The Interactive Effect of Anger and Disgust on Moral Outrage and Judgments

Abstract

The two studies reported here demonstrated that a combination of anger and disgust predicts moral outrage. In Study 1, anger toward moral transgressions (sexual assault, funeral picketing) predicted moral outrage only when it co-occurred with at least moderate disgust, and disgust predicted moral outrage only when it co-occurred with at least moderate anger. In Study 2, a mock-jury paradigm that included emotionally disturbing photographs of a murder victim revealed that, compared to anger, disgust was a more consistent predictor of moral outrage (i.e., it predicted moral outrage at all levels of anger). Furthermore, moral outrage mediated the effect of participants' anger on their confidence in a guilty verdict--but only when anger co-occurred with at least a moderate level of disgust--whereas moral outrage mediated the effect of participants' disgust on their verdict confidence at all levels of anger. The interactive effect of anger and disgust has important implications for theoretical explanations of moral outrage, moral judgments in general, and legal decision making.

Emotion shapes the diffusion of moralized content in social networks

“…We focused on the emotions of anger and disgust because of their prominent role in communication, association with moral judgment, and distinctive relationship to moral outcomes (29)(30)(31). We also included sadness, a low-arousal emotion, to compare its impact to the higharousal emotions of anger and disgust.…”

A film set for the elicitation of emotion in research: A comprehensive catalog derived from four decades of investigation

“…Crash was also effective in its elicitation of disgust, despite some residual evocation of anger, and is recommended for elicitation of disgust in instances when moral, rather than physical, disgust is desired. Indeed, the co-elicitation of anger and moral disgust remain significant challenges to emotion elicitation research (Ottaviani et al, 2013;Salerno & Peter-Hagene, 2013;Whitton et al, 2014). College Conspiracy was moderately effective in evoking anger.…”

“…These challenges are particularly prevalent for emotions with positive valence (Ellsworth & Smith, 1988;Herring et al, 2011). Also challenging is the frequent co-elicitation of anger with moral disgust (Gross & Levenson, 1995;Jerritta et al, 2014;Salerno & Peter-Hagene, 2013;Whitton et al, 2014), but not with physical disgust.…”

“…For instance, anger is commonly recognized as especially difficult to elicit with standard stimuli, and there are few highly reliable film clips derived from contemporary films. This may be because anger often co-occurs with disgust, particularly when content is perceived as morally disgusting (Salerno & Peter-Hagene, 2013;Whitton, Henry, Rendell, & Grisham, 2014). As such, in this investigation, we focused on testing the utility of presenting film clips online to elicit specific, discrete emotions that are frequently co-elicited, specifically happiness and amusement, as well as anger and disgust.…”

“…Specifically, we included a previously validated clip eliciting only physical disgust (not anger or moral disgust 1 ) as a comparator against clips that might co-elicit (moral) disgust when anger was the target emotion. Feelings of moral disgust are often reported when content that is intended to elicit anger is perceived as morally upsetting (Salerno & Peter-Hagene, 2013;Whitton et al, 2014). In addition, we included a novel clip for potential use as a neutral reference stimulus.…”