Abstract
What makes some acts immoral? While Western theories of morality often define harmful behaviors as centrally immoral, whether this is applicable to other cultures is still under debate. In particular, Confucianism emphasizes civility as fundamental to moral excellence. We designed three studies examining how the word “immoral” is used by Chinese and Westerners. Layperson-generated examples were used to examine cultural differences in which behaviors are called “immoral” (Study 1, N = 609; Study 2, N = 480), and whether “immoral” behaviors were best characterized as particularly harmful vs. uncivilized (Study 3, N = 443). Results suggest that Chinese were more likely to use the word “immoral” for behaviors that were uncivilized, rather than exceptionally harmful; while Westerners were more likely to link immorality tightly to harm. More research into lay concepts of morality is needed to inform theories of moral cognition and improve understanding of human conceptualizations of social norms.