The dirty secret is people don't base their decisions on academic findings. They make their decision and then search out findings that support it to use as arguments for it.
For those who don't know, this is called motivated reasoning or confirmation bias. Once you can give a name to it, it's easier to notice it all around you. I'd argue that it's one of the biases that plagues humanity more than any other, our brains seem to be hard-wired to engage in motivated reasoning
I passed my Masters on this basis. I worked out what I thought about the topic, then searched the journals for the required number of papers whose abstracts agreed with me.
I didn't learn a damn thing from the process.
Actually it sounds like you did.
Object Lesson, n. "a striking practical example of some principle or ideal."
I'm sure that applies in some cases, but it doesn't seem universally true. Personally, I hate exercising but I do it because the epidemiologists say I should. And I love drinking, but I don't because the epidemiologists say I shouldn't. Smoking has declined pretty significantly over the past several decades, no?
Moral foundation theory is intriguing and crucially important.