A new study published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin suggests that liberals and conservatives actually share a common foundation for morality based on preventing harm. The research indicates that political disagreements arise because people on the left and right hold different “assumptions of vulnerability.” In other words, they make different assumptions about which groups or entities are most susceptible to being harmed. While both sides actually agree that marginalized groups and the environment face the highest risk of harm, they disagree on the size of the gap between different groups. Liberals see a massive divide in vulnerability between the marginalized and those in power. Conservatives, on the other hand, view vulnerability as a more universal human trait, rating the powerful and the divine as significantly more susceptible to harm than liberals do. These findings challenge a popular idea known as Moral Foundations Theory. This older framework proposes that conservatives and liberals rely on entirely different mental mechanisms to make moral judgments, suggesting liberals care mostly about harm and fairness, while conservatives uniquely value loyalty, …