Moral foundations theory suggests that relative to liberals,
conservatives care more about values that bind group members together:
loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and purity/degradation. In
contrast, we propose that individuals who are deeply aligned (“fused”)
with their group should display elevated commitment to group-oriented
moral values, regardless of their political orientation. The results of
three studies supported this hypothesis. The tendency for conservatives
to endorse the binding foundations more than liberals only emerged among
weakly and moderately fused Americans. In fact, liberals strongly fused
with the United States endorsed “binding” foundations more than average
conservatives and to the same extent as strongly fused conservatives.
These results indicate that to fully understand moral prerogatives, one
must consider the nature of the connections people form to the group, as
well as their political orientation.
