Moral Clarity in Narratives Elicits Greater Cooperation than Moral Ambiguity

Abstract

In disciplines such as moral psychology and media theory, investigations of moral clarity versus ambiguity in narratives are increasingly important. Untested mechanisms have been proposed for how moral clarity and ambiguity might affect audiences. Based on literature regarding joint action and coordinated experiences, we reason that morally clear narratives elicit coordinated responses across audience members, which should increase within-group cooperation. By contrast, we reason that morally ambiguous narratives elicit divergent, uncoordinated responses across audience members, and this experience decreases cooperation. We conducted three independent studies (one using short text narratives, one using feature-length films, and one using morally and emotionally neutral stimuli). Results indicate that moral clarity is indeed associated with subsequently higher levels of group cooperation than moral ambiguity, and the effect cannot be attributed to changes in affect or moral priming.

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Notes

1. We sought to attain a sample size of N > 30 in Study 1, consistent with Wiltermuth and Heath (2009). Knowing that some would be excluded for not understanding instructions, we chose this much greater base number to ensure sufficient sample size.

2. Effects remain directionally consistent with data from both university and MTurk samples separately, although neither sample alone is large enough to achieve statistical power.

3. Hypothesized effects are reported with one-tailed tests throughout the article.