victimhood/suffering and discuss how to understand and bridge moral/political divides

"Our research suggests that a single psychological factor helps explain the moralization of different behaviors: the perception of harm." - @sampratt99 https://t.co/UCYfHAK01A

https://t.co/tLk9uSQsPm

I wrote about my recent work on the moralization of health for @SPSPnews . Thread of results in the next tweet!

New #SPSPblog: When Health Becomes a Moral Issue by @sampratt99 https://t.co/86ArH5OUvo

I’m taking grad level social psych and am noting examples of social/personality psych directly influencing society. Any other favorite examples? -Good Samaritan laws (bystander effect) -Mass marketing/political messaging (Yale Approach) -Personality traits (Allport) -Dating apps

Thanks again to my fantastic co-authors @paytonjjones , @Toribridgland , @BenjaminBellet2 , and Rich McNally

So, do trigger warnings and safe spaces belong in the classroom? Though we can't answer this for instructors, our data suggest that TWs fall short at improving students' perceptions of the classroom, but students react positively when the classroom is framed as a safe space.

BUT: safe spaces also made instructors seem more liberal and left-wing authoritarian—a scale that includes items about censoring conservative ideas. Mentioning that the classroom is a "safe space" raises the question: safe for which ideas?

Safe spaces had benefits! When instructors described the classroom as a safe space, students saw them as more caring and felt more psychologically safe and willing to discuss controversial issues.

In conclusion, though 83–92% of our sample agreed that trigger warnings should be used, those randomly assigned to receive one felt no better about the classroom or their instructors than those who didn’t. But what about safe spaces?

Trigger warnings didn’t help even among students with a history of trauma—the group they’re often meant to support. 44% of these students reported that the trigger warning reminded them of their past trauma, but these students did not feel more positively after receiving a TW.

A common argument for trigger warnings is that they’re polite: they signal respect and make students feel supported. But we found no evidence for this. Students who were randomly assigned to receive a warning felt no more positively about their instructors or the classroom.

Pleased to share our paper Sending Signals: Trigger Warnings and Safe Spaces is an Editor’s Choice paper in JEP:A 🥳 Trigger warnings and safe spaces are increasingly popular. We asked: do they shape how students perceive the classroom climate? https://t.co/aw9fFPa992

Has pet ownership gotten out of hand? Or is our increasing love for dogs a good thing? 🐶 🔗 to new Substack on these studies in replies

This work would not have been possible without my excellent co-authors @D_L_Rosenfeld, Amelia Goranson, A. Janet Tomiyama, Paschal Sheeran, and @kurtjgray ! Full paper:

From vaccines 💉 to diets 🍎 , many health issues have become moral battlegrounds. These issues seem different on the surface, but we suggest that they each become moralized when seen as causing harm to other people.

Study 5: In another version, we described sleep aids as preventing harm - reducing traffic deaths by improving sleep. Moralization flipped: people now saw using sleep aids as morally praiseworthy 👏 😊

Study 5: But can we turn a *morally neutral* behavior - using sleep aids 💊😴 - into a moral issue by describing it as harmful? Yes! Participants moralized sleep aids more when we framed them as causing harm (increasing traffic deaths due to residual drowsiness) 😡

Study 4: Next we tested causality. Participants read about a health behavior (going to a crowded event while sick) that was described as either harmful or disgusting. Framing it as harmful → seems immoral 😡 Framing it as disgusting → seems gross 🤢 but not immoral

Studies 1-3: We found that the more people viewed poor health as *interpersonally* harmful - causing others in one's life to suffer - they more they viewed all kinds of health behaviors as moral issues.