Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Publication Date
Spring 5-2022
Journal
Undergraduate Honours Theses
Abstract
Moral injury, the emotional, psychological, behavioural, spiritual, and social harm induced by participating in, failing to prevent, or witnessing acts that transgress one’s moral beliefs and expectations is commonly studied in the context of military veterans and health care providers. Previous research has found that framing traumatic experiences with a concrete mindset reduces the associated harm than when framed with an abstract mindset. The current study therefore examined the concept of moral injury in an everyday context with the implementation of these mindsets. Using Amazon MTurk, 84 participants were recruited and randomly assigned to an abstract mindset or concrete mindset. Each participant was instructed to recall a time they violated their moral values and to describe the event, considering how (concrete mindset) or why (abstract mindset) this event occurred. The participants then completed a series of questionnaires assessing their moral emotions, moral injury, and moral identity. Results indicate that the abstract and concrete conditions did not differ significantly in terms of their moral emotions and moral injury, but a significant difference was found between the two conditions on the internalization subscale on the measure of moral identity, indicating that those in the concrete condition prioritize moral principles with regards to their self-concepts but not in terms of expressing them. Implications of the findings and avenues for future research are discussed.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Notes
Thesis Advisor(s):
Dr. Irene Cheung