Moral Psychology

System justification theory is a theory within social psychology that system-justifying beliefs serve a psychologically palliative function.

The just-world fallacy, or just-world hypothesis, is the cognitive bias that assumes that "people get what they deserve" - that actions will necessarily have morally fair and fitting consequences for the actor.

The identifiable victim effect is the tendency of individuals to offer greater aid when a specific, identifiable person ("victim") is observed under hardship, as compared to a large, vaguely defined group with the same need.

Compassion fade is the tendency to experience a decrease in empathy as the number of people in need of aid increase.

Moral luck describes circumstances whereby a moral agent is assigned moral blame or praise for an action or its consequences, even if it is clear that said agent did not have full control over either the action or its consequences.

Omission bias is the moral judgement in which people prefer omission (inaction) over commission (action), and tend to believe harm as a result of commission more negatively than harm as a result of omission.

Dehumanization is the process, practice, or act of denying full humanity in others, along with the cruelty and suffering that accompany it.

Social dominance theory (SDT) is a social psychological theory of intergroup relations that examines the caste-like features of group-based social hierarchies, and how these hierarchies remain stable and perpetuate themselves.

Relational models theory (RMT) is a theory of interpersonal relationships, authored by anthropologist Alan Fiske and initially developed from his fieldwork in Burkina Faso.

Inequity aversion (IA) is the preference for fairness and resistance to incidental inequalities.

The Lady Macbeth effect or Macbeth effect is a phenomenon in psychology where a sense of shame or moral failure may increase cleaning and cleanliness-seeking responses.

A moral injury is a traumatic experience emerging from the witnessing of or participation in an act of perceived moral transgression on the part of themselves or others.

A moral panic, also called a social panic, is a widespread feeling of fear that some evil person or thing threatens the values, interests, or well-being of a community or society.

Schadenfreude ( ; German: [ˈʃaːdn̩ˌfʁɔʏ̯də] ; lit.Tooltip literal translation "harm-joy") is the experience of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from learning of the troubles, failures, pain, suffering, or humiliation of another.

Infrahumanisation (or infrahumanization) is the tacitly held belief that one's ingroup is more human than an outgroup, which is less human.

The bystander effect (also called bystander apathy or the Genovese effect) is a social psychological theory that states that individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim in the presence of other people.