The Impact Of Moral Disgust On Moral Judgment

The role of rational reasoning and affective emotion in moral judgment has been the focus of attention in recent decades.In recent years,more and more psychologists have gradually recognized the importance of emotions in moral judgments,and among many emotions,disgust plays a vital role in moral judgments.Although a large number of related theoretical and experimental studies have emerged,two issues are controversial:first,what effect does disgust have on moral judgments?Second,whether the disgust affect the general domain of moral judgment or a specific domain?In addition,there are two matters that need to be resolved:First,how does disgust affect moral judgment?Second,is the effect of moral disgust on moral judgment the same as that of core disgust?In response to these problems,this study attempts to(1)explore the effects of moral disgust on moral judgments;(2)use event-related potential technology with high time resolution to deeply explore how disgust emotions affect moral judgments.This study adopted a mixed experimental design of 3(the type of emotional priming:moral disgust/core disgust/neutral emotion)× 2(the area of moral judgment:purity/non-purity).Among them,the type of emotional priming was the between-group variable,and the area of moral judgement was the within-group variable.At the same time,social desirability and disgust sensitivity were controlled,recording behavioral data and EEG data of 100 subjects.The results showed that:(1)In terms of the severity of moral judgments,there was no significant difference among three emotional priming groups;compared with non-purity area,participants’ judgments on immoral behaviors in pure area were less strict;(2)In the stage of automatic processing of conflict(190-350ms),the neutral emotion group had a more negative N2 component than the two disgust groups,and there was no significant difference between the core disgust group and the moral disgust group;(3)In the abstract processing stage of conflict(450-500ms),in the moral disgust group and neutral emotion group,the frontal N450 component in the non-purity area was more negative than the pure area,but in the core disgust group,there was no significant difference between the non-purity area and pure area;(4)In the allocation of attention resources(500-600ms),the parietal LPP(or P3b)component of the core disgust group is more positive than moral disgust under the condition of pure domain;the parietal LPP(or P3b)component of the pure area was more positive than that of non-pure area;(5)In the stage of cognitive reappraisal(700-900ms),the LPP component of the frontal lobe in the pure area was more positive than that in the non-purity area,and this pattern was particularly evident in the left frontal lobe.Therefore,this study reckons that disgust stimulus have influence on moral judgments.Early processing reflects the primitive protection and defense functions of two kinds of disgust.The difference between property(concrete/abstract)and content leads to the temporal separation of processing.However,the two kinds of disgust will not affect the later cognitive reappraisal,and the process is mainly affected by the understanding of the specific content of immoral behavior(purity/non-purity area).This finding not only supports the Distinct-appraisal model(DAM)proposed by Chapman and Anderson to a certain extent,but also has a guiding significance for the moral education of contemporary Chinese youth.