Client or Primary Investigator: Steven Hitlin, Professor, Department of Sociology and Criminology

Project Manager: Cassidy Branch

Project Start: May 15, 2026

Project Description: This study will use a web survey to understand how we might reduce social conflict and strengthen social cohesion. If progressive and conservative groups share largely similar moral backgrounds within their respective moral cultures—differing mainly in how they prioritize among shared values—then there is meaningful room for dialogue and compromise. On the contrary, if each group understands each other’s moral culture in a fundamentally different moral background, then even the same values or behaviors may be interpreted within entirely different webs of meaning. If so, polarization is not just about disagreement but about deep differences in interpretation. Such structural misunderstandings are unlikely to be resolved simply by providing more information or encouraging conversation. Existing measurement tools are equally unlikely to capture these structural differences. We aim to answer the following research questions: Do people perceive differences in moral culture across social groups (e.g., liberals, conservatives)? How are these perceived differences related to affective polarization? Have these perceived differences changed over time (compared with Hitlin et al., 2021)? Can we compare survey measurement to novel computational analysis of open-ended measures?

This project is part of Surveying the Social World research incubation initiative. 

Services Provided: Web Panel Survey, IRB Support, Survey Programming & Testing