| Summary: | I present a novel way to conceptualize Turiel and colleagues’
Social Domain Theory (SDT), and Haidt and colleagues’ Moral Foundations Theory
(MFT), as theories of how concepts of moral violations are mentally
represented. I argue that SDT is best viewed as a theory of the features that
are associated with concepts of moral violations, including wrongness,
generalizability across cultures, and intrinsic harmfulness, and that MFT, in
contrast, is best viewed as a theory of individual differences in what kinds of
acts are categorized as moral violations (i.e., of category membership). This
perspective generates a novel prediction: the same individual difference
variables that predict variation in moral values according to MFT should
predict ascription of the features predicted by SDT. That is, judgments of
wrongness, generalizability, and intrinsic harmfulness should covary with the
same predictors as do endorsed moral values, specifically, political
orientation and analytic thinking. Three studies supported this
hypothesis.
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