Moral foundations and attitudes towards supervised consumption services: a regional moderation study

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Social Psychology
• Health Policy

Background:

• Supervised Consumption Services (SCS) are linked to positive health outcomes and reduced economic burdens.
• Opposition to SCS often stems from perceived violations of moral foundations.
• Manitoba shows unexpectedly high support for SCS despite lacking a current service.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate why Manitobans exhibit higher support for SCS compared to other Prairie Provinces.
• To examine how moral foundations predict attitudes towards SCS differently in provinces with and without existing services.

Main Methods:

• Surveyed 2116 adults across Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta.
• Utilized moderated multiple logistic regression to analyze Province × Moral Foundations interactions.

Main Results:

• Binding moral foundations (authority, loyalty, purity) predicted greater opposition to SCS in Manitoba compared to Alberta and Saskatchewan.
• Interaction effects confirmed that proximity to an SCS moderates the relationship between moral foundations and SCS attitudes.

Conclusions:

• Lower binding moral foundations in Manitoba may explain higher SCS support.
• This is the first study to demonstrate that regional factors, like SCS availability, influence the link between moral foundations and SCS attitudes.
• Framing arguments to align with binding moral foundations can help overcome opposition to new SCS implementations.