Moral Intuitions and Political Orientations among Norwegian Voters

Can people’s moral intuitions help understand political and ideological orientations in the population? Researchers from the Institute for Social Research presented Moral Foundations Theory and conducted the first study of MFT's explanatory power in a Norwegian context. They tested the validity of a Norwegian translation of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire, the central survey instrument for measuring moral foundations, and found support for a five-factor model that also describes a clear divide between moral universalism (care and fairness) and moral particularism (ingroup loyalty, authority, and sanctity). The researchers further examined how these moral value configurations relate to political left-right orientation, party and party leadership preferences, and views on key political issues such as tax and immigration. They found, like previous research from other countries, that people with a left-wing orientation are high on moral universalism and low on particularism, while those with a right-wing orientation equate universalist and particularist values to a greater extent. Moral foundations explain more of the variation in political orientation than education, indicating that the theory can shed useful light on political behavior.

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