Relatable and attainable moral exemplars as sources for moral elevation and pleasantness

ABSTRACT

In the present study, we examined how the perceived attainability and relatability of moral exemplars predicted moral elevation and pleasantness among both adult and college student participants. Data collected from two experiments were analyzed with Bayesian multilevel modeling to explore which factors significantly predicted outcome variables at the story level. The analysis results demonstrated that the main effect of perceived relatability and the interaction effect between attainability and relatability shall be included in the best prediction model, and thus, were deemed to predict the outcome variables significantly. The main effect of relatability as well as its interaction with attainability positively predicted elevation and pleasantness. We discussed educational implications of the findings in terms of how relatability may be the first point of emphasis for moral educators to focus on and attainability can then bolster the effectiveness. These relatable and attainable moral exemplars can be sources for moral elevation and pleasantness, which promote motivation to emulate moral behavior presented by the exemplars.

KEYWORDS:

• Moral exemplar
• moral motivation
• attainability
• relatability
• Bayesian analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Code availability

All source codes for data analyses are available from the Open Science Framework repository: https://osf.io/hxuns/

Data availability statement

All data supporting the findings reported herein, along with the study materials and code for the statistical analyses, are available from the Open Science Framework repository: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/V5NK7

Notes

1. In the non-moral condition, Han et al. (2022) presented the stories of exemplars that may inspire participants but not in a moral way (e.g., a professional car racer who won competitions even under very threatening conditions, a violinist who became a successful artist after diligent exercises, a passionate student journalist who successfully published books and articles, etc.). These stories were designed to present excellences in diverse domains rather than moral virtues.

2. The exploratory analysis was conducted according to an anonymous reviewer’s comments and suggestions on the earlier version of the manuscript. We appreciate their invaluable feedback to improve the quality of our work.

Additional information

Funding

Research reported in this publication was supported by the University of Alabama Research Grant Committee [RG14785] and by the John Templeton Foundation [48365]. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the University of Alabama or John Templeton Foundation.

Notes on contributors

Hyemin Han

Hyemin Han is an associate professor in educational psychology and educational neuroscience, and a program coordinator for the educational psychology MA/PhD program at the University of Alabama. His research interests include moral development, moral education, social neuroscience and computational modeling.

Kelsie J. Dawson

Kelsie J. Dawson is a Research Associate at MMSA, a nonprofit that supports educators. Her current research focuses on providing youth with access to environmental learning opportunities in addition to computer science learning.