Investigating relationships between moral foundations and support for revenge

Revenge is a complex phenomenon that has long attracted attention from scholars acrossdisciplines. In two pre-registered studies, we applied insights from moral foundations theory toexamine how moral values are associated with attitudes toward revenge. In Study 1 (N = 299),endorsement of the binding foundations (loyalty, authority, and purity) was positively associatedwith support for revenge, whereas endorsement of the individualizing foundations (harm andfairness) was negatively associated. Study 2 (N = 852), which focused on a specific case ofsexual assault, revealed a more nuanced pattern: individualizing values were linked to justifyingthe victim’s revenge and attributing responsibility to the perpetrator, while binding values werelinked to blaming the victim for engaging in revenge. Together, these findings demonstrate anovel application of moral foundations theory to the study of retribution, offering new insightinto the moral correlates of when, and for whom, revenge is viewed as legitimate.