The worldwide spread of a new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) since December 2019 has posed a severe threat to individuals’ well-being. While the world at large is waiting that the released vaccines immunize most citizens, public health experts suggest that, in the meantime, it is only through behavior change that the spread of COVID-19 can be controlled. Importantly, the required behaviors are aimed not only at safeguarding one’s own health. Instead, individuals are asked to adapt their behaviors to protect the community at large. This raises the question of which social concerns and moral principles make people willing to do so. We considered in 23 countries (N= 6948) individuals’ willingness to engage in prescribed and discretionary behaviors, as well as country-level and individual-level factors that might drive such behavioral intentions. Results from multilevel multiple regressions, with country as the nesting variable, showed that publicized number of infections were not significantly related to individual intentions to comply with the prescribed measures and intentions to engage in discretionary prosocial behaviors. Instead, psychological differences in terms of trust in government, citizens, and in particular toward science predicted individuals’ behavioral intentions across countries. The more people endorsed moral principles of fairness and care (vs. loyalty and authority), the more they were inclined to report trust in science, which, in turn, statistically predicted prescribed and discretionary behavioral intentions. Results have implications for the type of intervention and public communication strategies that should be most effective to induce the behavioral changes that are needed to control the COVID-19 outbreak.

In recent years social psychologists have displayed a growing interest in examining morality—what people consider right and wrong. The majority of work in this area has addressed this either in terms of individual-level processes (relating to moral decision making or interpersonal impression formation) or as a way to explain intergroup relations (perceived fairness of status differences, responses to group-level moral transgressions). We complement this work by examining how moral standards and moral judgements play a role in the regulation of individual behaviour within groups and social systems. In doing this we take into account processes of social identification and self-categorisation, as these help us to understand how adherence to moral standards may be functional as a way to improve group-level conceptions of self. We review a recent research programme in which we have investigated the importance of morality for group-based identities and intra-group behavioural regulation. This reveals convergent evidence of the centrality of moral judgements for people’s conceptions of the groups they belong to, and demonstrates the importance of group-specific moral norms in identifying behaviours that contribute to their identity as group members.

Three studies examined strategies of status improvement in experimentally created (Study 1 and 2) and preexisting (Study 3) low-status groups. Theory and prior research suggested that an in-group norm that established a particular strategy of status improvement as moral (rather than competent) would have a greater effect on individuals' decision to work at this strategy. Both Study 1 and Study 2 found that morality norms had a greater impact than competence norms on individuals' decision to work at group (rather than individual) status improvement. In both studies participants also needed less time to decide on a strategy of status improvement when it is was encouraged by a morality norm rather than a competence norm. Study 3 used a preexisting low-status group (i.e., Southern Italians) to further confirm that morality norms have a greater effect on the decision to work at group status improvement than do competence norms. Results are discussed in terms of social influence and identity management strategies.

Ethical climate defines what is correct behavior and how ethical issues should be handled within organizations. For this reason, it plays a key role in organizational life. We relied on the social identity approach to compare the effects of two specific ethical climates – an ethical climate of self-interest vs. friendship – on employees’ reactions. In two scenario-based experiments (N₁ = 152 and N₂ = 113), participants were asked to imagine themselves working in an organization described either as characterized by a friendship or a self-interest ethical climate. They completed measures of identification, commitment, perceived organizational morality, turnover intention, recommendation, and the minimum wage they would accept to work for that organization. An ethical climate of friendship predicted better employees’ attitudes and behavioral intentions, and these were mediated by identification with, and commitment to, the organization. In Study 2, participants were less willing to move from an organization characterized by an ethical climate of friendship to a company characterized by an ethical climate of self-interest than vice versa, and asked for more money to accept this new job offer. Results, which confirmed that organizational identification and commitment represent key factors in organizational life, are discussed in terms of practical interventions that promote pro-organizational behavior.

This research examines how moral values regulate the behavior of individual group members. It argues that group members behave in line with moral group norms because they anticipate receiving ingroup respect when enacting moral values that are shared by ingroup members. Data from two experimental studies offer evidence in support. In Study 1 (N = 82), morality-based (but not competence-based) ingroup norms determined whether members of a low-status group opted for individual versus collective strategies for status improvement. This effect was mediated by anticipated ingroup respect and emerged regardless of whether group norms prescribed collectivistic or individualistic behavior. These effects were replicated in Study 2 (N = 69), where no comparable effect was found as a result of moral norms communicated by a higher status outgroup. This indicates that social identity implications rather than interdependence or more generic concerns about social approval or importance of cooperation drive these effects.