Sacred values resist tradeoffs because communities set them apart as nonfungible moral imperatives.

Evidence

People do not treat all values as fungible. Many of our most important decisions and most significant conflicts are driven by culturally bound “sacred values” (Baron & Spranca, 1997; Tetlock, 2003). The act of classifying the world into the “sacred” and the “profane” appears to be a near human universal; it exists in the most economically and scientifically sophisticated societies, and in isolated societies of hunter gatherers (Rappaport, 1984). It occurs when people believe that a thing (such as a piece of land), or an idea (such as a national right) is not an ordinary preference that can be valued along a metric common with economic goods . Rather, sacred values are treated as moral imperatives that have their own intrinsic value that makes them noncomparable to, and nonfungible with, ordinary or profane values, as when land becomes “Holy Land” (Rozin & Wolf, 2008). Sacred values are things that communities set apart from the economic or profane aspects of everyday life. — Scott Atran and Jeremy Ginges, Sacred Values and Cultural Conflict, 4

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines sacred values by their distinguishing property: taboo against material fungibility.
• XREF: The sacred-profane universal classification speaks directly to the reader’s research on manufactured-enemy group solidarity and whether professed conviction predicts divergence from measured behavior. — connects to: Moral commitment to sacred values leverages movements lacking material means against stronger opposition. — Scott Atran, The Devoted Actor: Unconditional…, 46; Sacred values resist trade-offs and override rational self-interest in decision making. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 545; Sacred values bind group identity and give groups advantage through non-rational commitment. — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality: The…, 264 (+9 more)

Related

• Sacred values resist material incentives and are best countered only by rival sacred values. (similarity 0.91)
• Sacralized values resist material incentives and cause offer-driven concessions to backfire (similarity 0.88)
• Sacred values and resource scarcity create an irreconcilable tension in social life. (similarity 0.87)
• Sacred values resist cost-benefit correction unlike ordinary preferences (similarity 0.87)
• Material incentives for relinquishing sacred values backfire and harden resistance (similarity 0.86)
• Sacred-value defenders benefit materially yet must deny those benefits to stay non-negotiable (similarity 0.86)
• Defending sacred values defies material cost-benefit prediction across decision contexts. (similarity 0.86)
• Offering material incentives for sacred-value compromises backfires and increases hostility (similarity 0.85)
• Sacred-value commitment produces costly sacrifice that lets weak groups beat stronger foes. (similarity 0.85)
• Sacredness is a functional universal that anchors compliance and resists secular contamination. (similarity 0.84)
• Sacred values resist trade-offs and override rational self-interest in decision making. (similarity 0.84)
• Sacred values are measured by refusal to trade a preference for money (similarity 0.84)
• Sacred values and identity fusion interact to drive sacrificial self-interest. (similarity 0.83)
• Elites can sway people by reframing sacred values as secular tradeoffs. (similarity 0.83)
• Reducing sacred values to material ones worsens conflict (similarity 0.83)

Broader Connections

• Sacred values resist trade-offs and override rational self-interest in decision making. #corroborates (0.90) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 545
• Sacred values resist material incentives and are best countered only by rival sacred values. #corroborates (0.85) — Scott Atran, The Devoted Actor, 82
• Sacred values resist cost-benefit correction unlike ordinary preferences #corroborates (0.85) — Scott Atran, The Devoted Actor, 4
• Sacralized values resist material incentives and cause offer-driven concessions to backfire #expands (0.85) — Hammad Sheikh and Jeremy Ginges and Alin Coman and Scott Atran, Religion, group threat and sacred values, 5
• Moral commitment to sacred values leverages movements lacking material means against stronger opposition. #expands (0.80) — Scott Atran, The Devoted Actor, 46
• Sacred values bind group identity and give groups advantage through non-rational commitment. #expands (0.80) — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality, 264
• Merely contemplating trade-offs on sacred values provokes moral outrage beyond cognitive confusion #expands (0.80) — Philip E. Tetlock, Thinking the unthinkable, 12
• Offering material incentives for sacred-value compromises backfires and increases hostility #expands (0.80) — Scott Atran and Jeremy Ginges, Sacred Values and Cultural Conflict, 67
• Material incentives backfire on sacred values while symbolic recognition softens opposition. #expands (0.80) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 547
• Material incentives for relinquishing sacred values backfire and harden resistance #expands (0.80) — Scott Atran and Jeremy Ginges, Sacred Values and Cultural Conflict, 48
• Moral communities reject Enlightenment rationality for certain sacred domains #corroborates (0.75) — Philip E. Tetlock, Thinking the unthinkable, 41
• Reducing sacred values to material ones worsens conflict #expands (0.75)