On the Importance of Being Moral: The Distinctive Role of Morality in Social Judgment

Agency and communion are the core dimensions of social judgment as they indicate whether someone's intentions toward us are beneficial or harmful (i.e., communion), and whether they have the ability to fulfil their intentions (i.e., agency). Recent advances have demonstrated that communion encompasses both sociability (e.g., friendliness, likeability) and morality (e.g., honesty, trustworthiness) characteristics. In this article, we review the emerging literature highlighting that morality and sociability make unique contribution to social judgment and that morality has a primary role in the evaluations we make of individuals and groups. We also consider the evidence showing that morality and sociability play distinct roles in the positive evaluation of the individual and group self-concept. We conclude that future research on social judgment should expand the two-dimensional model to the more specific aspects of communion captured in information about morality and sociability.