Para citar este artículo: Mullet, E., López López, W., Kpanake, L., Mukashema, I., Armange, R., Kamble, S., … Neto, F. (2016). Functional measurement in the field of ethics in politics. Universitas Psychologica, 15 (3), http://dx.doi.org/10.11144/Javeriana.upsy15-3.fmf

Functional measurement in the field of ethics in politics

According to Aristotle (-350, 2004), ethics is the determination —in each concrete set of circumstances encountered in daily life— of what constitutes the more acceptable conduct or, in no few cases, the less unacceptable conduct. The aim of the present article is to report, in a synthetic way, a series of empirical studies on ethics which, using Functional Measurement (Anderson, 1981, 1982, see also Anderson in this special issue), have been conducted in the specific field of ethics in politics.

These studies are listed in Table 1. In this table, the six domains suggested in Haidt’s (2013) Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) — care, fairness, authority, loyalty, disgust, and also liberty— have been used as a convenient framework for classification. For example, the first study to be reported, which bears on the acceptability of military-humanitarian interventions, has been classified into the MFT’s care domain because protecting endangered people is, for evident reasons, exemplary of what is intended by care and protection.

Also, the spirit in which these studies were conducted is fully consistent with MFT’s stance regarding the nature of human thinking about moral issues. In daily life, moral thinking expresses itself through moral judgment, that is, the ability to react quickly to daily situations involving moral issues. Moral judgement can be defined as an implicit cognitive process that corresponds to what cognitive psychologists call System 1 (Kahneman, 2011). It is grounded in human evolution and probably goes back to late mammals’ development.

Our focus on moral judgment is not a denial of moral reasoning. Moral reasoning refers to the ability to deliberate consciously about moral behaviour, that is, to weigh the pros and cons of complex situations involving moral issues (Gibbs, 2010). Moral reasoning is an explicit, relatively slow, cognitive process that corresponds to what cognitive psychologists call System 2 (Kahneman, 2011). Moral reasoning is, however, largely the province of moral philosophers. In ordinary people’s daily life, moral reasoning occurs only in particular circumstances, for example, when they are asked to justify their views publicly. “Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second” (Haidt, 2013, p.14), if the latter comes at all.

The studies synthesised in this review have a common methodological and theoretical framework: Information Integration Theory (IIT, Anderson, 2008). They are the heirs of the many studies on moral development conducted in this framework (see Anderson, 2015 for a review). The oldest of these studies, published at the end of the 1970s, had largely anticipated MFT’s stand. Whereas typical developmental psychologists at this time examined moral development by presenting their young participants with moral dilemmas, psychologists working in the framework of IIT already used realistic scenarios, grounded on children’s and adolescents’ real life, and their conclusions regarding the structure of moral development were severely at variance with the reigning view (e.g., Surber, 1977). Also, like MFT, they explored a large set of moral issues, including blame, punishment, and legal judgment (e.g., Hommers, 1988); deserving, equity, and fairness/unfairness (e.g., Farkas & Anderson, 1979); lies and deceit; and gratitude and forgiveness (e.g., Girard & Mullet, 1997).

Problems of ethics arise most often in situations that can be considered as complex, indeed as emotionally charged, in situations in which certain elements point in one direction and other elements in the opposite direction. In other words, multiple factors are most often in play, and they are likely to contribute in a complex way to the final judgment relating to conformity with ethics. It is, therefore, not surprising that we have found in Information Integration Theory —a theory of human judgment in daily life– a convenient tool for examining the way people intuitively balance the pros and the cons in such circumstances when determining whether it is fair to attribute guilt to offspring of perpetrators of a genocide;, whether it is, in time of civil war, a betrayal to forgive the perpetrators of violence against family members; or whether rape is so disgusting that serial rapists deserve the death penalty.

An interesting feature of the studies that are reported here is their international character. They were conducted in many countries: Angola, Colombia, France (metropolitan, but also Martinique), India, Lebanon, Mozambique, Rwanda, and Venezuela. Participants were usually people who were more or less directly involved in political troubles and violence, such as victims of the genocide in Rwanda or citizens affected by governmental instability in Venezuela. The extremely flexible character of the IIT methodology allowed us to gather meaningful data from people usually untrained in psychological experiments without having to spend disproportionate amounts of time and money (see Mullet , Morales, Makris, Rogé, & Muñoz Sastre, 2012). The key feature of this methodology resides, in our view, in the use of realistic scenarios, of the kind of stories any one can listen to when waiting at the hairdresser. Everybody can make sense of them, and respond in a way that is both strictly personal and fully reasonable.

Care vs. harm: The legitimacy of humanitarian military interventions

Neto et al. (2013) examined (a) the extent to which educated people living in two African countries with much internal conflict in the past, but with contrasting experiences regarding UN interventions - Angola and Mozambique - agreed with the idea that humanitarian military interventions by UN forces can be legitimate, and (b) the contextual factors that may impact on their level of acceptance of these interventions.

Protecting vulnerable people from state-orchestrated abuses, forced displacement, and other forms of violence, not to speak of mass killing, is undisputedly a noble objective, likely to rally public opinion, at least in Western countries. Humanitarian military interventions, however, remain controversial as they involve the use of force, are conducted in disregard of state sovereignty, and are not always regarded as successful or exempt from second thoughts.

At the time of the study, nothing was known about public opinion in non-Western countries regarding such interventions. This lack was unfortunate because the very success of a humanitarian intervention depends heavily on the way the people who are likely to benefit from it conceive of it: Success depends directly on the collaboration between the military and the state-victimized people the military is supposed to help.

In the study by Neto et al. (2013), 201 university students from the areas of Luanda and Maputo, aged 18-40 were presented with 48 realistic vignettes composed by orthogonally crossing the levels of five factors, partly taken from Chirot and Seligman (2001):

• the economic-political situation in the country (good versus in constant degradation);

• the political project of the government (forced acculturation of the minority, forced displacement of the minority and relocation to poorer areas, or physical elimination);

• the degree of isolation of the country (completely isolated country versus not particularly isolated country);

• the number of ethnic groups in the country (two groups versus multiple groups); and

• the level of contact between the majority group and the other group(s) (no contact and no intermarriage versus frequent contacts and frequent intermarriage).

An example of scenario is the following:

Hizrah is a very isolated country that is far from the main international communication axes. Two ethnic groups live there: the Wayas (the majority) and the Cingas (a minority). There are very few contacts between the members of the two groups. For example, a Waya would never marry a Cinga and vice versa. The economic situation of Hizrah is constantly deteriorating. In addition, this country has never experienced political stability. The new government in place, in the hands of the Wayas (the majority), tends to sympathize with extreme views, namely the complete elimination of the Cingas who are considered as responsible for the current difficulties in the country and who are feared by the majority. It would seem that, from time to time, limited killings have been perpetrated. The current situation is not well understood because the information coming from this country is of poor quality, and the international media does not usually devote much interest to this part of the world.

The question was, “To what extent do you believe that, in such a case, a humanitarian military intervention of UN forces would be legitimate even in the case where the official government opposes it?” As many different attitudes were expected, a cluster analysis was applied to the raw data (Hofmans & Mullet, 2013). A four-cluster solution was retained, and the corresponding four “attitude profiles” (Anderson, 2008, p. 181) are shown in Figure 1.

The first position was called Always Legitimate because all acceptability ratings were high, irrespective of the situation. The second position was called Mainly Depending on Political Project because the factor with, by far, the largest effect was the political project: An intervention was considered as more legitimate when the project involved the physical elimination of the minority than when the project involved forced displacement or forced acculturation. The third position was called Mainly Depending on Economic-Political Situation . An intervention was judged more acceptable when the economic-political situation of the country was deteriorating than when it was stable. Finally, the fourth cluster was called Undetermined because all acceptability ratings were close to the middle of the response scale, irrespective of the situation. Overall, the Mozambicans supported interventions more often than did the Angolans.

For the participants as a whole, preventing the massacre of a population represented a just cause that was sufficient to legitimize a UN intervention. In addition, participants living in a country in which a full-scale UN intervention had taken place in the past (Mozambique) were more supportive of UN interventions than participants living in a country where such an intervention had not taken place (Angola).

This type of intervention was probably considered by participants as very likely to have positive humanitarian outcome since it is difficult to consider the saving of thousands of human lives as negative or even neutral, and the UN was considered as the right authority. Educated people in Angola and Mozambique would have been likely, therefore, to view as legitimate the UN-mandated interventions in Cambodia, Rwanda, and possibly East-Timor.

In other, less dramatic cases —in particular when the economic-political situation was stable — the participants as a whole did not approve of military humanitarian interventions. They likely saw military interventions in these cases as out of proportion with the actual threat to the minority group. Educated people in Angola and Mozambique would probably, therefore, have considered as only mildly legitimate the UN- mandated military interventions in Afghanistan and possibly in Iraq.

Care vs. harm: Addictive substances, users’ health, and the Government’s responsibility

Camus et al. (2016) examined the extent to which people consider that the government of their country is directly implicated each time an addictive substance user’s health deteriorates, and whether this possible attribution of responsibility depends on political orientation. Addictive substances have bad health effects on users and bad social effects. Government policies about these substances mediate, affect, and sometimes cause these undesirable effects: Different policies have different combinations of benefits and detriments.

If people, in general, tend to attribute a high level of responsibility to the government each time someone in the country dies from the consequences of tobacco, alcohol, or other substance consumption, then governments’ reluctance to implement more liberal policies, for example, to extend the range of licit psychoactive substances, can be considered as relatively well grounded. If people tend to think that substance users are mainly responsible for their resulting bad health and that the government’s share of responsibility is low, governments may feel less pressured by public opinion and more open to changes in policy based on scientific evidence.

In the study by Camus et al. (2016), 236 participants, aged 18-86 were presented with 80 realistic vignettes composed by the orthogonal crossing of five factors:

• the scientific evidence available regarding the dangerousness of the substance (available evidence vs. simple suspicion);

• the length of time since the first concerns about the substance’s dangerousness (30 years vs. 5 years);

• the level of personal susceptibility (everybody vs. some people);

• the level of consumption (moderate vs. immoderate); and

• the current state policy regarding the substance: no information campaign and free market; no information campaign and regulation by the state; information campaigns and free market; information campaigns and regulation by the state; information campaigns and complete prohibition.

An example of a story is the following:

Mr. Smith is currently suffering from a severe illness, and he is going to die in few weeks or in few months. This illness is due to the consumption of a substance. It has been scientifically proved, for more than thirty years that the type of substance that Mr. Smith used to consume induces, in certain persons with a particular sensitivity, this kind of illness. The government has not, until now, launched any information campaign informing the public of the potential dangerousness of the substance. It is sold freely, in specialized shops. Mr. Smith consumed the substances in a way that can be called immoderate.

The question was, “To what extent do you think that the government is partly responsible for what has happened to Mr. Smith”? Figure 2 shows the main findings. The effect of the type of policy was strong. Mean responsibility ratings were about 10.50 (out of 15) when the sale of the substance was regulated by the state (state monopoly) and the public was not informed, 10 when the sale was not regulated by the state and the public was not informed, 8 when the sale was not regulated by the state and the public was not informed, 7 when the sale was not regulated by the state and the public was informed, and only 1.50 when the sale of the substance was strictly prohibited and the public was informed. More responsibility was attributed when scientific evidence was available than when it was not, and the two effects interacted. The effect of level of consumption (and of the two remaining factors) was weaker.

Political orientation had a non-negligible impact on responsibility attribution: Left wingers attributed more responsibility to the government than centrists or right wingers. Also, the effect of scientific evidence was stronger among rightists than among centrists or leftists, and the effect of state policy was stronger among leftists than among centrists or rightists.

It was only in the case of total prohibition that governments were perceived as relieved of any responsibility. In addition, perceived responsibility was only slightly attenuated when systematic information campaigns existed, scientific evidence was not strong, and the persons’ levels of consumption were immoderate. Governments, either conservative or liberal, have, therefore, well-grounded political reasons to maintain and defend prohibitive policies regarding certain addictive substances.

People must realize, therefore, that no perfect substance policy can exist because policing of substances, like many issues in politics, has the structure of a dilemma: (a) Either governments legalize additional psychoactive substances (e.g., cannabis) and they will be held responsible each time a user’s health is endangered as a result of consumption of this newly legalized substance, or (b) governments stick to prohibitive views regarding these additional substances and they will be held responsible for the violence, health consequences (e.g. the propagation of viruses), and enforcement costs engendered by the policy itself, not only at the national but also at the international level.

Governments’ position can only safely evolve from strict prohibitive views to regulatory views if some conditions are fulfilled. In some countries, people, especially leftists, have the tendency to attribute responsibility to the government every time anything goes wrong in society. Before a change in policy can be envisioned, people must stop thinking that governments are automatically fully responsible every time someone’s health deteriorates because of the use of illegal substances.

A change would, furthermore, be more acceptable if people would not focus exclusively on the local impact of permitting drug use and dealing, but would also take into the account the national and international consequences of prohibiting them. One of them is the elevated level of criminal violence drug trade generates in affected countries, without mentioning corruption at all levels of these societies (Dávila Cervantes & Pardo Montaño, 2014). Drawing people’s attention from local-scale concerns to world-scale concerns might make them more demanding towards their governments. A policy can only be sustainable, at least for any length of time, if it balances the many factors involved including public opinion, public health, and national and international order (Fetherston & Lenton, 2005). Responsibility is a common burden. Governments have responsibility for their citizens’ health but not to the point that citizens can feel relieved of any responsibility. Governments have responsibility for their citizens’ health but not to the point that they should feel relieved of responsibility for foreign people’s health and safety.

Fairness vs. unfairness: Political amnesties during political transition

Kpanake and Mullet (2011) examined the extent to which Togolese people judge political amnesties to be acceptable. Amnesties are often systematically granted by transitional regimes to former perpetrators of violence as a way of achieving the shift to democracy. Amnesties, however, have a price: They may be viewed by both victims and the populace in general as basically unjust, immoral, economically and socially inappropriate and even viewed by the victims and populace as politically dangerous.

At the time of the study, Togo was experiencing a political transition after years of presidential dictatorship. In 2008, the new president officially announced the creation of a Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation Commission. National consultations were launched, and all citizens were invited to contribute to the implementation of the commission. As a result, citizens were sensitized to the issue of political amnesties.

In the study by Kpanake and Mullet (2011), 351 people aged 18 to 78 were presented with 48 realistic vignettes that were composed by orthogonally crossing the levels of five factors partly taken from Gibson (2002):

• the quality and quantity of the information that the amnesty applicant was willing to reveal (very important revelations, some true information, doubtful information);

• the presence-absence of sincere apologies (sincere apologies and demonstration of remorse, no apology and no expression of concern for the victims);

• the opportunity given to the victims to tell their story during the process (full opportunity, no real opportunity);

• the level of compensation for the harm done (reasonable compensation, virtually no compensation); and

• the level of punishment of the amnesty applicant (loss of job and separation from the family, status quo).

An example scenario is the following:

“Paul was the local chief of police and a member of the party in power. He was accused of personally executing two opponents of the regime. In addition, he was also accused of having encouraged the people working for him to use violence against anyone deemed a threat to the power. Paul asked to testify in front of the Truth Commission to receive the amnesty that the new government had promised to persons who agreed to testify openly in front of the commission.

Paul revealed some facts - unknown until now - on police activity in his sector and the responsibilities of his direct superiors. These facts have been verified, and they helped move forward the investigation. During the public hearings, Paul presented his apologies to the victim’s families and all the population of his sector. He was very moved, and his apologies seemed to be sincere. It even appeared as if Paul himself may have been another victim of the oppressive regime.

During the public hearings, the victim’s families were able to express their suffering openly and the way(s) that the loss of two of their family members had affected their lives. The president of the commission gave them enough time to express themselves, and the commission showed them respect without ever doubting their sincerity. Victims’ families received considerable financial compensation. They were given the assurance that the basic education of the victims’ children would be supported by the government and the international non-profit organizations. They even found a stable employment for the widow of one of the victims. Paul is without employment at the present time. His close family left him when they learned of his past conduct. He is a broken man. Furthermore, he had to return all of the possessions he had stolen in the course of his career to their rightful owners.”

The question was, “To what extent do you believe that the amnesty was acceptable in this case?” Figure 3 illustrates the main findings. When no apologies were present, the effects of revealing information and opportunity to tell one’s story (as well as the effects of victim’s compensation and the amnesty applicant’s suffering) were virtually nil. When absolutely no truth was revealed, the effects of opportunity to tell one’s story (as well as victim’s compensation and amnesty applicant’s suffering) were weaker than when the full truth was revealed.

Overall, in only five cases (out of 48) acceptability ratings were clearly higher than the mid-point of the acceptability scale (>8). For the amnesty to be judged acceptable, (a) sincere apologies must be present, that is, applicants are expected to demonstrate that they have realized that their political conduct was wrong; (b) very important facts must have been revealed, that is, applicants are expected to show their willingness to contribute to the truth seeking process; and (c) at least two of the other three factors must have a positive value (e.g., applicants have personally suffered as a result of their misconduct and victims have been compensated). The following formula summarizes the overall findings:

Acceptability = (Truth x Apologies) (Procedure + Compensation + Punishment)

The message that was conveyed by the Togolese participants was that full compensation to the victim is not enough for amnesties to be viewed as fair. The only acceptable amnesties are the ones that are granted to truly cooperative and remorseful applicants, with the additional requirement that the victims be properly if not fully compensated. The implications of these findings are straightforward. Each time amnesty is granted to former members of undemocratic regimes who are perceived by the people as unrepentant murderers who still feel justified in behaving the way they did, the amnesty process is bound to be perceived as unacceptable (Wilson, 2001).

Of course, most people can understand that an amnesty process can ease political transition because powerful members of the old regime are often able to block indefinitely the process to democracy if they have no strong assurances that their fortune and their freedom will be untouched (Gibson, 2004). As a result, people can, at least temporarily, agree with an amnesty process because they perceive it as a political necessity. In the long run, however, once the power of the amnestied person has faded, the legitimacy of the amnesty process is in danger of being strongly questioned.

Fairness vs. unfairness: Attribution of guilt to offspring of perpetrators of the genocide against Tutsi

Mukashema and Mullet (2015) examined the attribution of guilt to offspring of people who were directly involved in the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda: To what extent can the son or grandson of a small farmer who participated in the genocide be considered as guilty of his father’s or grandfather’s deeds? This question is an important one because it has many implications for daily life in Rwanda and for the future of the country. In this tiny country, former victims and victims’ offspring and former perpetrators and perpetrators’ offspring live and work in the same villages or in the same boroughs. Many of them know each other very well, they go to the same markets and they attend the same religious celebrations in the same churches. If guilt were to be attributed on an associative basis, all victims would be entitled to consider all the members of the group that perpetrated the genocide — elderly people, adult people, adolescents, child, infants, and even babies to be born— as guilty. At least some of them would feel justified in taking revenge on these young people. The situation would probably be untenable.

In the study by Mukashema and Mullet (2015), 55 participants aged 18 to 61, all of them coming from the group targeted by the genocide, were presented with 24 realistic vignettes composed by orthogonally crossing the levels of two factors:

• the target for the attribution of guilt (either the actor or the actor’s son), and

• the level of involvement in the genocide (state official who planned the genocide and killing; state official who planned the genocide but did not participate; officer organizing the massacres locally and killing people as a matter of example; civil servant willingly killing family members; small farmer killing family members under officers’ supervision; small farmer killing other people than family members; small farmer hurting people; truck driver informing the killers; supporter of the genocide living abroad; supporter who did not participate; opponent who remained a passive bystander; opponent who actively saved lives and was hurt).

An example of scenario is the following:

Rafayire M. was born in 1990. His father was a small farmer. His father was not a supporter of the government because he disagreed with the discrimination and the invitation to violence. He refused to take part in the killings. He, however, never interposed himself between killers and victims. Rafayire’s father did not publicly condemn the genocide, and he did not try to hide or help the persons targeted. He remained a passive bystander.

The question was, “What is, from your personal viewpoint, the level of guilt that must be attributed to this person?” As we wanted to separate neatly the participants who would attribute guilt from the others, we performed a cluster analysis. Figure 4 shows the two-cluster solution that was retained. The first cluster was called Some Intergenerational Transmission of Guilt because the ratings of guilt attributed to offspring were higher than zero, and depended on level of father’s involvement. The level of guilt attributed (a) to people who participated in the killings, simply supported the idea of genocide, or did nothing to help the victims was always very high, ranging from approximately 8 to 10, and (b) to opponents who saved lives was nil.

The second, majority cluster was called No Intergenerational Transmission of Guilt because the ratings of guilt attributed to offspring were always close to zero. The level of guilt attributed (a) to people who participated in the killings either directly or indirectly (e.g. informers) was very high, ranging from approximately 8 to 10; (b) to people who did not kill (e.g., simply hurt without killing or supported the genocide) was high, ranging from approximately 6 to 7.5; (c) to passive bystanders was relatively low, although not nil (approximately 3); and (d) to opponents who saved lives was nil.

The majority position was, therefore, that offspring, owing to their non-participation in the genocide, were totally free of guilt. This position has been incorporated in most penal codes around the world, and it is, logically, the official position of Rwanda’s government at least since the end of the genocide. The minority position was that perpetrators’ offspring inherited at least part of their genitors’ guilt, especially if their fathers were state officials who deliberately planned the genocide. No guilt was, however, transferred if the father or the grandfather did not kill anybody. The existence of only a small cluster of participants sharing the transmission of guilt view was consistent with most previous field studies showing that feeling or expression of collective guilt is not a frequent phenomenon (Leach, Bou Zeineddine, & Čehajić-Clancy, 2012).

Non-attribution of guilt to offspring of perpetrators was, in our view, not simply legalist thinking, but also adaptive thinking. From an historical perspective, we are all currently alive because we are survivors of previous conflicts. We have survived because our direct ancestors were able successfully to attack and despoil other people, and/or because our ancestors were able to resist, through bloody fights, other groups’ attacks, and/or because our ancestors preferred not to take sides in conflicts in which other people were victimized. If guilt had to be attributed not only on an individual basis (“objective” guilt) but also on an associative basis, all of us would be, by intergenerational transmission, guilty of thousands of previous crimes and injustices committed by our direct ancestors since the dawn of Homo sapiens.

Exonerating perpetrators’ offspring of personal guilt is certainly the most reasonable thing to do, even if it may be shocking from a moral perspective centered on the here and now. It allows all of us to live without the unbearable burden of culpability that would be associated with humanity’s struggle for life since time immemorial and, at the same time, it denies the possibility that revenge can legitimately be exacted (or worse, should be exacted) on perpetrators’ offspring. It does not dispense us, however, from acknowledging (a) that wrongs have been committed, (b) that perpetrators’ offspring have a special duty towards people their ancestors have recently wronged, and (c) that everybody – victims’ offspring, perpetrators’ offspring, and bystanders – must work to prevent such wrongs from reoccurring in the future.

Trying to persuade people that, whether they like it or not, they share their ancestor’s guilt is likely to make most of them feel more defensive and less collaborative. Leading people to think that, although there is no basis for holding them personally guilty, they should do something to repair what has been done by their ancestors is likely to make most of them feel less defensive and more collaborative.

Fairness vs. unfairness: Slave descendants’ views regarding national policies on reparation

Armange and Mullet (2016) examined the acceptability to people whose families had been directly affected by slavery of possible national policies on reparations for slavery. For four centuries, African people living in West Africa were regularly transported as cargo by European traders to South America, the Caribbean Islands, and North America . It is estimated that at least twelve million people were purchased from local leaders in Western Africa and shipped through the Atlantic (Quirk, 2014). Although slavery was abolished during the nineteenth century, reparation for slavery is still a debated issue. Slave owners were compensated for the loss of their slaves. For example, when the decree of abolition was passed in 1833, the British government disbursed the equivalent of $125 billion (current value in 2016) to compensate 3,000 slave-owning families. In contrast, slave workers have, until now, never been materially compensated, even though the program of “affirmative action” launched in 1961 under the presidency of John Kennedy in the US could, according to some authors (McWhorter, 2001), be seen as a form of compensation.

The study by Armange and Mullet (2016) focused on French slave descendants’ views, and five possible national policies were considered:

• a policy of full acknowledgement by the state’s government of the tragedy of slavery and formal apologies offered by elected officials to the victims of slavery,

• a policy of material compensation of the victims of slavery without acknowledgment by the government of the tragedy of slavery and without formal apologies,

• a policy combining (a) and (b),

• a policy of complete amnesia, and

• a policy of exaltation of the country’s colonial past, associated with public declarations about the positive contribution of former colonists.

Two hundred ninety-eight participants, living on the French island of Martinique, aged 18-80, were presented with a set of 40 vignettes composed by orthogonally crossing the levels of four factors:

• the percentage of slave descendants currently living in the country affected by the policy (20% vs. 1%)

• the percentage of slave descendants currently living in the country affected by the policy (20% vs. 1%);

• the level of their current economic integration (not well integrated vs. well integrated);

• the level of their current social integration (not well integrated vs. well integrated); and

• the current state policy regarding past colonization and slavery in the country (see above).

An example of a vignette is the following:

During the 17^th and 18^th centuries, rich landowners in the country acquired slaves coming from Western Africa. These slaves were freed during the 19^th century. Most of them stayed and made their living in the country. Nowadays, their descendants are several thousand people. They represent about one percent of the population in the country. Economically speaking, they are now well integrated into the production system. Their standard of living is, on average, similar to that of the other inhabitants. They are vibrant and they have access to education and health care to the same extent as the other citizens. Socially speaking, they have never mixed with the rest of the population. They have not had incentives to do so. Few mixed marriages have been recorded. They live in their community.

The country’s government has acknowledged the responsibility of the state regarding the colonial past of the country and the tragedy of slavery. Public apologies have been publicly offered to slave descendants. In addition, this colonial past is not, in the media or at school, presented in a positive light to the young generations.

The question was “To what extent do you consider that such a national policy in acceptable?” Figure 5 shows the main results corresponding to the three clusters that were found.

The first cluster was called Skeptics because the overall mean rating was notably and significantly lower than the middle of the response scale. It is only when full integration was achieved that the two acknowledgement policies were considered as tolerable if not fully acceptable: The two means were close to the middle of the response scale. The second cluster was called Reparationists because ratings were distributed all over the response scale, and the national policy factor had a stronger effect than in the other two clusters. In particular, acceptability was the highest when the state’s policy was one of full acknowledgement and reparation (about 10). It was progressively lower when the policy was acknowledgment with no attempt at reparation (about 8), reparation without full acknowledgment (about 5), amnesia (about 3) or presentation of the colonial past in a positive light (about 2.50). In addition, when economic and social integration was achieved, the effect of national policy was stronger than when they were not achieved. The third cluster was called Undetermined because the responses were always close to the center of the response scale and the effects of the factors were weak. Participants with only primary or secondary education, and who were regular attendees at church were more frequently members of this third cluster and less frequently members of the other two clusters than other participants were. The existence of such an undetermined position is consistent with findings from previous studies on complex societal issues that allowed people to express an absence of position (see Neto et al., 2013).

Although slave descendants living on Martinique differed considerably in their views about the relevance and/or acceptability of national policies of reparation for slavery, they agreed on one important point: For a national policy to be acceptable, or at least tolerable, it must involve public acknowledgment of past wrongs. For some people (35% in the present sample), a national policy that includes public acknowledgment of past wrongs was considered as acceptable, whether it is accompanied by a policy of material compensation or not, and more so if socio-economic integration has been achieved. For others (28%), a national policy that includes public acknowledgment of past wrongs was considered as tolerable if it is accompanied by material compensation and provided that socio-economic integration has been achieved. In no case was a policy of material compensation not accompanied by public acknowledgment of past wrongs considered as acceptable, even if full socio-economic integration has been achieved.

Loyalty vs. betrayal: Forgiving known perpetrators of violence towards family members

López López et al. (2012) examined Colombian people’s positions regarding the granting of forgiveness to persons who have been more or less actively involved in the violence that ravaged the country during the past 60 years. More specifically, they examined whether, as member of a family that has been directly affected by violence, it was viewed as acceptable to forgive, under a set of different conditions, a known perpetrator.

In the aftermath of civil wars, countries face the daunting task of rebuilding themselves on better foundations. They must rebuild not only their material infrastructure but also their societal and psychological infrastructure. Although reestablishing trust and cooperation between former enemies may sometimes seem impossible, it is, nevertheless, a necessary objective. The spirit of revenge, enduring resentment, and lasting dissensions between groups can only generate a deleterious social climate, a climate that is certainly not propitious to innovation, economic development, and prosperity (Cotte Poveda, 2012).

The study by López López et al. (2012) focused on the considerable individual differences in willingness to forgive already reported in previous literature and on the impact of concrete circumstances such as the presence of apologies from the perpetrator. Four hundred participants living in Bogota, aged 18-55, were presented with 48 scenarios composed by the orthogonal crossing of three factors:

• the level of involvement in the violence (organizer, executor, or passive bystander);

• the level of severity of the negative act committed (murder, kidnapping, destruction of property or torture or threat, and theft);

• the level of apologies offered by the perpetrator (no apology at all, acknowledgment of responsibility, begging forgiveness, and begging forgiveness and offering reparation).

A between-subject factor was also introduced in the study: the actors’ identity (member of the guerilla, paramilitary, military, and drug dealer). An example of a scenario is the following:

Luis Ramos is a former member of the guerrillas. He was the author of several violent acts. He killed a total of five persons, including Enrique Garciía, an ordinary citizen. These violent acts had been planned by Luis’ superiors. He only obeyed orders. Currently, Luis wishes to reintegrate himself to civil society. He has, however, never presented himself to the Garcia family with the intention of begging forgiveness. (López López et al., 2012)

The question was: “If you were a member of the Garcia family, to what extent would you be willing to forgive him?” A four-cluster solution was retained. Figure 6 shows the main findings. The majority position was called “Never Forgive”. Overall, willingness to forgive was low irrespective of the circumstances. This strictly unforgiving attitude was shared by a majority of participants from the wealthiest social class, and by more than forty percent of the participants from the other classes, with the exception of the poorest one. It was also much more frequently observed in the guerilla, military, and drug dealer conditions than in the paramilitary condition. Until recently, this no-forgiveness position was the government’s official position towards the guerillas and their associates (Borja Orozco, Barreto, Sabucedo, & López López, 2008).

The second position was called “Hesitant to forgive”. Overall, willingness to forgive was somewhat higher than in the first cluster. For these participants, fully forgiving would be difficult. The effects of responsibility, severity, and apologies were weak. This hesitant attitude was more frequent among people from the middle-class than among others. Several participants stated, after having responded to all the scenarios, that personally they thought that, at least in some cases, forgiveness could be granted, but that, as this view conflicted with the one advocated by the authorities, they were very hesitant about the issue.

The third position was called “Depending on Circumstances”. Overall, willingness to forgive was relatively high, and the effects of responsibility, severity, and apologies were strong and interacted, which indicates that the judgment process was a complex one. This complex attitude was more frequent among people from the poorest classes than among those from the wealthiest classes. It was also much more frequent in the paramilitary condition than in the others.

The fourth position was called “Always forgive”. Overall, willingness to forgive was very high. The effects of responsibility, severity, and apologies were weak. This forgiving attitude, like the preceding one, was more frequently observed among people from the poorest classes than among those from the wealthiest classes.

A large segment of the Colombian society (about 30%) seems to be undecided about the proper conduct towards ex-members of the groups responsible for violence. If national reconciliation truly becomes an element of the nation’s political agenda, it is probable that these persons would shift their attitude and adopt the “Depending on circumstances” position. If this were the case, a majority of the people in Colombia would be of the view that, under some circumstances, the members of the groups that were responsible for violence could be forgiven. Such a shift could considerably ease reconciliation (and reinsertion).

Authority vs. subversion: Citizens’ positions regarding national policies about illicit drugs

Camus, Muñoz Sastre, Sorum, & Mullet (2014) examined French people’s positions regarding actual and potential national drug policies. Goode (1998, p. 19) identified five “high- profile” views about drug policies, which are endorsed by different groups of people he called: “cultural conservatives, free trade libertarians, radical constructionists, progressive legalizers, and progressive prohibitionists”. In the past, the free trade libertarian view dominated drug policies in most countries. In the US until 1914, for example, the drug market was not regulated, and a non-negligible segment of the population used opium and heroin. Currently, it is the cultural conservative, prohibitionist view that dictates drug policies in the US as well as in most countries. The current drug policy in the Netherlands is, however, consistent with the progressive legalizers´ view. Since 1976, soft drugs (e.g., marijuana) are sold and can be consumed in coffee shops all around the country. Hard drugs are illegal but drug abusers are not harshly prosecuted. Furthermore, the drug policy since 1991 in Switzerland is consistent with the progressive prohibitionists´ view. Soft drugs are still illegal but their consumption is de facto tolerated, and treatment-resistant heroin addicts are provided with controlled prescriptions of heroin or maintenance substances. Mexico adopted a similar policy in 2009.

Knowing people’s views about drug policies (current and alternative) is important for several reasons. Most people are voters; they can support or not support candidates and political parties as a function, among other things, of the drug policy advocated by these candidates and political parties. In addition, many people are potential drug consumers, and as such they may decide to respect current laws or break them as a function of their views regarding the laws’ perceived appropriateness. Finally, some people are in between the law and the consumers (policemen, judges, lawyers). If they strongly agree with the current drug policy, they will tend to pursue lawbreakers actively and sentence them according to the provisions of laws. If they do not completely agree with the current policy, they will tend to be lenient and look systematically for extenuating circumstances.

In the study by Camus et al. (2014), 200 participants, aged 18-81, were presented with 24 vignettes that were composed according to a three within-subject orthogonal factor design:

• the demand for drugs in the country (low vs. high);

• the information campaigns regarding the dangerousness of drugs (existent vs. absent);

• the current state policy regarding soft and hard drugs (“laissez-faire” policy for both soft and hard drugs; strict prohibition of both soft and hard drugs; regulation of both soft and hard drugs; regulation of soft drugs and strict prohibition of hard drugs; and three intermediate policies).

An example of scenario is the following:

South-Calgony is a small republic of 10 million inhabitants. In South-Calgony, as in the neighboring countries, there is a certain domestic demand for soft drugs and for hard drugs. The State has, many times in the past, launched campaigns to warn people about the dangers associated with using drugs. The teaching of the risks associated with drug consumption has been made compulsory in all schools and public institutions. On the one hand, the State has decided to regulate the sale of soft drugs and to ensure their production and distribution. On the other hand, the State has decided to prohibit completely the sale of hard drugs and to prosecute traffickers. As a result, soft drugs are sold correctly packed up, with exact dosages, in stores controlled by the State. Their price is certainly high but not prohibitive, so much so that the traffickers have had to give up this market. Hard drugs, in contrast, are sold clandestinely. Their price is prohibitive and the associated profits generate a certain level of corruption at the very heart of the state and a level of homicides that remains fortunately moderate. The quality of soft drugs is guaranteed. The quality of hard drugs is highly variable, and many accidents (accidental overdoses) are reported each year. (López López et al. 2012)

The question was “To what extent do you think that, in these circumstances, the position of the State is politically acceptable?” A three- cluster solution was found. Figure 7 shows the main findings. The first position was called “Radical Constructionists” because there was no drug policy that was considered as truly acceptable,; that is, the mean ratings of acceptability were all very low.

The second position was called “Prohibitionists” because the only acceptable policy was complete prohibition with the condition that information campaigns about the dangers of drugs would be conducted. The effect of the drug policy factor was strong; the highest acceptability values were observed for Complete Prohibition (about 6), Prohibition of Hard Drugs and Regulation of Soft Drugs (about 4), and Prohibition of Hard drugs (about 3). The effect of the information factor was also strong; when information campaigns were conducted, all acceptability responses were higher (especially in the case of complete prohibition) than when no information campaigns were conducted.

The third position was called “Regulationists” because the only acceptable drug policy was Complete Regulation with the condition that information campaigns about the dangers of drugs would be conducted. As in the preceding case, the effect of the drug policy factor was strong; the highest acceptability values were observed for Complete Regulation (about 7), Regulation of Hard Drugs (about 5), and Prohibition of Hard drugs and Regulation of Soft Drugs (about 5). The effect of the information factor was also strong.

Unexpectedly, participants did not seem to make strong distinctions between policies for soft and hard drugs. They judged either complete regulation or complete prohibition as the most acceptable policy, and they never considered “mixed” policies (e.g., regulation of soft drugs associated with prohibition of hard drugs) as more acceptable than policies that treated soft and hard drugs in the same way. In other words, both views reflected global attitudes about drugs: Accordingly, one should expect that (a) people who believe strongly that hard drugs should be prohibited will not be persuaded easily that soft drugs should not be prohibited, and b) people who believe strongly that soft drugs should be regulated, rather than prohibited, will not be persuaded easily that hard drugs should be prohibited rather than regulated. Also, even if prohibitionists as well as regulationists were sensitive to the importance of information campaigns about the dangers of using drugs, their positions did not seem to be influenced by the size of the current drug market in the depicted country.

The present study has implications for decision-makers. It shows that, in France, there may be a large segment of the population that would, under certain conditions, favor a change in current legislation about drugs. As decision- makers are, understandably, always reluctant to propose radical changes regarding sensitive issues fearing being disavowed by their voters or blamed for future problems (UK Drug Policy Commission, 2012, see also Camus et al., 2016 above), this finding may be of interest. In addition, the study shows that another segment of the population tends to think that the issue is not about policing (radical constructionists). If, however, convincing evidence-based proposals were presented, these people could adopt the view that, although there are undoubtedly biological, psychological, and societal factors implied in drug use, policing is still an important issue.

The main findings from this study have been replicated by López López et al. (2016b) on a sample of Colombian adults: The five positions advocated by Goode (1998) were empirically found,; that is, a free trade libertarian position and a progressive prohibitionist position were found in addition to the three positions found by Camus et al. (2014).

Disgust vs. purity: Rape, murder, recidivism, and the appropriateness of the death penalty

Kamble and Mullet (2016) examined the personal positions of Indian students regarding the appropriateness of the death penalty overall and the importance of various circumstances when judging its appropriateness. The death penalty is the legal process by which a defendant is put to death by an official court of justice. About sixty per cent of the world's population, among them the citizens of China, India, Indonesia, and the USA, live in countries where the death penalty is part of the law and executions take place. In 2013, it was estimated that about 500 persons have been sentenced to death in India, among them 60 in the state of Karnataka, the state with the highest percentage of convicts on death row in the Union. The types of criminals that, according to the Supreme Court of India, can be sentenced to death are (a) large scale drug traffickers who are recidivists; (b) armed rebels fighting against the Union, terrorists, and mutineers; (c) persons who have assisted non-autonomous persons to kill themselves; (d) rapists whose victims are left in a vegetative state; (e) gang robbers indirectly involved in killings; and (f) murderers (including people having committed an honor killing or policemen who have committed encounter killings).

In the study by Kamble and Mullet (2016), 430 unpaid students from the Hindu community, aged about 22-23 and enrolled at Karnatak University, were presented with 48 vignettes that were composed by orthogonally crossing the levels of five factors:

• the type of crime imputed to the defendant (burglary, rape, or homicide);

• whether culpability has been fully demonstrated or not;

• whether the defendant showed signs of empathy/compassion for the victim or the victim’s relatives;

• whether the defendant was a recidivist or not; and

• the level of criminality in the area (low vs. high).

An example of a scenario is the following:

Miten Badigera has been arrested for rape by the police. Rape is a relatively frequent offense in this state. The statistics are alarming. It is the second time that Miten Badigera has been arrested for rape. He has already been incarcerated. Miten Badigera’s culpability has not, in this case, been fully established. During the trial, the defendant neither showed any indication of empathy with/compassion for the victim’s relatives nor expressed any form of repentance.

The question was: To what extend do you consider that the death penalty would be an appropriate penalty in such a case?” A six-cluster solution was found. The first cluster (20%) was called “Type of Crime” because this factor was clearly the dominant one: Appropriateness was judged much higher in the case of rape (about 8) or homicide (about 6.5), than in the case of burglary (about 2.5). Overall, the death penalty was judged fully appropriate (rating higher than 8) only in cases of rape when culpability was demonstrated and the defendant was a recidivist. The second cluster (21%) was called “Culpability”: the death penalty was judged more appropriate when culpability was fully demonstrated (about 8) than when it was not (about 4.5). Overall, the death penalty was judged fully appropriate in no less than 15 out of the 48 scenarios, namely (a) in cases of rape when culpability was demonstrated; (b) in cases of murder when culpability was demonstrated and empathy was absent; (c) in cases of murder when culpability was demonstrated and the defendant was a recidivist; and (d) in cases of burglary when culpability was demonstrated, empathy was absent, the defendant was a recidivist, and the local statistics of criminality were high.

The third cluster, the relative majority cluster (31%), was called “Type of Crime and Culpability” because it combined features from the first two clusters. Overall, the death penalty was judged fully appropriate in five scenarios, namely (a) in cases of rape or murder when culpability was demonstrated, empathy was absent, and the defendant was a recidivist; and (b) in cases of murder when culpability was demonstrated, empathy was absent, and the local statistics of criminality were high.

The fourth cluster (8%) was called “Empathy/ Compassion”: the death penalty was judged more appropriate when no empathy/compassion in the defendant was perceptible (about 6) than when it was perceptible (about 3). Overall, the death penalty was judged fully appropriate in only one scenario, namely in the case of murder when culpability was demonstrated, empathy was not perceptible, the defendant was a recidivist, and the local statistics of criminality were high.

The fifth cluster (5%) was called “Recidivism”: The death penalty was judged more appropriate when the defendant was a recidivist (about 8) than when he was not (about 3.5). Overall, the death penalty was judged fully appropriate in eleven scenarios, namely (a) in the case of murder or rape when culpability was demonstrated and the defendant was a recidivist; (b) in the case of murder or rape when no empathy was perceptible and the defendant was a recidivist; and (c) in cases of burglary when culpability was demonstrated, empathy was absent, and the defendant was a recidivist, the local statistics of criminality were high.

Finally, the sixth cluster (15%) was called “Almost Always Appropriate” because mean ratings were much higher than in the other clusters (about 7.5). In fact, the death penalty was judged fully appropriate in no less than 20 scenarios, namely (a) in cases of rape or murder when culpability was demonstrated; (b) in cases of rape or murder when culpability was not fully demonstrated but the defendant was a recidivist; and (c) in cases of burglary when culpability was demonstrated, empathy was absent, and the defendant was a recidivist.

Overall, (a) females’ ratings were higher than males’ ratings but this difference was limited to the case of rape; (b) physical science students’ ratings were higher than social science students’ ratings; and (c) culpability had more impact and empathy/compassion less impact on ratings among physical science students than among social science students.

Support for the death penalty was relatively high, which was consistent with findings from previous studies (Lambert, Pasupuleti, Jiang, Jaishankar, & Bhimarasetty, 2008). Most university students from Karnataka do not appear to be opposed systematically to the death penalty, and the most important factors for judging the appropriateness of the death penalty were type of crime, culpability, and recidivism. The relative importance of these factors did not vary much as a function of gender or of previous experience of victimization but varied as a function of field of study.

If students largely agreed with the view that the death penalty is in some situations an appropriate punishment, they differed considerably in the extent of these situations. For a relative majority of them, for the death penalty to be considered appropriate, the defendant’s culpability must be demonstrated and the defendant is a recidivist who is unable to demonstrate any empathy. By contrast, for a minority of them, death penalty was viewed as appropriate even in cases where culpability has not been fully demonstrated.

Disgust vs. purity: Threat, bribery, and the illicit sharing of confidential information

López López et al. (2016a) examined Colombian lay persons’ views regarding a number of behaviors of officials, entrepreneurs, or ordinary citizens that are usually considered as corrupt. Among Colombians, and especially among people living in Bogota, corruption recently became an increasing concern. In 2011, it ranked third after violence and unemployment (Latin America Public Opinion Project, Colombia, 2011). In Bogota, 20% of people identified corruption as the highest concern in the country.

As shown in previous studies (e.g., Gong & Wang, 2013), most people most of the time express intolerance to corruption when the consequences of corruption are perceived as severe (e.g., vote-buying by politicians during elections). As has also been found, however, a minority of people in a minority of situations express surprisingly high levels of tolerance to corruption, above all when the consequences are perceived as not very severe (e.g., using one’s network of political connections to help a friend to find a job).

To fully understand this phenomenon and the diversity of reactions it produces among people, it is useful to frame it in the larger context of humanization,; that is, to see it as the result of a conflict between two kinds of ethics that separately developed as human became “civilized”, each one based on its own rationale: tribal ethics and modern ethics (Fox, 2011). Tribal ethics is defined in terms of the tribe’s survival and growth; it demands that powerful people take more care of their relatives – the extended family – than of unknown people. In most cases, perceived corruption results when tribal ethics has been applied (e.g., recruiting a relative) in cases in which most people expect modern ethics to be applied (e.g., organizing a public contest, Newell, 2008). The inverse is also true. There are no few cases in which the application of modern ethics (e.g., signaling cases of abuses by the police, providing health care to foreigners) is denounced as severe lack of solidarity with colleagues or with countrymen (the loyalty foundation in MFT), or as political weakness by people who consider that only tribal ethics is appropriate in those cases (Ivković & Sauerman, 2015).

In the study by López López et al. (2016a), 413 participants, aged 18-69, and living in different areas of the city of Bogota, were presented with a set of 24 vignettes composed according to a three within-subject orthogonal factor design:

• the current status or position in society of the person who behaved in a corrupt way (politician, judge, entrepreneur, or ordinary citizen);

• the motive behind the act of corruption (nepotism or monetary gain); and

• the means used for obtaining the underserved benefit (threatening the person, bribery, or illicitly sharing of confidential information).

An example of a scenario is the following:

“Herman is a senator. He wishes his nephew to get a civil servant position in the Ministry of Health. His nephew has currently been unemployed for two years. Fifty candidates have already been pre-selected for this position. As Herman has a good friend among the people in the Ministry responsible for the final examination, he has been able to obtain information regarding the questionnaires that are going to be used during the process of selection. Herman decides to communicate this information to his nephew. His nephew uses the information, succeeds in the competition, and gets the position.”

The question was “To what extent do you think that, in these circumstances, the senator’s behavior is tolerable?” A four-cluster solution was found, and its main results are shown in Figure 8.

The first cluster was called Zero Tolerance because in absolutely all cases, the ratings were extremely close to the left end of the response scale. The second cluster was called Never Very Tolerable because the ratings, although always closer to the left end than to the right end of the response scale, varied as a function of the means used: Threat and bribery (about 1.5) were considered as more intolerable than use of information (about 3). The third cluster was called Depends on Means because, as in the preceding case, the ratings were, to a large extent, affected by the means used: Illicit use of information was even considered as rather tolerable (about 7). Finally, the very small fourth cluster was called Always Tolerable . Younger participants were, more frequently than older ones, members of the Depends on Means cluster and were less frequently members of the Always Intolerable cluster . They were also the only members of the Always Tolerable cluster.

A majority of participants adopted a zero tolerance position,; that is, they clearly repudiated tribal ethics. In contrast, only two participants expressed views that were fully consistent with tribal ethics. Both were male, young, relatively poor, less educated, and politically unengaged. After the survey was completed, one of them spontaneously declared, “Everything in society can be bought. When you pay the price, you get looked after before everyone else. You always can obtain what you want”.

In addition, two groups of participants (second and third clusters) expressed a conflict in ethics. In the first one, although none of the behaviors described in the scenarios were considered as really tolerable, participants discriminated among them: Some behaviors were viewed as black (threatening a person), other were considered dark grey (offering money), and some behaviors were seen just grey (using information). They recognized that modern ethics must always prevail in the situations described in the scenarios, but they could not prevent themselves from expressing, at the same time, the repressed although not suppressed demands of tribal ethics.

In the second group, illicit use of information was clearly considered as tolerable, but not bribes and threats, which indicates that for these participants the domain of validity of tribal ethics is one in which consequences can be seen as benign and/or when deviations from the dictates of modern ethics are not easily traceable. Although, only 7% of participants agreed with this last view, this small minority, in addition to the very small minority of people who think that corruption is always tolerable, is probably enough to create a climate of suspicion in any country.

Liberty vs. oppression: The indivisibility of human rights

Guédez Soares and Mullet (2014) examined the extent to which people living in Venezuela consider that human rights are indivisible rights: Do people perceive human rights as a simple collection of more or less independent rights or as a bundle of interdependent and related rights? The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly at the end of 1948. It consisted of 30 articles that affirmed the representatives’ belief “in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women”. Diaz-Veizades, Widaman, Little, & Gibbs (1995) examined the psychological structure of these articles and showed that US college students’ endorsement of them structured themselves into four relatively independent factors: Social security (e.g., “Everyone has the right to an adequate standard of living”);, Civilian constraint (e.g., “There are times when people should be kept from expressing their opinions”);, Equality (e.g., “Women and men should have equal rights in divorce”);, and Privacy (e.g., “A person’s home is his castle and should not be interfered with by others”).

The UDHR included a great variety of rights because its writers postulated that these rights cannot successfully exist except in combination with each other. “The ideal of free human beings enjoying civil and political freedom, and freedom from fear can only be achieved if conditions are created whereby everyone may enjoy his civil and political rights, as well as his social, economic, and cultural rights”. In other words, the authors of the UNDHR considered that the right to privacy and the right to express one’s opinion cannot be fully experienced apart from a context that provides social protection and gender equality. Conversely, they considered that racial equality and economic security cannot be fully appreciated apart from a context offering personal rights.

In the study by Guédez Soares and Mullet (2014), 80 participants living in Caracas, Barquisimeto, or Maracaibo, aged 18-65, were presented with 36 vignettes composed by orthogonally crossing of the level of four factors:

• the degree to which the state offers social protection to the citizens (not at all, intermediate, or complete);

• the level of respect for civil liberties in the country (no respect, intermediate, full respect);

• the level of civil equality between citizens (inequality of rights vs. equality of rights); and

• the level of respect for the private life of the citizens (no respect for private life vs. full respect for private life).

An example of scenario is the following:

The republic of Birania guarantees the social protection of the citizens. The State ensures that all citizens have enough income to enjoy a decent way of life and the means to maintain themselves in good health. Working conditions are protected. People with handicaps receive adequate support. Civil liberties are guaranteed. All the people have the right to express their opinions freely in any circumstance. The media are free. The citizens cannot be arrested without a good reason, and those arrested are entitled to legal aid. Equality between citizens is formally guaranteed. Men and women have the same rights. Social minorities are not a target of any particular discrimination. Religious liberty is guaranteed. All citizens, according to their means, are entitled to own property. In business the rule is to pay all workers in an equal way. Finally, private life is fully respected. There is not wiretapping. The mail is not opened. A person’s home cannot be violated without a good reason. Nobody has the right to intrude on people's sexual life. (Guédez Soares and Mullet, 2014)

The question was: To what extent do you think that, in this country, human rights are respected? Figure 9 shows the main findings. Unsurprisingly, the level of respect for human rights was considered higher (a) when private life was respected in the country than when it was not; (b) when citizens had equal rights than when they did not; (c) when civil liberty was present than when it was absent (M = 1.98); and (not shown) (d) when the social protection of the population was instituted than when it was not. The impact of the social protection factor was, however, weaker than the impact of the other factors. The interesting and new finding was that all these factors interacted. The judgment model can, tentatively, be written:

Judged Respect for HR = Privacy x Civil Liberties x Equality x Social Protection

Lay people in Venezuela considered that (a) enjoying one basic right (e.g., enjoying freedom of speech) is better than enjoying no right at all, that enjoying two basic rights is better than enjoying just one, and so on; (b) enjoying any right at an intermediate level (e.g., enjoying some civil liberty) is not very different from not enjoying this right, although it is better; and (c) only the complete enjoyment of all basic rights can be considered as truly enjoyment of human rights. Lay people in Venezuela endorse, to a reasonable extent, the view that human rights cannot be divided, in accordance with the UNDHR (1996) preamble quoted above. They did not consider, however, that incomplete enjoyment of rights has no value at all.

The seemingly lower impact of social protection as compared with other basic rights may be explained by the fact that in relatively poor countries, some rights are easier to implement than others. Even in a very poor country, equality between genders or equality between ethnic groups can be instituted by law, even if not easily realized. Even in a very poor country, the state and the police can respect the right of all people to privacy, at least to a large extent. In contrast, building a system of social protection supposes adequate funding, which many states cannot afford or cannot fully afford. This may explain why, from the viewpoint of people living in a country that is rich but still developing, this basic right is not considered as fundamental in the same way as the others.

In summary

Regarding the domain of care, there was a large consensus among participants from Angola, Mozambique and France that the moral duty of the powerful is to protect the weak. Powerful states were expected (a) to prevent mass killings at the hands of sociopathic governments in fragile countries, and (b) to care for their citizens’ health, even against their citizens’ will (e.g., illicit substance consumers). There were, however, limits as regards the means used for protection. Protective measures must be proportional to the real threat. Protective measures should not lead people to think they can dispense with taking care of themselves.

As for the domain of fairness, there was also a large consensus among participants from Togo, Rwanda, and Martinique on the idea that the moral duty of the powerful is, first of all, to acknowledge publicly the harm that has been inflicted on the weak, even if this harm was inflicted by the powerful. Fairness cannot be achieved by monetary compensation alone: Distributive justice without restorative justice is not fairness. Fairness can also not be achieved by designating as culpable by association those people who were not born at the time the harm was inflicted,; that is, the powerful must also protect the weak from such misattribution of guilt.

There was also a large consensus among people from Bogota that unconditionally forgiving the perpetrator of violence against a family member during a civil war is nothing else than betrayal. To remain loyal to this family member’s memory implies fulfilling a series of conditions, namely that the perpetrator has realized he did a terrible thing and that he was not involved in the decision process leading to the crime.

French and Colombian participants did not hesitate to express views that were at variance with official policies on the control of the sale of drugs. In fact, only a minority of them endorsed the complete prohibition policy instituted by their democratically elected government. This does not mean that these participants had no respect for political authorities. A majority of the French, in particular, were in agreement with policies established in the neighboring states of the Netherlands and Switzerland.

Unsurprisingly, disgusting acts such as rape or murder, as well as corrupt behaviors from the part of powerful people, were considered as intolerable and severely punishable by a very huge majority of participants in India and Colombia. In some places, the level of disgust is such that the death penalty was approved by a large majority of people.

Finally, very clear views were expressed by Venezuelan participants about the indivisibility of human rights. They asserted that liberty cannot be attributed bit by bit, and that one kind of right cannot be fully enjoyed in separation from other human rights. Participants were, however, wise enough to consider that having incomplete rights is better than having no rights at all.

Our hope is that the set of societal issues that have been explored so far using the IIT framework will be extended by the many young people who attend the Biennial International Conference on Information Integration Theory. Issues such as social security (the care domain); institutional racism and institutional sexism (the fairness domain); whistle blowing (the loyalty domain); violence, non-violence and resistance to oppression (the authority domain); prostitution and torture (the disgust domain); or civil disobedience (the liberty domain); should profitably be explored. The present set of studies illustrates the potential usefulness of a complementary way to investigate public opinion, a way that focuses on opinion structure —by using multiple structured inputs, without neglecting opinion diversity— by using cluster analysis. IIT and cluster analysis potentiate their usefulness: Cluster analysis helps IIT determine the level of individual differences in public opinion while IIT increases the level of resolution at which clusters (public’s various positions) may be interpreted.

References

Anderson, N. H. (1981). Foundations of information integration theory . New York: Academic Press.

Anderson, N. H. (1982). Methods in information integration theory . New York: Academic Press.

Anderson, N. H. (2008). Unified social cognition . New York: Psychology Press.

Anderson, N. H. (2015). Moral science. Retrieved on November 19th, 2015 from http://psychology.ucsd.edu/people/profiles/nanderson.html .

Aristotle, (2004). The Nichomachean ethics . London: Pinguin Books.

Armange, R., & Mullet, E. (2016) Slave descendants’ views regarding national policies on reparation for slavery: A Martinican perspective. Social Science Information , 55 (4), 511-530. https://doi.org/10.1177/0539018416658150 Social Science Information, in press.

Borja Orozco, H., Barreto, I., Sabucedo, J.M., & López López, W. (2008). Building a discourse to delegitimize the opponent: Government and paramilitarism in Colombia. Universitas Psychologica , 7 , 571-583.

Camus, J., Muñoz Sastre, M. T., Sorum, P. C., & Mullet, E. (2014). French people's positions regarding national policies about illicit drugs: A preliminary study. Social Indicators Research , 118 , 1191-1204.

Camus, J., Muñoz Sastre, M. T., Sorum, P. C., & Mullet, E. (2016). Addictive substances, users’ health, and the Government’s perceived responsibility: French people’s perspective. Social Indicators Research , 128 , 1011-1027.

Chirot, D., & Seligman, M. E. P. (Eds.), (2001). Ethnopolitical warfare: Causes, consequences and possible solutions . Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Cotte Poveda, A. (2012). Estimating effectiveness of the control of violence and socioeconomic development in Colombia: An application of dynamic data envelopment analysis and data panel approach. Social Indicators Research , 105 , 343-366.

Dávila Cervantes, C. A., & Pardo Montaño, A. M. (2014). Death by homicide in Colombia and Mexico: Magnitude and trends, 2000-2011. Pan American Journal of Public Health , 36 , 10-16.

Diaz-Veizades, J., Widaman, K. F., Little, T. D., & Gibbs, K. W. (1995). The measurement and structure of human rights attitudes. The Journal of Social Psychology , 135 , 313–328.

Farkas, A. J., & Anderson, N. H. (1979). Multidimensional input in equity theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 37 , 879–896.

Fetherston, J., & Lenton, S. (2005). Community attitudes towards cannabis law and the proposed Cannabis Infringement Notice scheme in Western Australia. Drug and Alcohol Review , 24 , 301–309.

Fox, R. (2011). The tribal imagination: Civilization and the savage mind . Cambridge, MS: Harvard University Press.

Gibbs, J. C. (2010). Moral development and reality: Beyond the theories of Kohlberg and Hoffman . Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Gibson, J. L. (2002). Truth, justice, and reconciliation: Judging the fairness of amnesty in South Africa. American Journal of Political Science , 46 , 540-556.

Gibson, J. L. (2004). Overcoming apartheid: Can truth reconcile a divided nation? New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.

Girard, M., & Mullet, E. (1997). Forgiveness and its determinants in adolescents, adults, and elderly persons. Journal of Adult Development , 4 , 209-220.

Gong, T., & Wang, S. (2013). Indicators and implications of zero tolerance of corruption: The Case of Hong Kong. Social Indicators Research , 112 , 569–586.

Goode, E. (1998). Strange bedfellows: Ideology, politics, and drug legalization. Society , 35 , 18-27.

Guedez, A. G., & Mullet, E. (2014). Venezuelan adults’ views on the indivisibility of Human Rights: A preliminary study. Psicologica: International Journal of Methodology and Experimental Psychology 35 , 621-633.

Haidt, J. (2013). The righteous mind . London: Penguin Books.

Hofmans, J., & Mullet, E. (2013). Towards unveiling individual differences in different stages of information processing: A clustering-based approach. Quality and Quantity , 47 , 555-564.

Hommers, W. (1988). Averaging and fractionizing of fault: Implicit psychological theories of legal thought on sentencing and liability. In, P. J. van Koppen, D. J. Hessing, & G. van den Heuvel, (Eds.), Law­yers on psychology and psychologists on Law (pp. 67-82). Amsterdam: Swets & Zeitlinger.

UNDHR (1996). International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Retrieved from https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=IV-4&chapter=4&lang=en

Ivković, S. K., & Sauerman, A. (2015). Threading the thin blue line: Transition towards democratic policing and the integrity of the South African police service. Policing & Society, 25 , 25-52.

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow . New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Kamble, S., & Mullet, E. (2016). A mapping of young Hindu’s views on the appropriateness of the Death Penalty as a function of circumstances of crime. International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice , 44 . 14-25.

Kpanake, L., & Mullet, E. (2011). Judging the acceptability of amnesties. Conflict Resolution Quarterly , 28 , 291-313.

Lambert, E. G., Pasupuleti, S., Jiang, S., Jaishankar, K., & Bhimarasetty, J. V. (2008). Views on the death penalty among college students in India. Punishment & Society , 10 , 207-218.

Latin America Public Opinion Project (2011). Retrieved from http://www.vanderbilt.edu/lapop/

Leach, C. W., Bou Zeinnedine, F., & Čehajić-Clancy, S. (2013). Moral immemorial: The rarity of self-criticism for previous generation’s genocide or mass violence. Journal of Social Issues, 69 , 34–53.

López-López, W., Pineda Marín, C., Murcia León, M. C., Perilla Garzón, D. C., & Mullet, E. (2012). Forgiving the perpetrators of violence: Colombian people’s positions. Social Indicators Research , 114 , 287-301.

López López, W., Pineda Marín, C., & Mullet, E. (2016a). Mapping Colombian citizens’ views regarding ordinary corruption: Threat, bribery, and the illicit sharing of confidential information. Soc Indic Res . doi: 10.1007/s11205-016-1366-6

López López, W., Pineda Marín, C., Sorum, P. C., & Mullet, E. (2016b). Prohibition, Regulation or Free Market: A Mapping of Colombian People’s Perspectives Regarding National Drug Policies. Soc Indic Res . 126 (689). doi:10.1007/s11205-015-0908-7

McWhorter, J. (2001). Losing the race: Self-sabotage in Black America . New York, NY: Harper.

Mukashema, I., & Mullet, E. (2015). Attribution of guilt to offspring of perpetrators of the genocide: Rwandan people’s perspectives. Conflict Resolution Quarterly , 33 , 75-98.

Mullet, E., Morales, G. E., Makris, I., Rogé, B., & Muñoz Sastre, M. T. (2012). Functional Measurement: An incredibly flexible tool. Psicologica: International Journal of Methodology and Experimental Psychology , 33 , 631-654.

Newell, J. L. (2008). Introduction: Corruption and democracy in Western Europe. Perspectives on European Politics and Society , 9 , 1-7.

Neto, F., Pinto, C., & Mullet, E. (2013). The acceptability of military humanitarian interventions. International Perspectives in Psychology , 2 , 73-84.

Quirk, J. (2014). The anti-slavery project: From the slave trade to human trafficking . Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press.

Surber, C. F. (1977). Developmental processes in social inference: Averaging of intentions and consequences in moral judgment. Developmental Psychology , 13 , 654–665.

Wilson, R. A. (2001). The politics of truth and reconciliation in South Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Notes

* Research article. This paper was written in colaboration with Prof. Wilson López-López, Editor in Chief of Universitas Psychologica . Regular double-blind peer review was held by guest editors. No conflicts of interest declared.

Author notes

** Institute of Advanced Studies (EPHE), Paris, France. E-mail: etienne.mullet@wanadoo.fr

*** Editor in chief. E-mail: lopezw@javeriana.edu.co