On Disease and Deontology: Multiple Tests of the Influence of Disease Threat on Moral Vigilance

Abstract

Threat has been linked to certain facets of moral cognition, but the specific implications of disease threat for moral judgment remain poorly understood. Across three studies, we investigated the role of perceived disease threat in shaping moral judgment and hypothesized that perceived disease threat would cause people to be more sensitive to moral violations (or more “morally vigilant”). All three studies found a positive relationship between dispositional worry about disease transmission and moral vigilance. Additional analyses suggested that this worry was more strongly related to vigilance toward binding moral foundations. Study 3 demonstrated that moral vigilance was higher in individuals for whom the threat of disease was experimentally made salient, relative to individuals in both a neutral and a nondisease threat condition. Taken together, these results suggest that perceived disease threat may influence people’s moral vigilance across moral domains.

The behavioral immune system: Current concerns and future directions

“…Finally, the behavioral immune system plays a role in shaping intragroup attitudes and behaviors. For example, research shows that disease threats are associated with greater conformity to social norms (Murray & Schaller, ; Wu & Chang, ) and higher levels of disgust—an emotion that motivates pathogen avoidance (Huang, Ackerman, & Newman, ; Oaten, Stevenson, & Case, ; Rozin, Haidt, & McCauley, ; Tybur et al, )—and predict greater sensitivity to moral violations (e.g., Horberg et al, ; Jones & Fitness, ; Murray, Kerry, & Gervais, ; Tybur, Lieberman, & Griskevicius, ; Wheatley & Haidt, ). At the cross‐cultural level of analysis, pathogen prevalence also predicts greater emphasis on moral and social norms (Murray et al, ; Van Leeuwen et al, ), including aversion to physical contact during culturally normative rituals (Murray, Fessler, Kerry, White, & Marin, ).…”

Capturing Fluctuations in Pathogen Avoidance: the Situational Pathogen Avoidance Scale

“…Pathogen avoidance also has implications for morality. People motivated by pathogen avoidance tend to espouse moral world views that help bind the ingroup together to protect the group from internal instability, as well as outgroups who carry novel pathogens to which one's own group has not developed immunity or who may not follow group norms (Murray et al 2017;Park and Isherwood 2011;van Leeuwen et al 2017). Motivation to avoid pathogens also seems to affect juror decision-making (Brown et al 2017).…”

“…Situationally activated pathogen avoidance, for example, is associated with social biases against people who display heuristic cues to illness like people with obesity, the elderly, and people of foreign nationality (Faulkner et al 2004;Miller and Maner 2012). Moreover, situations that increase the salience of pathogen threat promote vigilance to violations of moral values associated with ingroup protection (Murray et al 2017).…”

No Utilitarians in a Pandemic? Shifts in Moral Reasoning during the COVID-19 Global Health Crisis

“…Prior research drawing on terror management theory suggests that individuals, who are primed with thoughts of impending death, are less likely to give utilitarian responses on moral conflicts (Trémolière et al, 2012). In a similar vein, disease threat perception is related to sensitivity towards moral violations (Murray et al, 2019; MORAL REASONING DURING COVID- 19 7Wheeler & Laham, 2016) in domains consistent with common-sense morality (i.e., binding moral domains).…”

“…In a recent article advocating for utilitarian approaches to this crisis, Savulescu and colleagues (2020) have claimed that "There are no egalitarians in a pandemic." However, some influential accounts of moral cognition suggest instead that broad psychological effects in such a crisis (Murray et al, 2019;Trémolière et al, 2012;Wheeler & Laham, 2016), such as perceived threat or mortality salience, would lead people to adopt less utilitarian approaches to moral problems. Investigating alterations in moral reasoning during the current pandemic, particularly among those (such as older adults) who are at greatest personal risk, can allow us to test the predictions of these theories.…”