Experiencing respect elongates the orienting response: a pilot study

Abstract

Respect is an emotion that promotes self-improvement, often experienced when recognizing superior traits in others. The present study aimed to investigate one of its action tendencies. Since previous studies have suggested that respected persons are role models, we hypothesized that respect prolongs the orienting response of paying attention to the persons and examined the related phasic decrease in heart rate (HR). We presented a stimulus (an episode followed by a photograph) about each participant's parents, teachers, affectively respected persons (other than parents and teachers), and the unknown persons as a control. Participants read the episode, looked at the photo, and rated the extent of experiencing respect. As a result, we found that the averaged HR across conditions declined during stimulus presentation but that the change scores of HRs from the minimum value increased only in the control condition: the HRs of the other conditions (parents, teachers, and affectively respected persons) did not recover. Furthermore, we confirmed a significant correlation between respect ratings and the reduction in HRs by performing a partial correlation analysis that controlled for familiarity with the persons. As a pilot study, these results suggest that respect elongates the orienting response.