The Moral Question: Norms and Anti-System Politics

Daniel A. N. Goldstein and Tore Wig
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Daniel A. N. Goldstein: University of Oslo

No nwrtz_v1, SocArXiv from Center for Open Science

Abstract: Do moral norms influence citizens' tolerance of anti-system behavior by politicians? Although moral norms are often invoked as guardrails, their measurement and causal influence in politics remain understudied. We theorize the link between moral norms, personal judgments, and attitudinal consequences and test our theory in a pre-registered survey experiment with financial incentives. Respondents faced moral trade-offs concerning personal scandals, political violence, corruption, and anti-democratic actions. Using a second-order approach to elicit beliefs about what others consider morally wrong, we find that norms against democratic violations are descriptively weaker than norms against scandal and corruption; both lag behind norms against violence. Causal evidence shows that norms primarily shift judgments when respondents face large discrepancies from their initial perceived norm and have strong conformity motives. However, this largely does not translate into attitudinal shifts. The findings shed light on the concept of moral norms and detail their consequences and limitations for politics.

Date: 2026-06-03
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osf:socarx:nwrtz_v1

DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/nwrtz_v1

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