The Five Moral Foundations Sacredness Scale in men in court-mandated treatment for violently abusing their partners

Abstract

This paper examines the Intimate Partner Violence through the lens of the Moral Foundations Theory in an attempt to better understand the connections between sacredness and violence. Specifically, it aims to explore the usefulness of the Moral Foundations Sacredness Scale in a sample of 300 men convicted of domestic violence and to determine the existence of a distinctive profile based on the degree to which they sacralize the five moral foundations. Results show that the sacredness scale presents the hypothesized psychometric properties to be used in such specific sample. They also show that controlling for gender and political orientation men convicted of domestic violence have a clear tendency to sacralize the five moral foundations. The Authority foundation significantly discriminates between violent and non-violent participants while the Purity foundation emerges as a significant predictor of self-reported behaviors and beliefs tapping violence within the violent group.