Moral universals: A machine-reading analysis of 256 societies
What is the cross-cultural prevalence of the seven moral values posited by the theory of “morality-as-cooperation”? Previous research, using laborious hand-coding of ethnographic accounts of ethics from 60 societies, found examples of most of the seven morals in most societies, and observed these mo...
| Main Authors: | , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Elsevier
2024-03-01
|
| Series: | Heliyon |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844024019716 |
| _version_ | 1797224241601445888 |
|---|---|
| author | Mark Alfano Marc Cheong Oliver Scott Curry |
| author_facet | Mark Alfano Marc Cheong Oliver Scott Curry |
| author_sort | Mark Alfano |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | What is the cross-cultural prevalence of the seven moral values posited by the theory of “morality-as-cooperation”? Previous research, using laborious hand-coding of ethnographic accounts of ethics from 60 societies, found examples of most of the seven morals in most societies, and observed these morals with equal frequency across cultural regions. Here we replicate and extend this analysis by developing a new Morality-as-Cooperation Dictionary (MAC-D) and using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) to machine-code ethnographic accounts of morality from an additional 196 societies (the entire Human Relations Area Files, or HRAF, corpus). Again, we find evidence of most of the seven morals in most societies, across all cultural regions. The new method allows us to detect minor variations in morals across region and subsistence strategy. And we successfully validate the new machine-coding against the previous hand-coding. In light of these findings, MAC-D emerges as a theoretically-motivated, comprehensive, and validated tool for machine-reading moral corpora. We conclude by discussing the limitations of the current study, as well as prospects for future research. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-24T13:50:00Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-0410aaac106a44aa91c5d2826bb7a886 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2405-8440 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-24T13:50:00Z |
| publishDate | 2024-03-01 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Heliyon |
| spelling | doaj.art-0410aaac106a44aa91c5d2826bb7a8862024-04-04T05:04:13ZengElsevierHeliyon2405-84402024-03-01106e25940Moral universals: A machine-reading analysis of 256 societiesMark Alfano0Marc Cheong1Oliver Scott Curry2Macquarie University, Australia; Corresponding author. 25B Wally's Walk, NSW, 2109, Australia.University of Melbourne, AustraliaUniversity of Oxford, UKWhat is the cross-cultural prevalence of the seven moral values posited by the theory of “morality-as-cooperation”? Previous research, using laborious hand-coding of ethnographic accounts of ethics from 60 societies, found examples of most of the seven morals in most societies, and observed these morals with equal frequency across cultural regions. Here we replicate and extend this analysis by developing a new Morality-as-Cooperation Dictionary (MAC-D) and using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) to machine-code ethnographic accounts of morality from an additional 196 societies (the entire Human Relations Area Files, or HRAF, corpus). Again, we find evidence of most of the seven morals in most societies, across all cultural regions. The new method allows us to detect minor variations in morals across region and subsistence strategy. And we successfully validate the new machine-coding against the previous hand-coding. In light of these findings, MAC-D emerges as a theoretically-motivated, comprehensive, and validated tool for machine-reading moral corpora. We conclude by discussing the limitations of the current study, as well as prospects for future research.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844024019716MoralityCooperationEthnographyUniversalsNatural language processingLIWC |
| spellingShingle | Mark Alfano Marc Cheong Oliver Scott Curry Moral universals: A machine-reading analysis of 256 societies Heliyon Morality Cooperation Ethnography Universals Natural language processing LIWC |
| title | Moral universals: A machine-reading analysis of 256 societies |
| title_full | Moral universals: A machine-reading analysis of 256 societies |
| title_fullStr | Moral universals: A machine-reading analysis of 256 societies |
| title_full_unstemmed | Moral universals: A machine-reading analysis of 256 societies |
| title_short | Moral universals: A machine-reading analysis of 256 societies |
| title_sort | moral universals a machine reading analysis of 256 societies |
| topic | Morality Cooperation Ethnography Universals Natural language processing LIWC |
| url | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844024019716 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT markalfano moraluniversalsamachinereadinganalysisof256societies AT marccheong moraluniversalsamachinereadinganalysisof256societies AT oliverscottcurry moraluniversalsamachinereadinganalysisof256societies |