When politicians commit moral transgressions, how do voters respond? A recent study published in American Politics Research sought to answer this question by examining whether partisan voters in the United States differ in their desire to punish politicians for moral violations. The findings reveal intriguing differences between Republican and Democratic voters.
“Annemarie Walter and I have been working for several years on the question of the degree to which voters own moral values anchor their responses to politicians who violate them. The rise of Donald Trump seems to have changed the landscape in the U.S., so that violations of moral precepts that would have sunk any candidate in the past seem to have no discernible effect on his support,” said study author David P. Redlawsk, the James R. Soles Professor of Political Science at the University of Delaware and author of A Citizen’s Guide to the Political Psychology of Voting.
“We began with studies in the U.S. that examined whether the moral foundations people hold influenced their emotional responses to transgressive politicians. We found that while deeply held moral values do anchor some level of emotional response, partisanship seems to play a stronger role. Moral foundations seem to be malleable, rather than foundational, when partisanship is involved.”
“This latest paper expands this work by looking at a different outcome – the desire to punish politicians for moral transgression. Where our focus on emotions is about how voters feel, this paper looks at what action (punishment) voters believe should be taken against such politicians. We measure desire to punish with a set of potential actions that might be taken, from requiring an apology, to restoring damage caused, getting a warning from a party leader, and being reported to authorities, to being removed from office.”
The study was carried out during the final month of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, leveraging the heightened political focus of voters during this period. The sample consisted of 2,997 U.S. respondents, recruited to represent the American adult population in terms of age, gender, race/ethnicity, income, and region.
Each participant was randomly assigned one of several short vignettes that described a fictional yet realistic scenario where a politician committed a moral transgression. The vignettes were designed based on Moral Foundations Theory, which outlines five moral principles: Care, Fairness, Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity. Additionally, a social norm violation was included to serve as a baseline for comparison. The vignettes also varied in terms of the politician’s partisan label, with some being identified as Democrats, Republicans, or having no partisan affiliation mentioned.
The transgressions included a politician mocking a constituent with mental health issues (Care violation), giving job preference to supporters (Fairness violation), praising a neighboring town over their own (Loyalty violation), disregarding safety regulations during a disaster (Authority violation), and engaging in a sexual relationship with a teenager (Sanctity violation). The social norm violation involved a politician carrying briefing papers in a plastic grocery bag.
After reading the vignette, respondents were asked to rate their agreement with statements related to both restorative and retributive justice on a 5-point scale. These statements were designed to measure the respondents’ desire for punishment (known as punitiveness).
The results showed that Republican and Democratic voters differ in their desire to punish politicians for moral transgressions. When the perceived severity of a moral violation was low, Republicans exhibited a stronger desire to punish than Democrats. However, this punitive desire was significantly reduced if the transgressor was a member of their own party.
In contrast, Democratic voters demonstrated a higher overall desire to punish politicians for moral violations, particularly when the perceived severity was moderate to high. Notably, Democrats did not show an in-party bias; their punitive responses were consistent regardless of the politician’s party affiliation.
“While we would like to think that our moral values ground us even in politics, this turns out to be highly conditional,” Redlawsk told PsyPost. “Whether we want to punish politicians we see violate moral values depends quite a bit on whether they are on ‘our team’ or the other side, as well as on the perceived severity of the moral violation. Low severity violations appear more important to Republicans than Democrats, with GOP voters showing a stronger desire to punish these kinds of violations, but only when the violator is a not a Republican politician.”
“But when voters perceive a moral violation be moderately or very severe, then Democrats show a stronger desire to punish the politician, and unlike Republicans, they show no bias toward their own party. Of particular interest is that we also find Republicans rate the set of moral violations as less severe overall than do Democrats. This could help explain why Republicans consistently show less desire for punishment of their own party violators than do Democrats.”
“Overall, we reinforce earlier findings that moral foundations are not a clear bedrock on which our beliefs about how to respond to transgressive politicians rest,” Redlawsk explained. “Instead, partisanship seems to be able to override moral foundations, especially among Republican voters in our studies and especially when the violation is perceived as less severe.”
“We’ve been consistently surprised about how readily supposedly core moral values are ‘pushed around’ by partisan preference. This study is the first to help us better understand it by looking at the perceived severity of a set of moral violations. We were somewhat surprised to see strong party differences in how severe the violations we used were perceived. The issue may be that rather than Republicans caring less about moral violations of their candidates, they simply don’t see the violations as being severe, compared to Democrats.”
But there are some caveats to consider. For instance, the study was conducted during the highly contested 2020 U.S. presidential election, a period marked by heightened political polarization and an incumbent known for frequent moral transgressions, which may have influenced respondents’ reactions. This timing raises questions about whether the findings would hold in a less charged political environment.
“We are working to expand the research beyond the U.S. (we have a sample of voters in England, for example) and to examine moral values as an identity,” Redlawsk said. “It is important that expand beyond the limited example of the United States, since moral values are thought to be more or less universal. In addition, so far we have been asking people about the degree to which they endorse particular moral foundations.”
“We plan to shift to looking at how people perceive of themselves as moral persons, and whether that increases the effects of moral principles on perceptions of politicians who violate them. We also hope to better understand the relative importance of partisan identity versus moral identity. Longer term, we want to examine how moral values and identity influence political decision making, especially by local elected officials. That’s the next major direction for this research.”
The study, “Partisan Differences in Voters’ Desire for Punishment in Response to Politicians’ Moral Transgressions,” was authored by David P. Redlawsk and Annemarie S. Walter.
