Moral values assigned to real-life events

A conceptual framework entailing a description of the content of moral values was proposed and applied to everyday events that people had experienced as unrighteous. In the conceptual framework, the content of moral values is assumed to be mentally represented both as norms and as schemas. The norm specifies how one should or should not act. The schemas consist of prominent features (elements) of events associated with a norm and more detailed information specifying concrete types of elements labeled attributes. In Study 1, 125 events experienced as unrighteous were collected from a sample of 86 students. Based on descriptions by a nationally representative sample of 567 respondents, the described events were classified in eight groups corresponding to different moral values. In Study 2 the classified events were shown to differ between these groups with respect to prominent features contributing to a moral reaction.