ABSTRACT

We examined whether Moral Foundations Theory helps explain Americans’ reactions to violations of age-related sexual norms. Attitudes toward sexual relationships between two adolescents, an adolescent and a young adult, and two adults of highly discrepant ages were obtained from a nationally representative sample of 1,117 adults in the United States. The sex of the older person was manipulated in the age-discrepant scenarios. We found that respondents for whom purity was an important value were generally more likely to be bothered by these sexual activities. The reaction to sexual relationships between adolescent girls and young men was an exception. For this type of relationship, the negative reaction was related to the fairness foundation, suggesting that respondents thought the relationship involved exploitation. Reactions to violations of age norms were unrelated to whether respondents had a strong harm foundation, suggesting that their reactions were not motivated by concern that such relationships are harmful to participants. Finally, we found that male respondents were less likely to react negatively to age violations than female respondents, particularly when the sexual relationship involved an adolescent boy and a young woman.

摘要

我们检查了道德基础理论是否有助于解释美国人对违反与年龄相关的性规范的反应。从美国 1,117 名成年人的全国代表性样本中获得了两名青少年、一名青少年和一名青年以及两名年龄差异很大的成年人对性关系的态度。在年龄差异场景中，老年人的性别被操纵。我们发现，将纯洁视为重要价值观的受访者通常更容易受到这些性活动的困扰。对青春期女孩和年轻男人之间的性关系的反应是个例外。对于这种关系，负面反应与公平基础有关，表明受访者认为这种关系涉及剥削。对违反年龄规范的反应与受访者是否有强大的伤害基础无关，这表明他们的反应并不是出于担心这种关系对参与者有害。最后，我们发现与女性受访者相比，男性受访者不太可能对年龄侵犯做出负面反应，尤其是当性关系涉及青春期男孩和年轻女性时。