The role of perceived harm in moralizing health

People moralize health conditions and behaviors. Plentiful examples—both historical and current—support this notion, but little empirical work has examined moralization in this domain. Working from the Theory of Dyadic Morality, which emphasizes the key role of harm in our moral cognitions, I hypothesize that perceiving harm is key in moralizing health targets—where perceived harm is high, moralization will also be high; where perceived harm is low, moralization will also be low. Here, I present six studies to examine the role of harm in moralizing health conditions and associated behaviors. I test this by manipulating level of harm (Study 1), by comparing moralization across moral, health, and neutral targets (Study 2), by examining correlations between moralization and harms across a wider variety of health behaviors (Study 3), by manipulating responsibility and moral patient (Study 4), by examining whether harm is a predictor of moralization and moral judgment in COVID-19 related judgments (Study 5), and by examining expressed harm and moralization in statements about COVID-19 across US States (Study 6). Finding that perceiving harm contributes to moralizing within health-related targets would expand scientific understanding of how or when moralization occurs in health-related targets.Doctor of Philosoph