scholarly journals Disgust sensitivity is primarily associated with purity-based moral judgments

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fieke Maria Antoinet Wagemans ◽  
Mark John Brandt ◽  
Marcel Zeelenberg
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Personality Characteristics ◽  
Moral Foundations ◽  
Moral Foundations Theory ◽  
Disgust Sensitivity ◽  
Moral Issues ◽  
Total N ◽  
Moral Domain ◽  
Moral Domains ◽  
Moral Condemnation

Individual differences in disgust sensitivity are associated with a range of judgments and attitudes related to the moral domain. Some perspectives suggest that the association between disgust sensitivity and moral judgments will be equally strong across all moral domains (purity, authority, loyalty, care, fairness, and liberty). Other perspectives predict that disgust sensitivity is primarily associated with judgments of specific moral domains (e.g., primarily purity). However, no study has systematically tested if disgust sensitivity is associated with moral judgments of the purity domain specifically, more generally to moral judgments of the binding moral domains, or to moral judgments of all of the moral domains equally. Across five studies (total N = 1104), we find consistent evidence for the notion that disgust sensitivity relates more strongly to moral condemnation of purity-based transgression (meta-analytic r = .40) than to moral condemnation of transgressions of any of the other domains (range meta-analytic r’s: .07 ̶ .27). Our findings are in line with predictions from Moral Foundations Theory, which predicts that personality characteristics like disgust sensitivity make people more sensitive to a certain set of moral issues.

scholarly journals Disgust sensitivity and moral judgments of purity: The role of transgression weirdness

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fieke Maria Antoinet Wagemans ◽  
Mark John Brandt ◽  
Marcel Zeelenberg
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Disgust Sensitivity ◽  
Total N ◽  
Moral Domains ◽  
Moral Transgressions ◽  
The Relationship

Disgust sensitivity is more strongly related to moral judgments in the purity domain than to moral judgments in other moral domains. While this finding highlights the distinctiveness of moral domains, anti-modularity accounts suggest that the relationship is caused by the relative weirdness of purity transgressions and come to the conclusion that moral domains do not represent distinct mechanisms. In two studies (total N = 2,307), we test whether transgression weirdness accounts for disgust sensitivity’s stronger association with moral judgments of the purity as compared to other moral domains, but find little evidence for this claim. The relationship between disgust sensitivity and moral judgments of purity even remains when taking into account both (perceived) weirdness and (perceived) harmfulness of moral transgressions. These studies show that transgression weirdness and harmfulness cannot explain the disgust sensitivity–purity link, contradicting predictions following from popular anti-modularity accounts.

Moral Judgments of COVID-19 Social Distancing Violations: The Roles of Perceived Harm and Impurity

2021 ◽  
pp. 014616722110254
Author(s):  
Daniel L. Rosenfeld ◽  
A. Janet Tomiyama
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Moral Cognition ◽  
Moral Foundations ◽  
Total N ◽  
Social Distancing ◽  
Competing Hypotheses ◽  
Moral Condemnation ◽  
Perceived Harm

Can perceptions of impurity uniquely explain moral judgment? Or is moral judgment reducible to perceptions of harm? Whereas some perspectives posit that purity violations may drive moral judgment distinctly from harm violations, other perspectives contend that perceived harm is an essential precursor of moral condemnation. We tested these competing hypotheses through five preregistered experiments (total N = 2,944) investigating U.S. adults’ perceptions of social distancing violations during the COVID-19 pandemic. Perceived harm was more strongly related to moral judgment than was perceived impurity. Nevertheless, over and above perceived harm, perceived impurity reliably explained unique variance in moral judgment. Effects of perceived harm and impurity were significant among both liberal and conservative participants but were larger among liberals. Results suggest that appraisals of both harm and impurity provide valuable insights into moral cognition. We discuss implications of these findings for dyadic morality, moral foundations, act versus character judgments, and political ideology.

Validation of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire with three Chinese ethnic groups

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (8) ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Du
Keyword(s):  
Gender Difference ◽  
Ethnic Group ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Influential Factor ◽  
Moral Foundations ◽  
Moral Foundations Theory

Moral foundations theory is claimed to be universally applicable and is classified into 5 foundations of morality: care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, respect/subversion, and purity/degradation. This theory has not been tested in the Eastern cultural context. Therefore, in this study I addressed this lack in the context of China, where there are people of a number of different ethnicities. I adopted the Moral Foundations Questionnaire, which was completed by 761 Chinese of Han, Uygur, and Tibetan ethnicity. The results show that there was no gender difference in morality foundation scores, but the differences among ethnic groups were significant: Tibetans scored lower than did Han and Uygur in care and fairness, and Uygur scored higher than Han and Tibetans did in loyalty, respect, and purity. The interactions between gender and ethnic group were significant for care, fairness, and respect. These findings suggest that moral foundations theory is applicable to China, that the Moral Foundations Questionnaire can also be partially applied to Chinese, and that ethnicity is an influential factor when people make moral judgments.

scholarly journals I think, therefore I forgive: The role of reasoning in forgiving accidental harms

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Indrajeet Patil ◽  
Bastien Trémolière
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Cognitive Style ◽  
Time Pressure ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Cognitive Resources ◽  
Reasoning Ability ◽  
Total N ◽  
Moral Condemnation

People experience a strong conflict while condemning someone who brought about an accidental harm, her innocent intention exonerating her, but the harmful outcome incriminating her. In the present research (total N = 4879), we explore how reasoning ability and cognitive style relate to how people choose to resolve this conflict and judge the accidental harms. A first set of studies (1a-c) showed that individual differences in cognitive style predicted severity of judgments in fictitious accidental harms scenarios, with more able (or willing) reasoners being less harsh in their judgments. A second set of studies (2a-c) relied on experimental manipulations of cognitive load (Dot matrix, Time pressure, Mortality Salience manipulations), aiming to tax available cognitive resources to participants while evaluating third-party harmful behaviors. These manipulations, however, failed to modulate people’s moral judgments for accidental harms. We discuss the importance of individual differences in reasoning ability in the assessment of accidental harms, and we also propose potential explanations for the failure of our experimental manipulations to affect severity of moral condemnation.

Logic-Based Therapy and Civil Discourse in Fractious Times

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Laura Newhart ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Moral Foundations ◽  
Moral Foundations Theory ◽  
Good People ◽  
Politics And Religion ◽  
Social Intuitionist Model ◽  
Civil Discourse ◽  
Methodological Approaches

This paper explores the role that Elliot D. Cohen’s Logic-Based Therapy might play in restoring civility to public discourse in this era of social and political divisiveness. The contributions that Logic-Based Therapy, as a modality of philosophical counseling, might make to improving public discourse are explored through the lenses of Jonathan Haidt’s social intuitionist model of the formation of moral judgments and his Moral Foundations Theory of the development of general political perspectives, both articulated in Haidt’s The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. In spite of substantial differences in Cohen’s and Haidt’s methodological approaches and theoretical content, the similarities are significant enough to allow opportunities for Logic-Based Therapy to intervene in important and effective ways to restore civil discourse in fractious times.

scholarly journals Social Threat Indirectly Increases Moral Condemnation via Thwarting Fundamental Social Needs

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert K. Henderson ◽  
Simone Schnall
Keyword(s):  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Indirect Effect ◽  
Social Needs ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Moral Foundations ◽  
Social Threat ◽  
Social Standing ◽  
Positive Correlation ◽  
Moral Condemnation ◽  
Social Esteem

Individuals who experience threats to their social needs may attempt to avert further harm by condemning wrongdoers more severely. Three pre-registered studies tested whether threatened social esteem is associated with increased moral condemnation. In Study 1 (N = 381) participants played a game in which they were socially included or excluded and then evaluated the actions of moral wrongdoers. We observed an indirect effect: Exclusion increased social needs-threat, which in turn increased moral condemnation. Study 2 (N = 428) was a direct replication, and also showed this indirect effect. Both studies demonstrated the effect across five moral foundations, which was most pronounced for harm violations. Study 3 (N= 102) examined dispositional concerns about social needs threat, namely social anxiety, and showed a positive correlation between this trait and moral judgments. Overall, results suggest threatened social standing is linked to moral condemnation, presumably because moral wrongdoers pose a further threat when one’s ability to cope is already compromised.

scholarly journals The Effect of Ideological Identification on the Endorsement of Moral Values Depends on the Target Group

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan G. Voelkel ◽  
Mark John Brandt
Keyword(s):  
Moral Values ◽  
Target Group ◽  
The Political ◽  
Moral Foundations ◽  
Group Conflict ◽  
Partial Support ◽  
Moral Issues ◽  
Total N ◽  
Political Group ◽  
Political Groups

Research suggests that liberals and conservatives use different moral foundations to reason about moral issues (moral divide hypothesis). An alternative prediction is that observed ideological differences in moral foundations are instead driven by ingroup-versus-outgroup categorizations of competing political groups (political group conflict hypothesis). In two pre-registered experiments (total N = 958), using experimentally manipulated measures of moral foundations, we test strong versions of both hypotheses and find partial support for both. Supporting the moral divide hypothesis, conservatives endorsed the binding foundations more strongly than liberals even when a moderate target group was explicitly specified. Supporting the political group conflict hypothesis, both conservatives and liberals endorsed moral foundations more when moral acts targeted ingroup versus outgroup members. These results have implications for improving measures of moral values and judgments and point to ways to enhance the effectiveness of strategies aimed at building bridges between people from different political camps.

The Difficulty of Moral Knowledge

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua May
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Moral Foundations ◽  
Moral Foundations Theory ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Moral Issues ◽  
Moral Skepticism ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Debunking Arguments ◽  
Selective Targeting

While empirical debunking arguments fail to support wide-ranging moral skepticism, there are more modest threats to moral knowledge. First, debunking arguments are more successful if highly selective, targeting specific sets of moral beliefs that experimental research reveals to be distinguished for morally irrelevant reasons (thus flouting consistency reasoning). Second, the science of political disagreement suggests that many ordinary people can’t claim to know what they believe about controversial moral issues. Drawing on moral foundations theory, the best examples come from disagreements between liberals and conservatives within a culture. Controversial moral beliefs at least are disputed by what one should regard as epistemic peers, at least because others are just as likely to be wrong, even if not right, due to cognitive biases that affect proponents of all ideologies, such as motivated reasoning. Still, both of these empirical threats to moral knowledge are limited.

scholarly journals Moral Foundations' Methodological Foundations: A Systematic Analysis of Reliability in Research Using the Moral Foundations Questionnaire

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Tamul ◽  
Malte Elson ◽  
James D. Ivory ◽  
Jessica C Hotter ◽  
Madison Lanier ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Moral Foundations ◽  
Moral Foundations Theory ◽  
Reliability Estimate ◽  
Cronbach’S Alpha ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Cronbach's Alpha ◽  
Significant Interest ◽  
Overall Reliability

The Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) has drawn significant interest from the popular press and academics alike. One of its primary constituting methodologies is the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ), a self-report instrument aimed to assess the use of five sets of moral intuitions when making moral judgments. The proposed universality and moduliarity of both MFT and MFQ have been challenged conceptually and empirically. We examine the scale’s development and offer a systematic content analysis of 539 scholarly works using the MFQ to estimate its overall reliability. Altogether, 61% of the studies reported Cronbach’s alpha as an indicator for reliability (38% reported no reliability estimate at all). Mean Cronbach’s alpha scores for four of the five subscales were below .70. We discuss implications for the measurement of moral foundations and the evidentiary basis of Moral Foundations Theory.

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