Malleable Morality: Historic Cues Increase Desire for Social Order and Can Increase Perceived Immorality

Actions that lie outside acceptable social norms, ranging from prostitution to materialism, are deemed to be inherently immoral. We instead posit the same action can be viewed as moral or immoral depending on the lens of a person considering morality of an action. We further propose two basic lenses—preserving social order or promoting individual rights—define what is moral – and actions that promote freedom and humanitarian causes often violate existing social rules and structures. Therefore, the same action (e.g., prostitution) can be moral or immoral based on a perceiver’s lens. We test our proposition employing one specific environmental cue—historic architecture—that is found to cue a consideration of social order over freedom. The heightened consideration of social order cued by historic architecture increases endorsement of binding causes that preserve existing social norms over those that promote freedom and choice as moral. Implications of the malleable meaning of morality and environmental influence on judgment are discussed. (157 words)