Abstract
In their innovative book, Unequal Foundations: Inequality, Morality, and Emotions Across Cultures, authors Steven Hitlin and Sarah Harkness advance a thoroughly novel approach to the cross-cultural study of social structures. They maintain that a society’s emotional experiences pertaining to moral issues are directly related to the society’s level of economic equality. In short, Hitlin and Harkness assert that the more economically equal a society is, the more positive the society’s emotional experiences, on the whole, tend to be.
The first five chapters of Unequal Foundations: Inequality, Morality, and Emotions Across Cultures offer a very detailed, yet highly accessible summary of research into the theoretical concepts of inequality, morality, and language, drawing from the fields of sociology and psychology.
The introductory chapter lays out the plan for the book as well as introducing the concept of morality and how it is connected to society. The second chapter, “A Primer on Inequality,” gives a brief explanation of what economic inequality is, how it operates in a society, and what its effects are.
“The Social Scientific Study of Morality” is the focus of the third chapter. In this chapter, Hitlin and Harkness provide a concise history of the study of morality from the fields of sociology and psychology. They begin by discussing the contributions of Erving Goffman, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, John Dewey, and Adam Smith before moving onto research from neuroscience and sociological dual process models.
The fourth chapter deals with the problems associated with studying morality across cultures such as cultural variation, cultural values, and the conceptions of morality. The chapter ends with a discussion of moral emotions, which Hitlin and Harkness, state, Tell us a good deal not only about how individuals respond to their circumstances and actions, but taken collectively, tell us about the society in which they live. Moral emotions link moral standards to moral behavior and range from positive to negative. (p. 76)
The fifth chapter, “Morality as a Measure of Society,” offers a justification for studying morality and society through a sociopsychological lens as well as the authors’ use of Interact, which is a database that utilizes Affect Control Theory in the construction of algorithms to address the cultural variations in the raw data used in the study. Hitlin and Harkness claim that a society is reflected in its language and moral emotions. The chapter concludes with discussions of some of the various types of moral emotions including self and other sanctioning, and compassionate and praising emotions.
The last five chapters of Unequal Foundations: Inequality, Morality, and Emotions Across Cultures pertain to the research and findings from Hitlin and Harkness’ investigation of the relationship between society, morality, and equality. The sixth chapter posits that the predominance of moral emotions that are sanctioning-based is dependent on the level of economic inequality in a society. Conversely, the prevalence of positive and prosocial moral emotions is related to the degree of economic equality in a society. According to Hitlin and Harkness, societies where there is more economic inequality, such as China and the United States, are more likely to use sanctioning-based moral emotions in an effort to maintain the status quo and to protect the stratified social hierarchy. In societies where there is more economic equality, like Canada, Germany, and Japan, there is less of a need to use sanctioning-based moral emotions to maintain the social order due to the fact that the social hierarchy is more egalitarian.
The seventh chapter discusses the test Hitlin and Harkness use to cross-culturally examine their theory of inequality. Affect Control Theory “provides a way of understanding and modeling social interactions making it possible to empirically compare the likely emotions resulting from the same types of interactions in various cultures” (p. 119). In the following chapter, Hitlin and Harkness offer a description of their data and the methodology used in their study.
The empirical analysis of the findings from the examination of Hitlin and Harkness’ theory of moral emotions and social inequality is the focus of the ninth chapter. Of the five nations that Hitlin and Harkness studied, those with greater economic equality (Canada, Germany, and Japan) reported more moral emotions, while those with greater economic inequality (China and the United States) showed less moral emotions. Furthermore, self and other sanctioning moral emotions were more prevalent in both China and the United States, while more praising and compassionate moral emotions were found in Canada, Germany, and Japan.
Unequal Foundations: Inequality, Morality, and Emotions Across Cultures concludes with a call from the authors for additional research examining the relationship between social inequality and moral emotions. The book is a fine introduction to the fascinating study of the nexus of morality and inequality. Hitlin and Harkness have written a textbook that is accessible enough for advanced undergraduates, yet substantial enough to compel graduate students to pursue further avenues of study of the affective and evaluative content of language and how that shapes and affects moral issues both within and across cultures.