The Effects of Moral Valence and Communicative Goals on Effort and Granularity in Moral Character Descriptions

Abstract

People expend cognitive effort to communicate moral character, which may be reflected across different levels of granularity, from broad valence labels to episodic descriptions. Although prior research has examined the cognitive processes underlying moral judgment, less is known about how communicative effort is manifested in moral character descriptions, particularly as a function of communicative goals and contextual demands. Drawing on the Rational Speech Act (RSA) and resource-rationality, this study explores how action guidance and persuasion goals, alongside moral valence, influence the effort and content of moral communication. In an open-ended vignette task, participants (N = 440) evaluated a target individual described as either respectful or disrespectful under high versus low action guidance and persuasion conditions. Response time and word count measured communicative effort, and responses were qualitatively coded for granularity (valence, trait, pattern, episode). Results indicated that moral valence had the most consistent influence across measures. Negative evaluations produced longer responses and contained more behavior-based (pattern and episodic) descriptions, whereas positive evaluations relied more on abstract characterizations (valence and trait). An interaction between valence and action guidance revealed greater differences in both response time and word count under low action guidance. Action guidance also increased the likelihood of behavioral evidence use, but not the depth of granularity. Persuasion showed no consistent main effects, but interacted with valence to influence maximum granularity. Combined, these findings suggest that moral communication is more strongly influenced by evaluative context than by communicative goals, with the latter producing only selective effects on how moral character descriptions are expressed.