If you are a politician, changing your convictions could cost you

CYNICS may regard the phrase “political morality” as an oxymoron. Nevertheless, many politicians insist that their stated beliefs have a moral basis rather than a merely pragmatic one. And personal convictions aside, moralising has many benefits: past research suggests that leaders who make moral arguments are seen as having better characters, and that they are better at persuading waverers to their cause.

But all power comes at a price. As Tamar Kreps of the University of Utah and her colleagues report, in a paper to be published soon in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, those who claim moral rather than pragmatic reasons for their policies may find themselves punished more harshly by voters if they later change their minds.

Dr Kreps’s research involved 15 separate experiments, conducted online through Amazon’s “Mechanical Turk” service, in which people are paid commissions for completing odd jobs. Each...Continue reading

Source: Science and technology http://ift.tt/2sFIQeY

Share this

Related Posts

Previous
Next Post »