Americans Think Their Neighbors Are Trash — And We’re the Only Country That Does
Pew Research surveyed 25 countries and asked people to rate the morality of their fellow citizens. In 24 of them, optimism won. More people said their compatriots had good morals than bad ones.
Then there’s us.
53% of Americans say their fellow citizens have bad morals and ethics — the only country surveyed in which more people view their neighbors as morally compromised than as decent. Not close. Not tied. We’re the outlier.
France, Germany, Australia, Japan — all leaning optimistic about their neighbors. The United States? We’re convinced the person next to us at the grocery store is probably ethically bankrupt.
Partisan Poison — Or Just Reality?
Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are much more likely than Republicans to rate fellow Americans as morally bad (60% vs. 46%). So the left thinks the country’s gone to hell. The right thinks it’s circling the drain. And both sides are convinced the other side is the problem.
Previous Pew research showed rising numbers of both Republicans and Democrats say people in the opposing party are immoral. What’s new is that this mutual contempt has metastasized into a broader cultural verdict: Americans, in general, are ethically compromised.
And this pattern isn’t unique to the U.S. In more than half of the countries surveyed, people who don’t support the governing party are especially likely to view their fellow citizens as immoral. Turns out political tribalism is a global export — we just do it louder.
Are We More Judgmental? Not Really.
Maybe Americans are just more moralistic than people in other countries. Maybe we’re quicker to label behaviors as sinful or unacceptable.
The data doesn’t support that.
Pew asked people in all 25 countries whether nine different behaviors — including abortion, drinking alcohol, gambling, and viewing pornography — are morally unacceptable, morally acceptable, or not a moral issue.
On most of those nine behaviors, the U.S. lands somewhere in the middle. We’re neither the most permissive nor the most puritanical.
For example:
39% of U.S. adults say homosexuality is morally wrong — far more than Germany or Sweden (5% each), but far fewer than Indonesia (93%) or Nigeria (96%).
23% of Americans say using marijuana is morally unacceptable — lower than most countries surveyed.
29% say gambling is morally wrong — again, relatively permissive.
But on one issue, we’re right up there with the hardliners: extramarital affairs. Nine-in-ten Americans say married people having an affair is morally wrong — matching Indonesia and Turkey (92% each). Meanwhile, only 55% of Germans and 53% of the French take the same position.
So we’re not blanket moralists. We’re selective moralists — and apparently, we reserve our harshest judgment for each other.
The Behaviors We Judge — And the Ones We Don’t
Across all 25 countries, extramarital affairs drew the strongest disapproval — a median of 77% of adults say it’s morally unacceptable.
At the other end: using contraception and getting a divorce are the most widely accepted behaviors. In nearly all 25 countries, two-thirds or more say these are either morally acceptable or not a moral issue.
Then there’s abortion — where international consensus collapses entirely. In Latin American and African countries, half or more say abortion is morally unacceptable. In most European countries, the vast majority view it as either morally acceptable or not a moral issue. The U.S.? 47% say abortion is morally wrong — right in the contested middle.
Gambling is another split. In 10 countries, a majority says it’s morally wrong (89% in Indonesia, 71% in Italy). In another 10 countries, a majority says it’s morally acceptable or not a moral issue.
We’re not outliers on the issues themselves. We’re outliers on how we judge each other.
Who’s Doing the Judging?
Women are more likely than men to say certain behaviors are morally unacceptable — especially viewing pornography, gambling, drinking alcohol, and using marijuana. In the U.S., 58% of women say viewing pornography is wrong, compared to 47% of men.
Men are more likely than women to say homosexuality is morally unacceptable — especially in Greece, where men are twice as likely as women to hold that view (40% vs. 20%).
Older adults are more likely than younger adults to condemn several behaviors — including marijuana use, viewing pornography, and homosexuality. But younger adults are more likely to say extramarital affairs are morally wrong.
And in the U.S., younger Americans (ages 18-39) are slightly more likely than older adults to say fellow Americans are morally bad (57% vs. 50%) — a pattern that holds even after controlling for political affiliation.
The kids aren’t more optimistic. They’re just as disgusted.
What Changed
Pew asked some of these same questions back in 2013. Moral disapproval of divorce has softened in half the countries surveyed. Kenya saw the largest change: 59% said divorce was wrong in 2013, compared to 30% in 2025.
India went the other direction — the share of Indian adults who say divorce is morally wrong increased from 53% to 65%, largely driven by women.
People in several countries are less likely today to say homosexuality or abortion is morally unacceptable — though the shifts vary widely by country.
But the U.S. data on how we judge each other? That’s new. Pew didn’t ask this question in 2013, so we don’t know if this is a long-standing pattern or a recent collapse in mutual trust.
The Takeaway
We’re not more judgmental than the rest of the world when it comes to specific behaviors. We’re not puritans or libertines by global standards.
But we are uniquely harsh on each other.
53% of Americans say their fellow citizens have bad morals and ethics — the only country surveyed where negativity wins. Partisan tribalism plays a role. Generational divides play a role. And maybe, underneath it all, there’s a deeper exhaustion with the performance of American life — the gap between what we say we believe and what we actually do.
Or maybe we just don’t like each other very much anymore.
Source: Pew Research