The moral gradient is steepest on the sanctity items

Weighted share of liberals and of conservatives taking the permissive side of each GSS moral item, pooled 1972–2024. Items grouped by Haidt’s clusters; the connector length is the liberal–conservative gap.

Liberals (permissive %) Conservatives (permissive %) the ideological gap

Takeaway: the binding items — sex, drugs, the body — show long liberal–conservative connectors; on the death penalty, a harm item, the two dots sit closer together.

Permissive shares among liberals (polviews 1–3) and conservatives (5–7); moderates excluded from the gap. The two near-floor binding items (pornography, extramarital sex) are condemned almost universally, so their absolute gaps are structurally tiny. Source: GSS 1972–2024, weighted; per-item n = 22,016–37,205 liberal-plus-conservative respondents.

The sanctity gap nearly tripled; the harm gap grew more slowly

Liberal–conservative gap (percentage points) by decade, on a binding item (same-sex relations “not wrong”) and a harm item (opposing the death penalty), GSS 1970s–2020s.

Binding gap (homosexuality) Harm gap (death penalty)

Takeaway: both lines rise, but the binding line climbs from well below the harm line in the 1970s to well above it by the 2020s — the sanctity gap widened fastest.

Gap = liberal permissive share minus conservative permissive share, within decade. The 1980s and 1990s dip on the death-penalty item reflects an era of near-consensus support for capital punishment. The 2020s pool the GSS’s 2021+ web-mode waves. Source: GSS, weighted; per-decade n = 2,432–7,467.

Conservatives are distinctively restrictive on binding morality

Mean permissive index (share of cluster items on which the respondent takes the permissive side) by ideology, binding (sanctity/order) vs individualizing (harm), GSS pooled.

Binding index (sanctity, body, order) Individualizing index (harm)

Takeaway: liberals sit a little higher on the binding index than the harm index, but conservatives drop far below on binding — the gradient bends down where sanctity is at stake.

Each index is the weighted share of its cluster items on which the respondent takes the permissive side (0–1). Binding items: same-sex relations, premarital sex, marijuana. Individualizing items: abortion, death penalty. Source: GSS 1972–2024, weighted; binding n = 34,131, individualizing n = 22,389.