Moral Shocks: Natural Experiments On Values

We often think of our moral values as deeply held personal choices, but below I review some natural experiments that show that they are downstream of historical accidents, geography, and random shocks. These natural experiments use observational, non-randomized data, but exploit natural variation to mimic randomization. This way, they find long-term, large-scale causal effects (sometimes following millions of 'participants' over many years with high statistical power), that would be too costly or unethical to study experimentally.

Morality, politics, attitudes:

Removing the draft makes people less nationalistic.^[1]
Compulsory voting doesn't affect civic attitudes ^[2],^[3]
'compulsory volunteerism' does not increase altruism: Canadian high schoolers who had to do community service program did not volunteer more later^[4]
Speaking a language with greater word order flexibility support more redistribution (and buy more insurance)^[5]
1 SD more education increases tolerance by .4 SD.^[6]
Studying social sciences and humanities vs natural sciences makes students more left-leaning (driven by cultural issues), whereas studying economics and business makes them more right-leaning (driven by economic issues). Effects operate through academic content rather than socialization. If all students majored in economics/business, the college–noncollege ideological gap would shrink by ~⅓.^[7]
'Trump effect': Trump's election caused Europeans to like the EU much more (≈ 3 years of education).^[8]
Climate change: Survey data from Germany (2012–2015) and satellite imagery of the 2013 major flood reveal that flood experience significantly heightened belief in climate change among nearby residents.^[9]
Immigration:

Increased immigration reduces support for redistribution.^[10] Syrian refugees increases anti-establishment feelings in society and the likelihood of supporting democracy ^[11]
The murder of the author of a Dutch documentary critical of Islam by an Islamicist in 2004 increased support for restrictive immigration policy in Norway, Spain, and Slovakia.^[12]

Historical Habsburg affiliation increases current trust and reduces corruption in courts and police^[13]
Exposure to a holocaust documentary reduced far-right votes in the 1980 German elections by 76% (0.1-0.23 percentage points of the total vote),
Tax morale in East Germany was higher after the fall of the Berlin Wall, but then eroded over time.^[14]
East Germans invest significantly less in stocks and hold more negative views on capital markets if they had unrelated positive experiences, e.g., from Olympic games or living in celebrated showcase cities. Results reverse for East Germans with negative experiences, like environmental pollution and religious oppression.^[15]
Western television exposure has made East Germans more inclined to believe that effort rather than luck determines success in life.^[16]
In Europe, the spread of mobile Internet amplified tribalist 'echo chambers' via social media, increasing communitarianism, nationalism and support for particularist policies and parties emphasizing opposition to minority rights, immigration, multiculturalism, and European integration.^[17]
Exposure to Fox News makes voters less universalist (more particularist, communal) in the Moral Foundations Questionnaire. The Fox News effect on voting at least in part operates through changes in moral values.^[18]
Indoctrination:

In Nazi Germany, Hitler Youth alumni needed fewer punishments for similar levels of effort.^[19]
GDR conscription boosted bureaucrats' system engagement, not via deep norm internalization, but because political training revealed elite preferences, enabling strategic behavior in line with the rules.^[20]

From 'morality and political economy': ^[21]

'Ethiopian Markets': Random historical location near marketplaces caused modern Ethiopian villagers to develop stronger norms of generalized, impersonal cooperation.
'Protestant Reformation': The lifting of Catholic usury bans in 16th-century Germany increased anti-Semitism by introducing economic competition with Jewish moneylenders.
'US Soil Heterogeneity': Homogeneous soil in the 19th-century US fostered community-focused particularism, while heterogeneous soil caused settlers to develop universalist morality.
'The Great Migration': The influx of African Americans into Northern US cities in the early 20th century caused native-born Whites to treat European immigrants more favorably due to shifting similarity judgments.
'Ancestral Herding': Historical reliance on pastoralism (determined by ecology) in pre-industrial societies caused the development of a 'culture of honor,' predicting higher frequencies of civil conflict today.
'Historical Trade Routes': Proximity to pre-industrial trade routes caused an increase in universalist morality found in the folklore of ~1,000 historical ethnolinguistic groups.

From 'Historical Psychology': ^[22]

'Roman Rule in Germany': Roman occupation (approx. 2,000 years ago) of specific German regions caused higher modern psychological well-being and health compared to non-Roman regions.
'Atlantic Slave Trade': Heavy raiding of ancestors in Africa during the slave trade (~1500–1900) caused significantly lower modern trust in relatives, neighbors, and local councils.
'Protestant Literacy': The Reformation in Europe promoted Bible reading, which fostered literacy and caused economic prosperity via human capital accumulation (challenging the 'work ethic' theory).
'The Printing Press': The diffusion of the printing press in early modern Europe boosted urban growth and accelerated the exchange of knowledge.
'Encyclopédie Access': Subscriptions to the Encyclopédie in 18th-century France caused (predicted) regional industrialization and higher rates of invention due to concentrated human capital.
'Exposure to War': Living in war-torn regions (e.g., modern Sierra Leone, Uganda, Tajikistan) caused increased in-group loyalty, parochial altruism, and adherence to moralizing religions.
A little more than half of the democracy gap between the developing and advanced worlds is explained by the muted capacity of nonelites and the elevated power of landlords.

Sex and Gender:

Gender quotas that cause female politicians to be elected reduces corruption in Spain^[23]
A 1990 Japanese reform ending gender segregation in junior high industrial arts and home economics led to increased female labor force participation and altered household gender roles, with wives taking on more traditionally male weekend tasks and husbands more traditionally female ones. The reform boosted fertility only when it decreased wives' childcare time; otherwise, it delayed it, possibly due to shifts in gender role beliefs.^[24]
In South Korea, women from single-sex schools show greater, long-lasting political and social engagement, and are more likely to seek leadership roles than those from coeducational schools. However, this increased participation does not translate into more progressive gender attitudes or greater activism for gender equality.^[25]
In Thailand, legalizing same-sex marriage appears to shift public attitudes, leading to greater acceptance of homosexuality, homosexual neighbors, and the view that same-sex couples are equally good parents.^[26]