Cross-Cultural Insights into Moral Expansiveness: Selective Valuation of Nature Versus Humans

People seem to differ in how they morally value the natural world versus human outgroups, but existing evidence comes from limited U.S. samples. Here, we report findings from a pre-registered secondary analysis of multinational surveys, including student samples (k = 42, N = 7,443) and nationally representative data from the World Values Survey and European Social Survey (k = 86, N = 640,178). Across datasets, at least 25% of participants reported valuing nature more than humans, while about 35% prioritized humans over nature. National characteristics explained 5%–7% of the variance in moral worth attributions, with preference for nature associated with higher country-level environmental performance and human development. Valuing nature over humans predicted stronger pro-environmental attitudes and, to a lesser extent, outgroup bias. However, we found no consistent evidence that valuing nature comes at the expense of valuing humans. These findings underscore the need to refine theories of moral concern.