Moral bias toward different social classes

Abstract

The influence of social class on prosocial behaviour has long been a focus of intense research interest. The present research involved four studies that covered four moral exemplars (villains, victims, heroes, and beneficiaries) to test whether people of different social classes are treated equally in moral judgements. We described moral events experienced by different agents of varying social classes and asked participants to rate the morality of the events and their emotional responses. The results revealed that compared with the low-class condition, high-class individuals had an overall moral disadvantage when they were regarded as villains, victims, and beneficiaries. For the exemplar of hero, the high-class condition was no different from the low-class condition except that high-class heroes evoked less elevation than low-class heroes. The results reveal that people hold a biased moral attitude toward individuals in different social classes.