For whom is patriotism blind? Examining the roles of moral intuitions and system justification

Patriotism defines one's attachment and identification to a broad political community. We examine how levels of patriotism are shaped by beliefs about the fairness of institutions, termed system justification, and people's moral intuitions. Using data from a 2021 YouGov survey, we find that system justification and “binding” moral intuitions that prioritize the cohesion of social groups both lead to greater patriotism. Notably, we found a moderating effect of moral intuitions on system justification. Strong binding intuitions reduced the effect of system justification, indicative of blind patriotism, where some people are patriotic even if they perceive the system as unfair. Strong “individualizing” intuitions, which prioritize fairness and protection from harm, increased the effect of system justification. This is consistent with the notion of constructive patriotism, where patriotism among people with strong individualizing intuitions is affected by whether they believe the country is living up to its fairness ideals. We extend prior research on patriotism and system justification by showing the vitally important way that moral intuitions moderate the effects of system justification.

© This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

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Work Title For whom is patriotism blind? Examining the roles of moral intuitions and system justification
Access
Open Access
Creators
  1. John D Iceland
  2. Eric Silver
  3. Kerby Goff
Keyword
  1. patriotism
  2. blind patriotism
  3. constructive patriotism
  4. moral foundation theory
  5. system justification
License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives)
Work Type Article
Publisher
  1. Social Science Research
Publication Date August 12, 2022
Publisher Identifier (DOI)
  1. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2022.102811
Deposited August 19, 2024

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Version 1
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  • Created
  • Added Patriotism_SSR_full_8-12-2022.pdf
  • Added Creator John D Iceland
  • Added Creator Eric Silver
  • Added Creator Kerby Goff
  • Published
  • Updated
  • Updated Keyword, Publication Date Show Changes
    Keyword
    • patriotism , blind patriotism, constructive patriotism, moral foundation theory, system justification
    Publication Date
    • 2022-01-01
    • 2022-08-12