On the limits of the relation of disgust to judgments of immorality

Abstract

Two correlational studies (ns = 400; 90) examined the association of judgments of immorality and disgust (hypothesized in much current research and theory). Across 40 scenarios in Study 1, immorality was positively correlated with negative emotions, especially anger. With anger partialed, disgust was significantly, but weakly, correlated with immorality, r(38) = 0.22, p < 0.05. Study 2 asked whether the immorality-disgust correlation is due to a confound: immoral events often include elements implicitly or explicitly implying pathogens, such as blood or semen. Across 22 scenarios, those implying pathogens were associated with disgust, but those without pathogens, whether moral or immoral, rarely were. We propose that the relation between disgust and immorality is largely coincidental, resulting from (a) using the word disgust to express anger with or even dislike of immoral acts and (b) the presence of incidental elements capable of eliciting disgust.

The Theory of Dyadic Morality: Reinventing Moral Judgment by Redefining Harm

“…The pervasive role of harm across morality is consistent with dyadic morality. Cheng et al, 2013;Kayyal, Pochedly, McCarthy, & Russell, 2015;Royzman, Atanasov, Landy, Parks, & Gepty, 2014;Schein, Ritter, & Gray, 2016). Instead, the appearance of specificity arises from the lack of appropriate control conditions and statistical procedures that obscure overlap (e.g., ANCOVA; Cameron, Lindquist, & Gray, 2015) One additional long-standing claim is that "disgust and discomfort drive moral condemnation which are later cloaked with harm based rationalization" (Haidt & Hersh, 2001, p. 212).…”

Folk beliefs about the relationships anger and disgust have with moral disapproval

“…While many argue that disgust is importantly related to moral disapproval (e.g., Chapman & Anderson, 2013;P.S. Russell & Giner-Sorolla, 2013;Tybur, Lieberman, Kurzban, & DeScioli, 2013), others consider disgust's role in the moral domain to be largely incidental or illusory (e.g., Kayyal, Pochedly, McCarthy, & Russell, 2015;Landy & Goodwin, 2015;Piazza, P.S. Russell, & Sousa, 2013).…”

“…Russell, & Sousa, 2013). For example, although disgust has been connected to judgments of bad character (Giner-Sorolla & Chapman, 2017), and disgust expressions (e.g., exclaiming one is "disgusted" or wrinkling one's nose) can communicate moral disapproval (Chapman, Kim, Susskind, & Anderson, 2009;Kupfer & Giner-Sorolla, 2016), it remains possible that linguistic and bodily expressions of disgust are largely being repurposed to communicate anger (see, e.g., Kayyal et al, 2015;Pochedly, Widen, & J.A. Russell, 2012;Yoder, Widen, & J.A.…”

To Confront or to Avoid

“…This is especially the case with regard to disgust and anger, which interact and overlap substantially (Salerno & Peter-Hagene, 2013; Yoder, Widen, & Russell, 2016). Indeed, the word “disgust” may encompass instances of anger, and people may use it to denote general dislike rather than disgust more specifically (Kayyal, Pochedly, McCarthy, & Russell, 2015). Thus, people may not be able to report and may not reliably experience distinct emotional reactions to moral violations.…”