Muratoglu, Berk (2025) How Does Cynicism Influence the Perception of Moral Grandstanding? Bachelor thesis, Psychology.
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Abstract
Moral grandstanding—the strategic use of moral language to enhance one’s status—has been widely theorized to erode trust in moral discourse and fuel public polarization. While previous research has identified its performative nature, little is known about how it affects perceptions of sincerity or how individual dispositions shape these perceptions. This study experimentally investigated the effect of moral grandstanding on perceived sincerity and examined whether this relationship is moderated by cynicism, a generalized distrust of others’ motives. In a between-subjects design, 148 participants were randomly assigned to read either a morally grandstanding or a neutral comment embedded in a social media discussion on gene modification. Perceptions of sincerity and individual levels of cynicism were assessed using validated measures. Results showed that participants in the grandstanding condition perceived the speaker as significantly less sincere, confirming the hypothesized effect of grandstanding on perceived sincerity. Contrary to expectations, cynicism did not moderate this relationship. Instead, it emerged as an independent predictor: individuals high in cynicism consistently evaluated the speaker as less sincere, regardless of condition. These findings suggest that moral grandstanding functions as a salient cue of insincerity, detectable even in the absence of dispositional cynicism, and that cynical individuals are predisposed to interpret moral communication with suspicion. The study contributes to a growing body of literature on moral psychology by clarifying how message-driven and person-driven factors influence perceptions of sincerity in digital moral discourse. Keywords: Moral Grandstanding, Perceived Sincerity, Cynicism, Moral Communication, Digital Discourse
| Item Type: | Thesis (Bachelor) |
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| Supervisor name: | Meerholz, E.W. |
| Degree programme: | Psychology |
| Differentiation route: | None [Bachelor Psychology] |
| Date Deposited: | 10 Jul 2025 10:19 |
| Last Modified: | 10 Jul 2025 10:19 |
| URI: | http://gmwpublic.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/5443 |
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