Concern for close or distant others: The distinction between moral identity and moral inclusion

Abstract

Research has analyzed the relationship between moral identity—the extent to which people experience their moral character as being central to their self-conception—and the inclusion of other people within one’s own moral circle. These studies underline that the higher the moral identity, the larger the moral circle. However, recent studies have observed that a person with a high moral identity feels morally obliged towards close people and may be intolerant towards distant groups. The aim of the present research was to deepen the differences between moral identity and moral inclusion considering prejudicial attitudes, ethnocentrism, altruism and values. The results indicated that moral identity alone does not imply a reduction in intolerant attitudes. Instead, when moral inclusion is considered, the results even show a positive effect of moral identity internalization on prejudice and ethnocentrism. Moreover, moral identity internalization has an effect on values of benevolence, security, tradition and conformity. Hence, a strong moral identity does not denote an extension of one’s own moral circle. Instead, this variable is related to intolerance towards those groups considered not to be included in one’s own moral community.

Keywords:

• Moral identity
• moral inclusion
• prejudice
• values
• altruism

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the editor and the anonymous referees for very helpful comments that greatly improved the article.

Notes

1. The item ‘Most Romanians living here who receive welfare support could get along without it if they tried’ was excluded because of lack of increment in Cronbach’s reliability.

2. The suppression effect describes a condition in which ‘the magnitude of the relationship between an independent variable and a dependent variable becomes larger when a third variable is included’ (MacKinnon, Krull, & Lockwood, 2000, p. 174).