Moral judgments may change with the seasons

Moral judgments may change with the seasons

Anvita Patwardhan

As the leaves fall, the snow falls, and the flowers bloom, people change in tangible ways. Research has shown that a range of psychological phenomena fluctuate throughout the year, including emotional states, eating and exercise habits, sexual activity, and even color preferences. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences It shows that moral values ​​can also change.

For the study, researchers analyzed more than 230,000 online survey responses from people in the United States and small groups in Canada and Australia over a decade. The questions were based on a standardized framework that social scientists use to assess people’s judgments of right and wrong. The framework, called Moral Foundations Theory, establishes a taxonomy of “five very basic values ​​that shape human social behavior,” says lead author Ian Holme, a psychology graduate student at the University of British Columbia.

In this framework, loyalty (loyalty to one’s group), authority (respect for leaders and rules), and purity (cleanliness and piety) are seen as “binding” values ​​that promote group cohesion and cooperation. These principles, often associated with political conservatism, were consistently less supported in summer and winter, and in summer the effect was more pronounced the more extreme the seasonal weather differences. (An additional group surveyed in the UK saw change only in summer.)

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Consideration (preventing harm to others) and fairness (equal treatment) are considered to be “individualizing” values ​​related to individual rights. No consistent seasonal patterns were observed for these principles.

One reason for the seasonal variation could be feelings of anxiety. Using survey data from 90,000 respondents and data on internet search frequency, the researchers found that anxiety levels also peak in spring and fall. “There is a close relationship between anxiety and threat,” says Brian O’Shea, a psychologist at the University of Nottingham and study co-author. Other studies have shown that people who feel more susceptible to seasonal illnesses tend to be more distrustful, more xenophobic, and more deferential to the majority opinion. “When we feel threatened, we want to be protected from our own group,” O’Shea explains. These findings suggest that seasonal timing could affect jury decisions, vaccination campaigns, and even election outcomes, the study authors say.

Ivory A. Thordson, a psychologist at Howard University who works in practical applications of statistics, points out that the study relied on data from a “Western, educated, industrialized, affluent, democratic (WEIRD)” population, and warns that generalizing such results risks “overlooking the unique moral experiences of marginalized groups.” Home agrees that these patterns don’t affect everyone in the same way, but emphasizes that the study highlights the impact of seasons on human psychology.

“One of the things this article shows is that we are seasonal creatures,” says Georgetown University School of Medicine psychiatrist Norman Rosenthal, a leading expert on seasonal affective disorder who coined the term in the 1980s. “What we’re feeling inside definitely influences what we do.”