Mapping moral judgments of food waste: Moving beyond truisms

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cris.lastimport.scopus2025-05-10T03:10:15Z
dc.abstract.enWhy do people see wasting food as immoral? While previous studies on food-wasting behaviour have explored its moral significance, they often lacked a clear scientific operationalisation of morality. This project bridges the gap between research on food-wasting behaviour and moral psychology by mapping folk moral intuitions about food waste onto the theory-driven Morality-as-Cooperation (MAC) framework. Across two studies, we identified common folk moral intuitions about why food wasting behaviour is considered immoral and compared them to MAC-based moral domains. We examined how these folk intuitions relate to MAC domains and tested how both influence food-wasting behaviours. The strongest folk predictors of food waste condemnation were concerns for nature, thriftiness, and world hunger, while the key MAC-based intuitions were Fairness (resource distribution), Deference (authority and tradition), and Group Loyalty (community commitment), with Fairness underpinning most folk intuitions. Both folk and cooperative moral intuitions predicted food wasting behaviours, such as discarding unpalatable foods, overshopping, meal planning, and food sharing. Folk intuitions also mediated the link between MAC-based moral concerns (Fairness and Reciprocity) and food-wasting behaviours. These findings ground folk moral beliefs in a scientific framework, providing a more systematic understanding of food waste morality and offering new insights for more effective interventions.
dc.affiliationWydział Psychologii we Wrocławiu
dc.affiliationInstytut Psychologii
dc.contributor.authorMisiak, Michał
dc.contributor.authorSobol, Małgorzata
dc.contributor.authorStefanczyk, Michał Mikolaj
dc.contributor.authorSakowski, Łukasz
dc.contributor.authorIdziak, Paulina
dc.contributor.authorCurry, Oliver Scott
dc.date.access2027-04-03
dc.date.accessioned2025-05-09T08:00:34Z
dc.date.available2025-05-09T08:00:34Z
dc.date.created2025-03-20
dc.date.issued2025-04-03
dc.description.accesstimeafter_publication
dc.description.physical1-9
dc.description.versionfinal_author
dc.description.volume241
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2025.113184
dc.identifier.issn0191-8869
dc.identifier.urihttps://share.swps.edu.pl/handle/swps/1450
dc.identifier.weblinkhttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886925001461?via%3Dihub
dc.languageen
dc.pbn.affiliationpsychologia
dc.rightsEmbargo
dc.rights.questionYes_rights
dc.share.articleOPEN_JOURNAL
dc.subject.enMorality
dc.subject.enFood waste
dc.subject.enMorality-as-cooperation
dc.subject.enFood wasting behaviour
dc.subject.enCooperation
dc.swps.sciencecloudsend
dc.titleMapping moral judgments of food waste: Moving beyond truisms
dc.title.journalPersonality and Individual Differences
dc.typeJournalArticle
dspace.entity.typeArticle