Team MORALS is an undergraduate research team in the Class of 2017 cohort of the Gemstone Program in the University of Maryland Honors College. 

The research problem:

America is currently facing increasing political polarization: Congress is more polarized today than it has ever been before, and American citizens tend to gravitate away from moderate views and towards either end of the political spectrum. Our country was founded on the ideas of freedom, liberty, equality, and justice. But what do these values mean today, and how do individual Americans define and prioritize these values now? Does the way an individual defines and rank-orders values influence his/her political and moral stance on moral-political issues? How can we use this knowledge to help solve or mitigate current disagreements?

Our research questions ask:

(1) To what extent do the following two factors explain individuals' moral and policy stances on the chosen issues: definitions of value terms and how they rank order values?

(2) To what degree is personality type correlated with how a person rank orders and defines values provided in our survey?

(3) Which of the following--personality type, race, socioeconomic status, gender, and political affiliation--best predicts how a person rank orders and defines values provided in our survey?

We have chosen four morally divisive American social issues on which to focus our research and survey: abortion, capital punishment, gun control, and same-sex marriage.