An interview
We talked with Artur Nilsson, about his recent papers titled, “Beyond ‘Liberals’ and ‘Conservatives’: Complexity in Ideology, Moral Intuitions, and Worldview Among Swedish Voters” and “Moral Foundations Theory and the Psychology of Charitable Giving“, which were published in the May/June issue of EJP. Artur is an associate professor in psychology at Linköping University, Sweden.
Read on to learn more about Artur’s work on individuals’ worldview in terms of moral and political values!
Q: Hello Artur! Can you tell us a bit about who you are and what made you become interested in studying personality psychology?
I first got interested in personality psychology as a double-degree student of psychology and philosophy. I was fascinated by the psychology of philosophical divisions and started thinking about how people’s views of the world reflect their personalities. My thesis supervisor, Bert Westerlundh, introduced me to the work of Silvan Tomkins on personal ideologies, which I found fascinating. I also drew a lot of inspiration from the philosophy of mind and classical existentialist philosophy. I felt that contemporary personality theory is missing a critical aspect of personality, and ended up writing a doctoral dissertation on the psychology of worldviews.
My subsequent research has focused particularly on basic beliefs about the world, moral convictions, and political ideologies – both on how they can be conceptualized and measured, and on how they are linked to other important phenomena, such as prosocial behavior and receptivity to misinformation. I also work on philosophical issues in personality psychology, trying to square the ambition to understand the person as a rational, existentially aware, meaning-making creature with rigorous science. Today, I am an associate professor of psychology at Linköping University in Sweden. I juggle research with teaching a lot of philosophy, quantitative methods, and personality. I am affiliated with the JEDI-lab of judgment and decision-making at Linköping University.
Q: What do you like to do outside of work?
I like to be physically active. Running, preferably in nature, is one of my favorite forms of exercise – it’s simple, stimulating, and there’s no better antidote to stress. I combine it with strength workouts; I have some dumbbells and a kettlebell at home that I use during the pandemic, and there are decent outdoor gyms around. Other activities I enjoy include taking walks while listening to podcasts, having (non-science) discussions with friends, social dancing, watching movies, following track and field, science-twitter, and long-distance running.
Q: You recently published two studies about political world views and morality. Can you tell us about them?
The common denominator is that both papers focus on aspects of the individual’s worldview, such as political values and moral convictions, rather than trait-aspects of personality. Apart from that, the research questions are different, so I will discuss them separately.
1. Beyond ‘liberals’ and ‘conservatives’: Complexity in ideology, moral intuitions, and worldview among Swedish voters
The distinction between ‘liberals’ and ‘conservatives’ is exceedingly popular in social, personality, and political psychology. Yet the appropriateness of this distinction outside of the English-speaking countries (which have bi-party systems) can be questioned. This paper therefore investigated personality differences across a richer set of ideological divisions in a multiparty system.
My colleagues and I conducted three large survey studies in Sweden (two of which had nationally representative samples). We collected data on party preferences, ideological preferences concerning social change and equality, binding and individualizing moral intuitions, worldviews of humanism and normativism, and a multitude of political values.
The analyses revealed notable differences not just between left- and right-wing voters, but also between social democratic voters and progressive left voters, economic and green progressives, social liberal and conservative right voters, and nationalist and non-nationalist conservative voters. For instance, resistance to change and binding moral intuitions predicted a strong preference for the social democratic party on the left and for any kind of social conservative party on the right, while normativism and low acceptance of immigrants predicted a much stronger preference for a nationalist party than for other conservative parties.
We concluded that future research on the structure, development, and consequences of political orientations should replace the simplistic and parochial contrast between ‘liberals’ on the left and ‘conservatives’ on the right with a richer conceptualization of political ideology.
2. Moral foundations theory and the psychology of charitable giving
Moral psychology has grown rapidly in the past two decades, and moral foundations theory has been particularly influential. But one important limitation is that most of the research has relied exclusively on self-report data, even though studies suggest that self-reported or hypothetical moral behavior is often different from actual moral behavior. This research therefore investigated the association between self-reported moral intuitions and charitable giving – an important form of moral behavior in today’s world.
My co-authors and I administered an online survey to a representative sample of Swedes. The participants self-reported donations to charity, moral concerns, donations in a hypothetical dilemma, and political and religious orientation. After this, they were asked whether they were willing to volunteer for charity to fill out additional questions, and those who did were asked to pick one organization to allocate their donation to. These were our behavioral measures.
According to moral foundations theory, the “individualizing” moral intuitions about fairness and harm prevention entail an impartial concern with the welfare of individuals regardless of their group membership, while the “binding” moral intuitions about loyalty, authority, and purity entail a narrower ingroup-centric moral circle. Our findings matched this description. The individualizing intuitions predicted more donations overall, more allocations of donations to outgroup causes, and more concern with helping outgroup members. The binding intuitions predicted less donations overall, more allocation to ingroup causes, and less concern with helping outgroup members. The results were consistent across the self-report and behavioral measures.
We concluded that charitable giving reflects personal moral preferences and the distinction between binding and individualizing moral intuitions helps to explain how.
In sum, personality psychologists have been trying to understand the psychology of prosocial behavior and political orientation for a long time. It is probably safe to say today that it is impossible to understand these phenomena fully without taking the person’s view of the world into consideration. I believe that one general lesson from these (and other) research programs is that personality psychologists should, more often than they currently do, take both trait and worldview descriptions of personality into consideration. That would yield a more systematic and comprehensive science.
Q: Do you have any tips or advice for young researchers?
It is important for young academics to have realistic expectations and try to strike the right balance between idealism and pragmatism. Today’s academic world is at times irrational, unpredictable, and myopic, and competition over jobs and grants can be fierce. The pandemic is probably not making things better. You can be exceptionally smart, have great ideas, and work extremely hard but still not reach success. As a young researcher, you should therefore think strategically about what research programs, environments, or publications are likely to both help you survive in academia and give you enough room for passion, curiosity, integrity, intellectual engagement, and well-being in the long run. You should remain open to other career options if things are not going your way and try to have a backup plan. That said, life as an academic can be great if you manage to strike the right balance!