Moral motivation within groups

Morality is of particular importance to people: People want to be considered moral and want to belong to moral groups. Consequently, morality judgments have the potential to motivate individuals to behave in ways that are considered to be ‘good’. In the current dissertation, I examined the impact of intragroup morality judgments on group members’ motivational responses, and compared those to competence judgments as an alternative domain of evaluation. In three empirical chapters, I investigated the impact of morality (vs. competence) judgments from different perspectives, namely judgments of 1) group member’s own prior behavior, 2) another group member’s behavior, as well as 3) the behavior of a prospective group member. The central hypothesis was that intragroup morality judgments generally impact more strongly on group members’ motivational responses than competence judgments. The results demonstrated that the motivational force of morality largely pertains to immorality. Judgments of immorality elicit a range of motivational responses in group members, such as negative affect, lowered perceived coping abilities, a cardiovascular pattern indicative of threat rather than challenge, and a greater inclination towards social exclusion. In conclusion, morality judgments—generally more so than competence judgments—impact on group members’ striving to be a ‘good’ group member.