Moral courage

Last updated December 29, 2024

Moral courage is the courage to take action for moral reasons despite the risk of adverse consequences.^[1]

Parenting approach

Incorporating moral courage into parenting^{[ how? ]} can affect the self-expression^{[ specify ]} of the child during late adolescence.^[5] It is more likely for a person to exemplify moral courage in adulthood if they were raised receiving respect and compassion from their parents than if they were raised in a violent environment.^[6] Parents teaching moral values such as empathy, justice, equality, and a caring focus on others are indicative of the development of moral courage.^[6] The development^{[ specify ]} of moral courage within parenting is not only affected by the parent's passed-down moral values but the children's autonomy on how to perceive and practice their moral values.^[5] Those who incorporate the practice of their moral values into their everyday lives engage in moral courage to protect those values as well.^[7]

Examples of moral courage

Moral courage can be shown through selfless actions aimed at diminishing or eliminating discrimination. A study used qualitative research methods to analyze the process of how and why individuals become LGBT allies.^[7] The study mentions how human resources development play a role to help prevent LGBT discrimination in the workplace.^{[ relevant? ]}

Moral courage is demonstrated when individuals stand up for moral principles, even if it puts them in danger or the violation of those principles does not directly affect them. During the Holocaust, many non-Jews demonstrated moral courage by risking their lives to save and help rescue Jews, often individuals and families they had never met.^[6] The likelihood of this kind of moral courage is less determined by external situational factors and more indicative of the internal traits and qualities of the individuals rescuing Jews. Some traits that drive people to exhibit this kind of moral courage include empathy, a sense of social responsibility, strong ethical standards such as justice and equality, advanced moral judgment, and the openness to take risks.^[6]

Moral courage anonymity

Many different aspects can contribute to moral courage. Something that may inhibit moral courage however, is the undesirable consequences in their personal, social, and work life. A way of counteracting those adverse consequences and increasing moral courage may be by adding anonymity.^[8] In a study on online moral courage, they found that moral courage and anonymity online had a positive correlation. Moral courage was also correlated with gender, age, and education levels, therefore, those who are older, male, and have lower levels of education are more likely to perform acts of moral courage when they perceive that they are acting anonymously compared to those who are young, female, and have higher levels of education.^[8] Even when controlling those factors, there is still a positive correlation.

Related Research Articles

Morality is the categorization of intentions, decisions and actions into those that are proper, or right, and those that are improper, or wrong. Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of conduct from a particular philosophy, religion or culture, or it can derive from a standard that is understood to be universal. Morality may also be specifically synonymous with "goodness", "appropriateness" or "rightness".

Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) is a personality disorder defined by a chronic pattern of behavior that disregards the rights and well-being of others. People with ASPD often exhibit behavior that conflicts with social norms, leading to issues with interpersonal relationships, employment, and legal matters. The condition generally manifests in childhood or early adolescence, with a high rate of associated conduct problems and a tendency for symptoms to peak in late adolescence and early adulthood.

Remorse is a distressing emotion experienced by an individual who regrets actions which they have done in the past that they deem to be shameful, hurtful, or wrong. Remorse is closely allied to guilt and self-directed resentment. When a person regrets an earlier action or failure to act, it may be because of remorse or in response to various other consequences, including being punished for the act or omission. People may express remorse through apologies, trying to repair the damage they've caused, or self-imposed punishments.

Empathy is generally described as the ability to take on another person's perspective, to understand, feel, and possibly share and respond to their experience. There are more definitions of empathy that include but are not limited to social, cognitive, and emotional processes primarily concerned with understanding others. Often times, empathy is considered to be a broad term, and broken down into more specific concepts and types that include cognitive empathy, emotional empathy, somatic empathy, and spiritual empathy.

Bullying is the use of force, coercion, hurtful teasing, comments, or threats, in order to abuse, aggressively dominate, or intimidate one or more others. The behavior is often repeated and habitual. One essential prerequisite is the perception that an imbalance of physical or social power exists or is currently present. This perceived presence of physical or social imbalance is what distinguishes the behavior from being interpreted or perceived as bullying from instead being interpreted or perceived as conflict. Bullying is a subcategory of aggressive behavior characterized by hostile intent, the goal of addressing or attempting to "fix" the imbalance of power, as well as repetition over a period of time.

Sympathy is the perception of, understanding of, and reaction to the distress or need of another life form.

Psychological resilience, or mental resilience, is the ability to cope mentally and emotionally with a crisis, or to return to pre-crisis status quickly.

Suicidal ideation, or suicidal thoughts, is the thought process of having ideas, or ruminations about the possibility of completing suicide. It is not a diagnosis but is a symptom of some mental disorders, use of certain psychoactive drugs, and can also occur in response to adverse life circumstances without the presence of a mental disorder.

Personality development encompasses the dynamic construction and deconstruction of integrative characteristics that distinguish an individual in terms of interpersonal behavioral traits. Personality development is ever-changing and subject to contextual factors and life-altering experiences. Personality development is also dimensional in description and subjective in nature. That is, personality development can be seen as a continuum varying in degrees of intensity and change. It is subjective in nature because its conceptualization is rooted in social norms of expected behavior, self-expression, and personal growth. The dominant viewpoint in personality psychology indicates that personality emerges early and continues to develop across one's lifespan. Adult personality traits are believed to have a basis in infant temperament, meaning that individual differences in disposition and behavior appear early in life, potentially before language of conscious self-representation develop. The Five Factor Model of personality maps onto the dimensions of childhood temperament. This suggests that individual differences in levels of the corresponding personality traits are present from young ages.

Psychopathy, or psychopathic personality, is a personality construct characterized by impaired empathy and remorse, in combination with traits of boldness, disinhibition, and egocentrism. These traits are often masked by superficial charm and immunity to stress, which create an outward appearance of apparent normalcy.

The online disinhibition effect refers to the lack of restraint one feels when communicating online in comparison to communicating in-person. People tend to feel safer saying things online that they would not say in real life because they have the ability to remain completely anonymous and invisible when on particular websites, and as a result, free from potential consequences. Apart from anonymity, other factors such as asynchronous communication, empathy deficit, or individual personality and cultural factors also contribute to online disinhibition. The manifestations of such an effect could be in both positive and negative directions; thus, online disinhibition could be classified as either benign disinhibition or toxic disinhibition.

The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) is a part of the prefrontal cortex in the mammalian brain. The ventral medial prefrontal is located in the frontal lobe at the bottom of the cerebral hemispheres and is implicated in the processing of risk and fear, as it is critical in the regulation of amygdala activity in humans. It also plays a role in the inhibition of emotional responses, and in the process of decision-making and self-control. It is also involved in the cognitive evaluation of morality.

Prosocial behaviour is a social behavior that "benefit[s] other people or society as a whole", "such as helping, sharing, donating, co-operating, and volunteering". The person may or may not intend to benefit others; the behaviour's prosocial benefits are often only calculable after the fact. Obeying the rules and conforming to socially accepted behaviors are also regarded as prosocial behaviors. These actions may be motivated by culturally influenced value systems; empathy and concern about the welfare and rights of others; egoistic or practical concerns, such as one's social status or reputation, hope for direct or indirect reciprocity, or adherence to one's perceived system of fairness; or altruism, though the existence of pure altruism is somewhat disputed, and some have argued that this falls into the philosophical rather than psychological realm of debate. Evidence suggests that prosociality is central to the well-being of social groups across a range of scales, including schools. Prosocial behavior in the classroom can have a significant impact on a student's motivation for learning and contributions to the classroom and larger community. In the workplace, prosocial behaviour can have a significant impact on team psychological safety, as well as positive indirect effects on employee's helping behaviors and task performance. Empathy is a strong motive in eliciting prosocial behavior, and has deep evolutionary roots.

Workplace harassment is belittling or threatening behavior directed at an individual worker or a group of workers.

Moral development focuses on the emergence, change, and understanding of morality from infancy through adulthood. The theory states that morality develops across the lifespan in a variety of ways. Morality is influenced by an individual's experiences, behavior, and when they are faced with moral issues through different periods of physical and cognitive development. Morality concerns an individual's reforming sense of what is right and wrong; it is for this reason that young children have different moral judgment and character than that of a grown adult. Morality in itself is often a synonym for "rightness" or "goodness." It also refers to a specific code of conduct that is derived from one's culture, religion, or personal philosophy that guides one's actions, behaviors, and thoughts.

The Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI-Revised) is a personality test for traits associated with psychopathy in adults. The PPI was developed by Scott Lilienfeld and Brian Andrews to assess these traits in non-criminal populations, though it is still used in clinical populations as well. In contrast to other psychopathy measures, such as the Hare Psychopathy Checklist (PCL), the PPI is a self-report scale, rather than an interview-based assessment. It is intended to comprehensively index psychopathic personality traits without assuming particular links to anti-social or criminal behaviors. It also includes measures to detect impression management or careless responding.

Bullying is abusive social interaction between peers and can include aggression, harassment, and violence. Bullying is typically repetitive and enacted by those who are in a position of power over the victim. A growing body of research illustrates a significant relationship between bullying and emotional intelligence.

Measures of guilt and shame are used by mental health professionals to determine an individual's propensity towards the self-conscious feelings of guilt or shame.

In the field of personality psychology, Machiavellianism is the name of a personality trait construct characterized by interpersonal manipulation, indifference to morality, lack of empathy, and a calculated focus on self-interest. Psychologists Richard Christie and Florence L. Geis created the construct and named it after Niccolò Machiavelli, as they used truncated and edited statements similar to his writing style to study variations in human behaviors. The construct's relation to the thinker himself is exclusively nominal. Their Mach IV test, a 20-question, Likert-scale personality survey, became the standard self-assessment tool and scale of the Machiavellianism construct. Those who score high on the scale are more likely to have a high level of manipulativeness, deceitfulness and a cynical, unemotional temperament.

Moral identity is a concept within moral psychology concerning the importance of morality to a person’s identity, typically construed as either a trait-like individual difference, or set of chronically accessible schemas.

References

↑ Vesilind, P. Aarne (2006). "The Courage To Do The Right Thing". The right thing to do: an ethics guide for engineering students (2nd ed.). Woodsville, N.H.: Lakeshore Press. ISBN 9780965053969.
↑ Walton, Douglas N. (1986). "Moral Deliberation and Conduct". Courage, a philosophical investigation. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520054431.
↑ Putman, Daniel A. (2004). Psychological Courage. University Press of America. ISBN 9780761828204.
↑ Shippey, T. A. (1992). The Road to Middle Earth. pp. 72–73.
1 2 Bronstein, Phyllis; Fox, Barbara J.; Kamon, Jody L.; Knolls, Michelle L. (30 May 2007). "Parenting and Gender as Predictors of Moral Courage in Late Adolescence: A Longitudinal Study". Sex Roles. 56 (9–10): 661–74. doi:10.1007/s11199-007-9182-8. S2CID 21740863.
1 2 3 4 Izen, Seth (2011). "Roots of Moral Courage" (PDF). UMass Lowell.
1 2 Brooks, A. K.; Edwards, K. (5 January 2009). "Allies in the Workplace: Including LGBT in HRD". Advances in Developing Human Resources . 11 (1): 136–49. doi:10.1177/1523422308328500. S2CID 145066844.
1 2 Pan, Xinyu; Hou, Yubo; Wang, Qi (November 2023). "Are we braver in cyberspace? Social media anonymity enhances moral courage". Computers in Human Behavior. 148: 107880. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2023.107880. ISSN 0747-5632.