What is it about?
Do people need to feel that they are moral? For the first time, this study compares morality against a list of other widely accepted psychological needs. We find that morality follows the cognitive and affective dynamics characteristic of a need, and that it is closely linked to psychological well-being.
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Why is it important?
Our findings suggest that morality should be more closely examined as a need and for the important role it may play in people's well-being. This work fits with other recent findings that morality is a fundamental aspect of how we think about other people. The current findings indicate that how we think and feel about our own morality may be fundamental to positive experiences and our sense of whether or not we are living well.
Perspectives
I hope this article plays a role in opening the doors to more sustained attention to how consequential our feelings of personal morality are. Such sustained attention could pave the way to allowing the moral self to take a more central role in everyday life via purposeful work, more moral decision-making, etc.
Mike Prentice
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This page is a summary of: Morality as a Basic Psychological Need, Social Psychological and Personality Science, June 2018, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/1948550618772011.
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