Differentiating Diversities: Moral Diversity Is Not Like Other Kinds1

2003/01/01 by Jonathan Haidt, Evan Rosenberg, Evan C. Rosenberg +1 · 190 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Aesthetics #Affirmative action #Cultural Differences and Values #Cultural diversity #Diversity (politics) #Epistemology #Gender Diversity and Inequality #Identity (music) #Immigration #Law #Multiculturalism #Philosophy #Political science #Politics #Psychology #Social and Intergroup Psychology #Social group #Social identity theory #Social psychology #Sociology

paper · doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.2003.tb02071.x

published in Journal of Applied Social Psychology 33(1), 1-36 (Wiley)

openalex publication_date 2003/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23

Abstract

Diversity is widely celebrated in American society. But from a social psychological point of view, diversity ought to cause a number of problems, such as divisiveness and conflict. A resolution of this paradox is proposed: There are several kinds of diversity, with different profiles of costs and benefits. In particular, moral diversity is identified as being problematic and even self‐contradictory. Three studies of attitudes and desires for interaction among college students confirmed that moral diversity reduces desires for interaction more than does demographic diversity, and that both kinds of diversity are valued more in a classroom than in other social settings. These findings have important implications for discussions of diversity, multiculturalism, affirmative action, identity politics, and immigration policy.

Citations

• Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital

Cited by

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• The Psychology of Moral Conviction
• The Psychology of Morality: A Review and Analysis of Empirical Studies Published From 1940 Through 2017
• Moralized Rationality: Relying on Logic and Evidence in the Formation and Evaluation of Belief Can Be Seen as a Moral Issue
• Moral psychology [wikipedia]
• Equity or equality? Moral judgments follow the money. [europepmc]
• How Can Men Convicted of Violence Against Women Feel Moral While Holding Sexist and Violent Attitudes? A Homeostatic Moral Model Based on Self-Deception. [europepmc]
• Moralized Health-Related Persuasion Undermines Social Cohesion. [europepmc]
• Left Threatened by Right: Political Intergroup Bias in the Contemporary Italian Context. [europepmc]
• 'Distancers' and 'non-distancers'? The potential social psychological impact of moralizing COVID-19 mitigating practices on sustained behaviour change. [europepmc]

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