The paucity of morality in everyday talk

Mohammad Atari; Matthias R. Mehl; Jesse Graham; John M. Doris; Norbert Schwarz; Aida Mostafazadeh Davani; Ali Omrani; Brendan Kennedy; Elaine Gonzalez; Nikki Jafarzadeh; Alyzeh Hussain; Arineh Mirinjian; Annabelle Madden; Rhea Bhatia; Alexander Burch; Allison Harlan; David A. Sbarra; Charles L. Raison; Suzanne A. Moseley; Angelina J. Polsinelli; Morteza Dehghani

doi:10.1038/s41598-023-32711-4

The paucity of morality in everyday talk

Mohammad Atari, Matthias R. Mehl, Jesse Graham, John M. Doris, Norbert Schwarz, Aida Mostafazadeh Davani, Ali Omrani, Brendan Kennedy, Elaine Gonzalez, Nikki Jafarzadeh, Alyzeh Hussain, Arineh Mirinjian, Annabelle Madden, Rhea Bhatia, Alexander Burch, Allison Harlan, David A. Sbarra, Charles L. Raison, Suzanne A. Moseley, Angelina J. PolsinelliMorteza Dehghani

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

Given its centrality in scholarly and popular discourse, morality should be expected to figure prominently in everyday talk. We test this expectation by examining the frequency of moral content in three contexts, using three methods: (a) Participants’ subjective frequency estimates (N = 581); (b) Human content analysis of unobtrusively recorded in-person interactions (N = 542 participants; n = 50,961 observations); and (c) Computational content analysis of Facebook posts (N = 3822 participants; n = 111,886 observations). In their self-reports, participants estimated that 21.5% of their interactions touched on morality (Study 1), but objectively, only 4.7% of recorded conversational samples (Study 2) and 2.2% of Facebook posts (Study 3) contained moral content. Collectively, these findings suggest that morality may be far less prominent in everyday life than scholarly and popular discourse, and laypeople, presume.

Original language	English (US)
Article number	5967
Journal	Scientific reports
Volume	13
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-32711-4
State	Published - Dec 2023
Externally published	Yes

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Atari, M., Mehl, M. R., Graham, J., Doris, J. M., Schwarz, N., Davani, A. M., Omrani, A., Kennedy, B., Gonzalez, E., Jafarzadeh, N., Hussain, A., Mirinjian, A., Madden, A., Bhatia, R., Burch, A., Harlan, A., Sbarra, D. A., Raison, C. L., Moseley, S. A., ... Dehghani, M. (2023). The paucity of morality in everyday talk. Scientific reports, 13(1), Article 5967. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-32711-4

Atari, M, Mehl, MR, Graham, J, Doris, JM, Schwarz, N, Davani, AM, Omrani, A, Kennedy, B, Gonzalez, E, Jafarzadeh, N, Hussain, A, Mirinjian, A, Madden, A, Bhatia, R, Burch, A, Harlan, A, Sbarra, DA, Raison, CL, Moseley, SA, Polsinelli, AJ & Dehghani, M 2023, 'The paucity of morality in everyday talk', Scientific reports, vol. 13, no. 1, 5967. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-32711-4

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abstract = "Given its centrality in scholarly and popular discourse, morality should be expected to figure prominently in everyday talk. We test this expectation by examining the frequency of moral content in three contexts, using three methods: (a) Participants{\textquoteright} subjective frequency estimates (N = 581); (b) Human content analysis of unobtrusively recorded in-person interactions (N = 542 participants; n = 50,961 observations); and (c) Computational content analysis of Facebook posts (N = 3822 participants; n = 111,886 observations). In their self-reports, participants estimated that 21.5% of their interactions touched on morality (Study 1), but objectively, only 4.7% of recorded conversational samples (Study 2) and 2.2% of Facebook posts (Study 3) contained moral content. Collectively, these findings suggest that morality may be far less prominent in everyday life than scholarly and popular discourse, and laypeople, presume.",

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AU - Davani, Aida Mostafazadeh

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AU - Burch, Alexander

AU - Harlan, Allison

AU - Sbarra, David A.

AU - Raison, Charles L.

AU - Moseley, Suzanne A.

AU - Polsinelli, Angelina J.

AU - Dehghani, Morteza

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N2 - Given its centrality in scholarly and popular discourse, morality should be expected to figure prominently in everyday talk. We test this expectation by examining the frequency of moral content in three contexts, using three methods: (a) Participants’ subjective frequency estimates (N = 581); (b) Human content analysis of unobtrusively recorded in-person interactions (N = 542 participants; n = 50,961 observations); and (c) Computational content analysis of Facebook posts (N = 3822 participants; n = 111,886 observations). In their self-reports, participants estimated that 21.5% of their interactions touched on morality (Study 1), but objectively, only 4.7% of recorded conversational samples (Study 2) and 2.2% of Facebook posts (Study 3) contained moral content. Collectively, these findings suggest that morality may be far less prominent in everyday life than scholarly and popular discourse, and laypeople, presume.

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The paucity of morality in everyday talk

Abstract

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