Scientists expected both liberals and conservatives to be reluctant to promote rhetoric associated with the opposing political side, but this was more consistent among liberals. Conservatives appeared relatively willing to support causes aligned with their views regardless of the moral framing used.
Liberals hesitate to share progressive causes framed with conservative moral language
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**Liberals hesitate to share progressive causes framed with conservative moral language**
A new study published in the [*Journal of Experimental Social Psychology*](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2026.104893) suggests that the specific moral language used to promote a political cause can affect whether people are willing to share it on social media. The findings indicate that liberals are less likely to publicly support a cause they agree with if the messaging relies on values typically associated with conservatives. In contrast, conservatives appear to focus more on the underlying cause itself and share messages consistently regardless of the moral phrasing used.
“We expected both liberals and conservatives might be reluctant to promote rhetoric associated with the opposing political side, but the effect was much more consistent among liberals. Conservatives appeared relatively willing to support causes aligned with their views regardless of the specific moral framing used.”
“Our findings suggest that the way a message is morally framed can shape whether people are willing to publicly promote it online,” Gamez-Djokic said. “Across several studies, liberals were less willing to share messages supporting causes they agreed with when those messages used ‘binding’ moral rhetoric, language emphasizing values like purity, loyalty, authority, or tradition, which are often associated with conservatism.”
“Importantly, this did not necessarily mean liberals disagreed with the cause itself,” she said. “Instead, they appeared concerned about publicly amplifying rhetoric they perceived as ideologically associated with political opponents. Conservatives, by contrast, were generally less sensitive to whether messages used binding or individualizing moral language.”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022103126000235
>A consistent asymmetry emerged: liberals were less willing to share messages framed with binding (vs. individualizing) rhetoric when promoting causes they supported – such as abortion rights, environmental protection, and anti-harassment efforts (Studies 1a, 2a, 3).
What is “binding vs individualized” rhetoric?
>”…liberals were less willing to share messages supporting causes they agreed with when those messages used ‘binding’ moral rhetoric, language emphasizing values like purity, loyalty, authority, or tradition, which are often associated with conservatism.”
These aren’t terms liberals use and are concepts opposed to liberalism. I don’t understand why the authors would think liberals would use this type of language. How do you push for civil rights through tradition or authority when tradition and authority are the things that need to be overturned for civil rights to take hold?
Liberals care about the means used to achieve the ends.
Conservatives think the ends justify the means, regardless of what those means are
I’d really like to see actual examples of the language instead how they bucketed it, individualized vs binding. Just based on how they described it, it makes sense that people leaned the way they did?
Well yeah… They are completely fine supporting a pedophile because he’s mean to minorities and immigrants…
This is one of the worst parts of Reddit. I have to read users tripping and falling all over themselves to not accidentally encode a conservative framing into their language…that combined with the bot level of niceties. It’s a turn off in general.
And that mindset has driven a “litmus test” mentality where someone cannot express an independent nuance without a mob descending.
Lithgow was right. JK was baited because of her nuance. Then she melted down.
I only read the abstract and what OP shared in the comments, but this feels like a potential case of conservatives not caring about methods to achieve their preferred outcomes so long as they get their outcomes, while liberals actually do care about the means by which they achieve their goals. I really ought to just read the whole study, though.
Edit: couldn’t read the whole thing because it requires an organization login, but I saw this bit: “Scholars have long argued that political conflict stems from an inability to understand moral worldviews different from one’s own (Ditto & Koleva, 2011; Haidt, 2012; Lakoff, 2010). Our findings reveal a subtler challenge: even when people understand opposing moral perspectives, they may still avoid amplifying them—especially in public, high-visibility contexts.” I mean, yeah, just because I understand someone else’s point of view doesn’t mean I’m going to espouse them, tf? Do the authors not think there’s a difference between comprehension and agreement?
Let’s see if the Reddit’s comment session will choose to do their best to interpret this data in a way that frames conservatives as morally in the wrong regardless of their views.
So if I’m reading this correctly liberals are more likely to reject a cause/proposal if they disagree with the rhetoric used, whereas conservatives are more likely to support a cause/proposal regardless of the rhetoric used.
That’s rather surprising because in my experience conservative political movements tend to be more likely to take an antagonistic stance towards the opposition, such as when Newt Gingrich used his Speakership in ’94-’99 to promote a more anti-Democratic mindset in the Republican party.
Of course, the situation in the USA could be anomalous and not indicative of anything, although even in European countries similar strategies can be seen… Unfortunately the strong cultural influence of the USA means that political movements in Europe can’t be considered isolated from those in the USA.
Assuming this phenomenon isn’t anomalous I can think of 2 possible explanations for the seeming discrepancy:
1. Conservatives don’t care about moral framing but they do care about tribal affiliations. They tend towards antagonism not because of moral disagreement but from the simple fact that, to them, the opposition is the opposition. Which would have the consequence that conservatives are more willing to look past the framing used but judge more harshly based on the source.
2. Conservatives don’t care about either moral framing or tribal affiliation but they are more concerned with gaining and maintaining political influence, to the point that they’d be willing to compromise on their own causes if necessary to prevent other political movements from gaining influence. This would mean that conservative behaviour on the political level is primarily motivated by the potential consequences.
These 2 options may sound the same but there is an important difference. With the former option the difference between conservatives and liberals isn’t necessarily how judgemental they are but what they are judgemental about: liberals care about the how and conservatives care about the who. Since this experiment focused on the how it would highlight this difference, although of course further study would be required to verify whether conservatives are more inclined to change their opinion based on who agrees or disagrees with them than liberals.
The latter would mean that conservatives are indeed less judgemental overall and more willing to commit to realpolitik, that is to say, they will focus on achieving their own objectives regardless of either how or who. Which, again, would require further study to verify, but if true would strongly indicate that they are more goal-oriented and arguably more pragmatic.
The reality is conservatives often use liberal language to gather a larger audience. If you’ve spent any amount of time in discussions online you’ll be extremely atuned to this and suspicious of the author’s motives.
How do they define the terms “liberal” and “conservative” , those are quite neat boxes to put people in.
This post is a very simple example of how dumb the general populace really is. Nearly all of the comments are reading the result the wrong way
Would be interesting to introduce vaccine skepticism to this study, because a white Christian nationalist who wants to kick all the brown people out in the name of maintaining America’s national character or whatever is a bomb-throwing nihilist when it comes to taking vaccines, something which is incredibly protective to society holistically.
Holy hell, the defensive butthurt in this thread.
Liberalism is inherently intellectual, leading to nuance and continual evolution of points of view. That’s why liberalism is strongly associated with education level. Conservatism is emotional and defined by dogma. Unity and membership in the tribe are core values. I’m not even sure the specific ideology really matters since no established fascist/conservative regime has ever collapsed due to internal schism over whether results matched the promises. Conformity and unity above all.
Policies are not the point. Social organization is. Conservatives deeply want to be part of a larger tribe whereas groupthink is anathema to liberals. Groupthink unfortunately is far more effective politically.
If any social scientist read the article does it look like it was good science?
Though weirdly, when you remove rhetoric and biased language, Republicans overwhelmingly prefer Democrat policies.
All I read was
“Liberals stick to their convictions and don’t support causes unless they fully align with their values”
“Conservatives will say whatever it takes to get what they want”
Tell me that’s not what the data is telling us???
Essentially this boils down to liberals don’t use confused messaging (which is why they are bad at it) and with conservatives it’s cognitive dissonance all the way down.
Many conservatives were once liberals over all. Most of us are pretty left aligned as children an young adults. After all, almost everyone grows up in a home that practices communism (each according to their needs). It takes a long while in the real world…comes faster as a male since you’re on your own much more…to realize this is sadly idealistic and utopian.