Social justifications for moral emotions: When reasons for disgust are less elaborated than for anger.

Abstract

In the present research, we tested the unreasoning disgust hypothesis: moral disgust, in particular in response to a violation of a bodily norm, is less likely than moral anger to be justified with cognitively elaborated reasons. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to explain why they felt anger and disgust toward pedophiles. Participants were more likely to invoke elaborated reasons, versus merely evaluative responses, when explaining their anger, versus disgust. Experiment 2 used a between-participants design; participants explained why they felt either anger or disgust toward seven groups that either violated a sexual or nonsexual norm. Again, elaborated reasons were less prevalent when explaining their disgust versus anger and, in particular, when explaining disgust toward a group that violated a sexual norm. Experiment 3 further established that these findings are due to a lower accessibility of elaborated reasons for bodily disgust, rather than inhibition in using them when provided. From these findings, it can be concluded that communicating external reasons for moral disgust at bodily violations is made more difficult due to the unavailability of those reasons to people

Consenting to counter-normative sexual acts: Differential effects of consent on anger and disgust as a function of transgressor or consenter

“…Conversely, anger should be less focused on victims, or individuals who have been wronged, who generally evoke sympathy from third parties (see Goetz, Keltner, & Simon-Thomas, 2010), and when there is mutual consent between individuals, the event should be less aggravating to third parties, since no injustice has occurred. This would be consistent with other research showing that anger is a flexible emotion, sensitive to the actors' reasons for acting and the circumstances surrounding an act of wrongdoing (Piazza, Russell, & Sousa, 2013;Russell & Giner-Sorolla, 2011a, 2011b, 2011c.…”

“…We deliberately avoided the word "disgust", as research has shown that its linguistic meaning is closer to "anger" in situations theoretically more relevant to anger (e.g., unfairness; see Nabi, 2002;. Instead, we selected linguistic elements connoting the underlying physiology of disgust, pertaining to nausea and oral inhibition -terms which have been found to help dissociate disgust from anger in the past (see Horberg et al, 2009;Nabi, 2002;Piazza et al, 2013;Russell & Giner-Sorolla, 2011a, 2011b. Participants were also given a photo of an actor displaying a prototypical anger face, and a prototypical disgust face, taken from the University of California, Davis, Set of Emotion Expressions (Tracy, Robins, & Schriber, 2009).…”

“…In the present research, we compared the influence of consent on anger and disgust, both of which have been linked to judgments of wrongdoing and condemnation (e.g., Haidt, 2003;Horberg, Oveis, Keltner, & Cohen, 2009;Inbar, Pizarro, Knobe, & Bloom, 2009;Prinz, 2007;Rozin, Lowery, Imada, & Haidt, 1999;Russell & Giner-Sorolla, 2011a, 2011b, 2011c, 2013Russell, Piazza, & Giner-Sorolla, 2013). Most perspectives consider disgust the primary emotion relevant to the sexual domain (see e.g., Haidt, 2003;Horberg et al, 2009;Prinz, 2007;Rozin et al, 1999) and the general trend has been to focus on reactions to the action or transgressor (e.g., Schnall, Haidt, Clore, & Jordan, 2008;Wheatley & Haidt, 2005).…”

“…In contrast with anger, disgust directed at a transgressor seems to be more stable regardless of the transgressor's reasons or justifications for acting (see Piazza et al, 2013;Russell & Giner-Sorolla, 2011a, 2011b, 2011cYoung & Saxe, 2011). For example, unlike anger, disgust appears insensitive to whether a counter-normative sexual act is performed with or without awareness (Young & Saxe, 2011) or in the pursuit of a greater good ).…”

Disgust, contempt, and anger and the stereotypes of obese people

“…Specifically, it has been suggested that disgust may be a less flexible emotion than other emotions, such as anger. For example, recent research indicates that anger, but not disgust, is responsive to the circumstances surrounding a transgression [21] and to intentionality [22], and that disgust is less likely than anger to be justified by cognitively elaborated reasoning [23]. The inflexibility of disgust makes sense from an evolutionary perspective because it is better to make false alarms than to risk coming into contact with a disease agent [24].…”