Variances in Human Morality from a Cross-Cultural Perspective — An Inquiry on the Role of Self-Construal

We describe a cross-cultural research project guided by two related research questions. Essentially, we ask: Which moral system guides cooperation in different cultures? In addition to this we ask: is there a systematic correspondence between morality and self-construal? Our project focuses on culture, self-construal and morality from an overarching evolutionary psychology perspective, but also draws on the broader social science literature. This research plan first introduces the central topics of culture, self-construal and morality from a theoretical angle. Additionally, a theoretical perspective of the coalescence of Moral Foundations Theory and Morality as Cooperation Theory is presented. In line with this perspective, we propose a new scale, a factorial survey and a series of dilemma scenarios as a means of empirically capturing morality. Finally, the theoretical part of our work culminates in a heuristic research model and lists our central hypotheses. This is followed by the practical part of our research plan. Here we present the plan for three studies and explain our research design and methodological aspects of cross-cultural research. In particular, the case selection of our studies — we collect data in Egypt, Germany, Japan and the United States — and the aspect of measurement invariance are discussed in detail. We conclude our research plan with three comprehensive analysis plans. Overall, our project aims to fill a methodological gap by developing new instruments to measure evaluations of deviance with respect to different domains of morality. Furthermore, we aim to contribute to the debate on universalism of our evolved moral mind, and to investigate and explain cultural differences in moral systems and self-construal.