Browsing by Author "Thomas, Manoj"

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    Are Conservatives Less Likely Than Liberals to Accept Welfare? The Psychology of Welfare Politics
    Goenka, Shreyans; Thomas, Manoj (University of Chicago Press, 2022-07)
    Research has shown that conservatives tend to oppose the distribution of welfare to other people. However, are conservatives less likely than liberals to accept welfare for themselves? We find that the difference in liberals’ and conservatives’ welfare enrollment depends on whether the welfare program has a work requirement policy. A natural field experiment shows that when the supplemental nutritional program (SNAP) had a work requirement, liberals and conservatives were equally likely to enroll in this program. In the absence of a work requirement, conservatives were less likely than liberals to enroll in it. Follow-up experiments replicate this result and demonstrate the underlying mechanism: conservatives’ adherence to binding moral values (loyalty, authority, and purity; Graham, Haidt, and Nosek 2009) makes them hesitant to accept welfare without a work requirement. Policy makers can deploy marketing messages to mitigate this effect and boost conservatives’ enrollment in such welfare programs.
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    When is sensory consumption immoral?
    Goenka, Shreyans; Thomas, Manoj (American Psychological Association, 2022-11-10)
    Although humans are hard-wired to pursue sensory pleasure, they show considerable heterogeneity in their moral evaluations of sensory pleasure. In some societies, sensory pleasure is pursued without any moral inhibition, but in other societies, it is considered to be immoral and actively suppressed. This research investigates the moral motives behind the suppression of sensory consumption. Is the suppression of sensory consumption caused by the moral motive to promote social justice or the moral motive to promote social order? We test these two competing accounts through country-level archival data and seven preregistered controlled experiments. We find robust evidence that the social-order emphasizing binding moral foundations (authority, loyalty, and purity; Haidt, 2007) suppress sensory consumption. Consequently, individuals and societies that adhere to the binding values are less likely to consume sensory products such as alcohol, tobacco, soda, fragrances, and sex toys. These effects are mediated by prescriptive moral beliefs and feelings of shame. We also identify several moderators of the moral suppression of sensory consumption. Binding values do not suppress sensory consumption after moral licensing. The effects of binding values on sensory consumption attenuate when the products are framed as status-affirming. Finally, while binding values suppress sensory consumption that is personal, they do not suppress sensory consumption that is shared. Altogether, our findings show that social-order emphasizing moral beliefs in society can inhibit the pursuit of pleasure and change consumption patterns in the economy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).