Thou Shalt not Kill, Steal, and Lie: A Preliminary Study on Cognitively Salient Moral Transgressions among Lithuanians

What actions constitute the most cognitively salient examples of moral transgressions? Unfortunately, there are very few systematic attempts to study this question precisely. The present article aims to contribute to the literature on this question by presenting some preliminary data on what moral transgressions are most salient to Lithuanian participants. Study 1 adopts the cognitive anthropological method (free-listing) to uncover the most salient instances of moral transgressions among Lithuanians. Study 2 asks participants to categorize those actions in the light of Haidt’s Moral Foundations. Taken together, these studies provide some preliminary support to the idea that the most cognitively salient moral transgressions are characterized by their involving harm and, to a lesser extent, justice considerations. The results are discussed in the light of different theories about the scope of the moral domain.

Introduction Currently, there are several theoretical positions in Moral Psychology that disagree about what kinds of actions people moralize.Some claim that there are at least five cognitive foundations from which folk moral judgments stem: such as harm, fairness, respect for authority, in-group loyalty, and purity considerations, whereas different cultures emphasize different sets of such foundations (Haidt, 2012;Haidt, Graham, 2007;Graham et al., 2013).Others claim that the scope of the moral domain can be narrowed down to considerations of harm and fairness, and that this is a robust phenomenon across cultures (Nucci, 2001;Nucci, Turiel, 1978, 1993;Tisak, Turiel, 1984;Smetana, 1993;Turiel, 1983;Yau, Smetana, 2003).Yet others argue that it is possible to conceptually reduce all moral considerations into either harm (Gray et al., 2012;Gray et al., 2014;Schein, Gray, 2015) or fairness (Baumard et al., 2013;Baumard, Sperber, 2012;Sousa, 2009;Sousa, Piazza, 2014).To the extent that these theories are meant to describe and explain the folk notion of morality rather than some notion of morality introduced purely for technical purposes, each position can be expected to capture at least the most cognitively salient examples of moral transgressions.But what actions constitute the most cognitively salient examples of moral transgressions?Unfortunately, there are very few systematic attempts to study this question precisely (see Schein, Gray, 2015;Buchtel et al., 2015;manuscript of Dranseika et al.).The present article aims to provide a modest contribution to this small body of literature by presenting preliminary data on what moral transgressions are most salient to Lithuanian participants.
Additionally, we will provide some preliminary considerations about the compatibility of our results with the aforementioned psychological theories.Not all of the theories mentioned in the previous paragraph make explicit predictions about the prototypicality of moral transgressions.Still, to the extent that these theories are meant to describe and explain the folk notion of morality, the most prototypical examples should take the central role in such theorizing.
Researchers in the Turiel tradition are quite explicit about prototypical moral transgressions.For instance, while presenting study methods, Wainryb indicates that "acts entailing harm, injustice, or violation of rights performed arbitrarily or for selfinterested goals" could be referred to as "prototypical moral violations" (Wainryb, 1991, 842).Still, it is not clear whether these are prototypical moral transgressions according to ordinary people or according to researchers themselves (as a theoretical assumption).Quite differently, Gray and his colleagues (e.g.Gray, Schein, 2012) present a somewhat more extended discussion of the prototypicality of moral transgressions.In a recent paper (Schein, Gray, 2015, Study 1), they have addressed this question.In their study, they asked people to list acts that are morally wrong and found that harmful acts were the most dominant acts listed.This study could be considered a rare example of investigation that takes, what anthropologists call, an emic perspective -studying Eksperimentinė filosofija people's explicit conceptions about a given domain.These and other experimental results are produced to support a theory claiming that "morality is essentially represented by a cognitive template that combines a perceived intentional agent with a perceived suffering patient" (Gray et al., 2012, 102), and this moral dyadic template (intentional agent and suffering patient) is "a core feature of all immoral acts" (ibid., 107).Moreover, they argue that there are no harmless transgressions in folk moral cognition, simply because the dyadic template compels "the mind to perceive victims even when they are objectively absent" (Gray et al., 2014, 1).Thus, the "dyadic completion suggests that people cannot psychologically separate immoral acts from the suffering of victims" (Gray, Schein, 2012, 412).
Sousa and his colleagues argue for a deflationary view of the morality of harm.They claim that harmful transgressions evoke a relevant normative conviction (i.e. a conviction that an action is wrong universally and independently of what any authority says) if and only if these harmful transgressions are seen as involving fairness considerations (see Sousa, 2009;Sousa et al., 2009;Sousa, Piazza, 2014).Similarly, Baumard and colleagues argue more radically that many of Haidt's (e.g., 2012) domains are not clearly seen as dissociated from the domain of fairness, which opens the possibility that these domains are moralized only insofar as they involve fairness considerations (Baumard et al., 2013;Baumard, Sperber, 2012).This way, taken together, Sousa, Baumard and their colleagues suggest an alternative fairness-based monistic view.However, in respect to prototypical moral transgressions, as they emerge from the emic perspective, proponents of this position do not provide any explicit predictions.Still, they strongly emphasize the importance of the concept of fairness (broadly construed) in moral judgments.On the one hand, moral transgressions that involve fairness considerations should be cognitively most salient.On the other hand, moral transgressions involving other considerations should somehow involve fairness as well.Indeed, Sousa and colleagues are explicit about the latter contention when it comes to harmful transgressions: "more than the perception of a person being subjected to harm is required for the activation of the concept of moral transgression involving a person being subjected to harm" (Sousa et al., 2009, 92).
Finally, Haidt and his colleagues are also not fully explicit about the most salient examples of moral transgressions in people's reasoning (Haidt, 2012;Haidt, Graham, 2007;Graham et al., 2013).However, this approach does not seem to be logically committed to treating considerations of harm, fairness, respect for authority, in-group loyalty, and purity as equally cognitively salient.For instance, Graham et al. (2013, 4.1.4)write that "it seems reasonable to assert that care/harm might be the most prototypical moral concern […], the reduction of all instances of moral judgment to perceptions of dyadic harm illustrates the deficits of moral monism […] such an account quickly becomes Procrustean, cutting off phenomena it cannot explain (e.g., the role of disgust in moral judgments) and stretching its unitary construct to fit everything else." Žmogus ir žodis / Filosofija / 2017, t. 19, Nr. 4

Experimental Philosophy
Given the aforementioned theoretical considerations, our paper has two main aims.First, we provide preliminary data on what the most cognitively salient moral transgressions among Lithuanians are.Second, we provide preliminary considerations on which of the aforementioned theories is most consistent with our data.Given the limitations of our empirical results and the fact that not all the theories provide explicit predictions concerning typicality of moral transgressions, we do not intend our data to provide serious support or pose considerable danger to any of the theories discussed in the introduction.However, these theories, to the extent that they address the folk notion of morality, should be capable to accommodate and explain emic data of the type presented in this article.

Study 1: Free-listing
There is some disagreement about how we ought to distinguish moral transgressions from other kinds of normative transgressions.Some researchers assume that by directly asking participants to respond to questions about immorality and/or wrongness of actions we will tap into the folk concept of morality (for instance, Gray, Schein, 2012).Others, notably in Turiel tradition, argue that a certain normative conviction, entailing notions of objectivity (i.e. an action is regarded as wrong independent of what any authority thinks about it) and universality (i.e., an action is regarded as wrong independent of culture or historical period), is a good way to distinguish moral from non-moral transgressions.Taken together, these criteria form a kind of "moral signature" (see Kelly et al., 2007) that signifies and distinguishes moral transgressions from various other normative transgressions.It is quite possible, however, that while simply using the term of immorality, people also imply a strong normative conviction (à la Turiel).This is an important methodological point that we will briefly address as well.
In order to explore the typicality of moral transgressions, we have adopted one of the traditional methods in cognitive anthropology -free-listing.It is especially useful in that it allows researchers to familiarize themselves with the concepts shared and used by the respondents (see de Munck, 2009, Ch. 3).Free-listing allows one to describe the conceptual domain from an emic perspective, as it is used within a particular cultural group.

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were distributed randomly.After excluding incomplete lists, there were 130 participants in total (age M=26; 79 % female).The reason to have two versions of the task was to address the previously mentioned methodological point.Specifically, one version asked to list actions that participants would regard as immoral (N = 61).The other version (N = 69) asked to list actions that they would regard as wrong (a) irrespectively of what any authority they trust and respect believes, and (b) irrespectively of where in the world they occur.We call this pattern the moral signature (Kelly et al., 2007).All materials used in the studies presented in this article were in the Lithuanian language (for full materials please contact the first author).

Results
Data analysis with the software program ANTHROPAC (Borgatti, 1996) revealed that in the original emic version of the results there were 305 unique terms in the moral signature group and 143 in the immoral group.Some terms were either synonymous or superfluously formulated; therefore, we ran through the lists to reduce the number of terms by unifying synonyms where appropriate, changing from singular to plural and vice versa, and checking for typos.Unified data-sheets were re-analyzed by ANTHROPAC to recover frequencies.In a reduced version, there were 154 unique items in the moral signature group and 117 in the immoral group.It appears that there is little difference between the two lists.The most frequently mentioned top three items are the same: killing, stealing, and lying.In general, fifteen items in the two top twenty lists are identical, and some discrepant items from top twenty lists could be observed further down the list.Thus, the data from both groups were collapsed and reanalyzed.See Table 1 for the full list of most frequently mentioned terms.Only the terms that were mentioned at least 5 times are provided in the table.Focusing on the most frequently mentioned items is a standard way of analysis in cognitive anthropology (see de Munck, 2009, Ch. 3).

Discussion
With respect to the two versions of the task, results indicate that participants in the moral signature group and in the immoral group share the same or very similar basic notions of moral transgressions.The term of immorality might implicitly contain a similar strong normative conviction as the one that was explicitly stated in the moral signature task.Considering the overall list, it seems that Lithuanian participants are indeed mostly concerned with the issues related to harm and fairness, of course, with some exceptions.However, in order to avoid a post hoc categorization of various instances, we have designed Study 2 that explicitly requested participants to categorize all the frequently mentioned items themselves.

Study 2: Categorization
The list of moral transgressions provided in Table 1 indicates what kinds of actions and situations are cognitively salient moral transgressions to Lithuanian participants.And there is a remarkable agreement which moral wrongdoings come to the fore of the list.However, it does not give us direct evidence about the underlining categories that each listed transgression falls into.Therefore, in this study we asked participants to place each item into one of the six possible categories.

Methods
Participants were recruited via internet, by using the online survey tool SurveyGizmo.A link to the study was disseminated to the students and employees of Vilnius and Vytautas Magnus Universities, Lithuania.After excluding incomplete surveys, there were 104 participants in total (age M = 24; 83 % female).Explanatory categories that people had to choose from were constructed from the five Haidtian morally relevant social domains and one conventional domain indicating uncultured behavior.Participants had to categorize 43 items from the list (see Table 1).In the task description, we firstly indicated a particular moral transgression, then a participant had to choose one of the categories as the most appropriate for this item.Six categories were presented in the form of explanations why a transgression is wrong, as a way to convey the normative content of the category.For instance: [Killing] is wrong because … -physical or psychological harm is caused to someone, -someone is treated unjustly or unfairly, -disrespect is expressed to authority and traditions, -disloyalty to one's own people is expressed, -such behavior is disgusting and indecent, -such behavior is uncultured.
Participants were asked to choose one normative content that explains best why a given transgression is morally wrong.

Results
Figure 1 shows how many items, in total and across all participants, were categorized one way or another.It seems that the initial impression suggested by the free-list data was confirmed: a total of 41 % of all moral transgression items were categorized as being morally wrong because they caused physical or psychological harm, and 28 % of all moral transgression items were categorized as being morally wrong because someone was treated unjustly or unfairly.In order to measure the central tendency of the categorization data, the modes of each transgression were calculated.Table 2 shows transgressions that appear most often in each explanatory category, where percentages indicate the proportion of participants for each transgression and in a given explanatory category.It is worth noting, however, that a non-negligible number of transgressions were ambiguously categorized.Out of 43 items, the central tendency (mode) of 20 transgressions were around 50 % or less.This ambiguity could be interpreted in two ways.As an illustration, let us consider "violating other's freedom", where 47 % of participants categorized this action as being morally wrong because it caused harm, while 44 % categorized it as being unfair.First, it is possible that participants genuinely disagree about this transgression.One half of the participants think that it is truly harmful, while the other half think it is truly unfair.Second, it is also possible that participants, when presented with a forced choice task, have both intuitions -it is harmful and unfair -but have to choose one, thus resulting in a more or less equal distribution of responses.Unfortunately, our data cannot resolve between the two competing interpretations.More research, with different methods, is needed in order to see an overlap of different normative contents in moral judgments (see Berniūnas et al., 2016, for such an attempt with Mongolian participants).For our purposes, however, it will suffice to say that the vast majority of transgressions were categorized as either harmful or unfair.

Discussion
It seems that the results are in accord with the initial formulation of the prototypical moral transgressions in Turiel tradition.That is: "acts entailing harm, injustice, or violation of rights" are "prototypical moral violations" (Wainryb, 1991, p. 842).Even if some actions are categorized as Authority (disrespect), Ingroup (neglecting family), or Purity (defecation in public) transgressions, these instances were not strongly pronounced either in terms of frequency of the average ranking (see table 1).Apparently, in terms of cognitive salience, different domains are not of equal strength.
However, the results cannot provide a clear-cut support for either Gray and his colleagues' position, nor for Sousa and his colleagues' position.It is true that 41 % of actions were categorized as harm transgressions, and 28 % of actions were categorized as fairness transgressions, and in the case of ambiguously categorized transgressions, harm and fairness came as second best choices; the data do not resolve the disagreement between the two monistic positions.

General Discussion and Conclusions
In this paper, we explicitly asked Lithuanian participants to provide a list of typical moral transgressions.In doing that, and for the sake of argument, we assumed that people do have a particular concept of moral transgression, and that particular actions, with particular features, can trigger this concept.Overall, the results gave a snapshot of the basic elements of the folk concept of a moral transgression, at least as it is explicitly conceptualized by the Lithuanian sample.In what follows, we will discuss these results in relation to theories about the scope of morality that were outlined in the introduction.
Both studies could be accommodated, to a large extent, by Gray and colleagues' Moral Dyad theory (Gray et al., 2012;Gray, Schein, 2012;Gray et al., 2014).In particular, findings from studies 1 and 2 are consistent with findings from Schein and Gray (2015), in both cases the most dominant actions listed were related to harm, though results were counted differently.In our study 1, we used a cognitive anthropological free-listing technique and counted items (and their average rank in the provided lists), while in our study 2 participants categorized 41 % of all transgression items as causing harm.In comparison, Schein and Gray examined the percentage of participants who categorized their first act recalled as harmful, which was 68 %.We believe, that in order to investigate the cognitive salience of particular moral transgressions, the listing and explanatory categorization of transgression items is more suitable for this task.As a result, current evidence would support a weaker version of the harm-based monistic claim: harm is the most important concern to Lithuanians, but not the only one.

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However, the evidence is also quite consistent with the Turiel tradition.Recall, Wainryb indicated that "acts entailing harm, injustice, or violation of rights performed arbitrarily or for self-interested goals" could be referred to as "prototypical moral violations" (Wainryb, 1991, 842).This position suggests that harm and injustice (that includes violation of rights) are the most salient types of moral transgression.In fact, taken together, results show that harm and fairness categories make up around 69 % of all items, where fairness has over 28 % of all items, a rather non-negligible percentage.
At the first glance, fairness-based monistic positions (Sousa, Piazza, 2014;Baumard et al., 2013) seem to be less suitable to predict the pattern of results observed in our preliminary studies due to the prominence of harm rather than justice considerations.Still, our data cannot exclude the possibility that fairness-based normative content plays a crucial role in the process of moral judgment.One interpretation could be as follows: a perception of the harmed victim is perhaps the first automatic reaction to the provided list of moral transgressions.This, however, does not exclude a conceptual influence of fairness considerations that kick in a bit later in the cognitive processing.Given current results, it is reasonable to infer an automatic reaction to the distress and suffering of others, whether it is or it isn't morally relevant harm.Still, further fairness considerations (was harm justified or not?) might either inhibit this first reaction (e.g., a pain caused by dentist is not a moral transgression) or enhance this reaction (e.g., a pain caused by a bully at school is a moral transgression).This is still an open empirical question and more research is needed to determine the conceptual relationship between perceived harm and fairness considerations in folk moral judgments (see Nichols, 2002 for one proposal).
Finally, current results, taken together, provide some challenge to Haidt's MFT proposal.Prominent place of harm and justice considerations in our preliminary data suggest that not all moral foundations are equal in their typicality.However, an introduction of the idea that moral transgressions of some foundations are more cognitively salient than other foundations, could be understood as a welcome amendment rather than harsh criticism.
Summing up, current qualitative data from Lithuania are most consistent with Gray and colleagues' theory and with the Turiel tradition.It is less consistent with fairness-based monism, though monists (in particular Sousa, Piazza, 2014) have some conceptual resources to accommodate the results.Finally, the results seem to be in some tension with MFT, which needs to provide some additional conceptual elements to accommodate current results.Future research with different samples from different cultural contexts could provide insights about the range of people's explicit and most salient moral transgressions.This type of emic research, we believe, can contribute to the debate about the scope of moral cognition by providing qualitative evidence not only from Western but also non-Western cultural contexts.Furthermore, knowing which moral transgressions are most salient to a given population can be useful in designing

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Number and percentage of items categorized into the six categories (total number of items: 43 transgressions * 104 participants = 4472).
Moral Psychology, for they allow to construct stimuli based on usual and familiar rather than unusual and rare examples of moral transgressions.

Table 1 . Full list of immoral actions mentioned by Lithuanian participants.
Note.Only items mentioned by at least 5 participants are included in the table.Frequency and % indicate the number and proportion of participants who have mentioned this item.AVG RANK indicates the average position of the item on the lists in which it appeared.