Exploring cultural and individual differences in the hierarchy of moral concern: Evidence from 41 cultural groups

Disagreement about the rights and protections owed to different individuals underpins many important historical and current debates (e.g., on the abolishment of slavery, the feminist movement, abortion, and environmental protection). Recent work on moral concern (i.e., the subjectively felt moral obligation to consider an individual’s welfare and interests) has uncovered a seemingly robust hierarchy. For example, people extend most moral concern toward family and friends, followed by ingroup members (e.g., a co-worker), outgroup members (e.g., a foreign citizen), the environment (e.g., a coral reef), and, lastly, criminals (e.g., a murderer). However, these studies were all conducted in a few countries from the Anglosphere, raising doubt about the cross-cultural generalizability of the results. We analyzed a data set with 6,665 participants recruited from 41 cultural groups to explore cultural and individual variation in the hierarchy of moral concern. We find that (1) on average, across the 41 cultural groups, 11 of the 13 rankings in the typical hierarchy of moral concern replicated, pointing to substantial cultural similarities; (2) countries that are culturally more similar to the reference sample from the initial U.S. study showed a more similar hierarchy; (3) some rankings (e.g., prioritizing family and friends over human ingroups) replicated more often than others (e.g., prioritizing human outgroups over the environment) across countries; and (4) both cultural and individual differences were largest most pronounced examining people’s concern for non-human animals and the environment.