For Who Do Moral Changes Matter? The Influence of Change Type, Direction, and Target on Judgments of Identity Persistence

While philosophers have traditionally argued that identity persistence depends on continuity of memories, recent psychological work suggests instead that morals are most important: when a person’s morals change, they are seen as more of a different person than when memories or preferences change. In this paper we investigate whether this depends on who is changing, and in what direction. In five studies we show that changes to morality are seen as more disruptive for identity persistence than changes to warmth, competence, memories, and preferences: for the self, a friend, a stranger, and a “foe”. Moreover, the direction of change matters: a friend’s identity is most disrupted when they became less moral, but a foe becomes more different as they became more moral. These findings reinforce the robustness of the moral self effect across different targets and areas of evaluation, while also highlighting the importance of considering the direction of change.