The Behavioral Priority of Proscriptive Moral Norms

• In Event: 20420 - Section on Sociology of Culture Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 1: Culture, Cognition, and Beliefs

Abstract

Almost everyone feels that there are some moral lines that ought never to be crossed, and some ideals that are worth striving after. And yet, the differences between proscriptive morality (the moral “should nots”) and prescriptive morality (the moral “should) have rarely been theorized directly and are notably absent from sociological models of moral cognition and behavior. Practically, this amounts to tacitly assuming that these aspects of morality are cognitively interchangeable—they might differ in which behaviors they encourage or discourage, but otherwise do little to shape how moral behavior is produced. However, a growing body of evidence suggests that proscriptive morality could have advantages in shaping behavior because people see proscriptive norms as more concrete and obligatory than prescriptive norms, and their violation as more negative. If so, people should more likely to comply with proscriptive norms than prescriptive norms. We test this prediction using a meta-analysis of the rates of moral compliance found in prior research on both proscriptively discouraged and prescriptively encouraged moral behaviors. Using an independent sample of raters, we also examine whether observed differences can be attributed to proscriptive morality’s greater concreteness, obligatory nature, and perceived negativity, as theorized. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our results for sociological models of moral behavior.

Authors

• Andrew Miles, University of Toronto

• Salwa Khan, University of Toronto

• Yagana Samim, University of Toronto