# Does it matter who harmed whom? A cross-cultural study of moral judgments about harm by and to insiders and outsiders

## TL;DR

This study shows that people judge moral wrongness differently depending on whether the person who caused harm or was harmed is an insider or outsider, across six countries.

## Contribution

The study introduces new evidence on how insider and outsider status influences moral judgments globally, revealing consistent insider agent and victim effects.

## Key findings

- Moral violations by outsider agents are seen as more wrong than those by insider agents.
- Violations against insider victims are judged as more morally wrong than against outsider victims.
- The effects are consistent across all six countries studied.

## Abstract

This cross-cultural study compared judgments of moral wrongness for physical and emotional harm with varying combinations of in-group vs. out-group agents and victims across six countries: the United States of America (N = 937), the United Kingdom (N = 995), Romania (N = 782), Brazil (N = 856), South Korea (N = 1776), and China (N = 1008). Consistent with our hypothesis we found evidence of an insider agent effect, where moral violations committed by outsider agents are generally considered more morally wrong than the same violations done by insider agents. We also found support for an insider victim effect where moral violations that were committed against an insider victim generally were seen as more morally wrong than when the same violations were committed against an outsider, and this effect held across all countries. These findings provide evidence that the insider versus outsider status of agents and victims does affect moral judgments. However, the interactions of these identities with collectivism, psychological closeness, and type of harm (emotional or physical) are more complex than what is suggested by previous literature.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-023-04986-3.