A University of Melbourne APA Lab Report Assignment
Under the 2nd-Year Psychology subject "Personality & Social Psychology"
Passed with High Distinction (H1)
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By Benjamin L., written during Semester 2, 2012
Abstract
Recent
research suggests that emotions influence moral judgments (the emotion-judgment
link), and violating certain moral foundations induces specific corresponding emotions
(the foundation-emotion link). This study tested the emotion-judgment link by
comparing trait anger (TA) and disgust propensity (DP) measures with utilitarian
judgments in a footbridge-type personal moral dilemma. Results revealed a significant
negative correlation between utilitarian responses and DP, but not TA. This
suggests that only disgust is relevant when forming moral judgments in such
dilemmas. This study also examined the construct validity of Haidt and Graham’s
(2007) moral foundations theory (MFT). If the MFT construct is valid, it should
be consistent with previous research that associated anger and disgust with what
the MFT would consider as violations of its Harm and Purity foundations.
Results showed that Harm and Purity measures on the moral foundations
questionnaire, the operationalised measure of the MFT, were respectively
associated with TA and DP. This suggests that the MFT construct is valid and consistent
with previous research. The present study further suggests that the
foundation-emotion link and emotion-judgment link can be integrated into a more
holistic, 3-stage ‘foundation-emotion-judgment’ model of moral psychology.
Tutor's Comments (B. Green):
This is good & very comprehensive but you need to include details of participants & state that the variables were measured with self-report questionnaires.
Moral
judgments evaluate others based on culturally-constructed values (Haidt, 2001).
Although the role that emotions and rationality play in making these judgments
is still debated, recent evidence suggests that emotions may be the dominant
factor (Haidt, 2007) and violations of certain moral foundations elicit
specific emotions (Rozin, Lowery, Imada, & Haidt, 1999). This study
explores the link between moral foundations and emotions, as well as the link
between emotions and moral judgments.
The Foundation-Emotion Link
Moral
judgments across cultures utilise three ontologically distinct ‘ethics’:
community, autonomy, and divinity (Shweder, 1990). Community involves moral
regulations that uphold social roles, autonomy involves moral regulations that
uphold individual rights and choices, and divinity involves moral regulations governing
the spiritually pure use of one’s body. In addition, Rozin et al. (1999) found
that violating each ethic elicits specific emotions: community violations
elicit contempt, autonomy violations elicit anger, and divinity violations
elicit disgust. Haidt and Graham’s (2007) moral foundations theory (MFT) has corroborated
and extended Shweder’s (1990) model into five psychologically rooted moral
foundations that underlie each ethic. In the community ethic, the
Ingroup/Loyalty foundation involves emotions regarding in-group member
recognition, trust, and cooperation, while the Authority/Respect foundation
involves emotions of respect, admiration, and awe towards authority. In the
autonomy ethic, the Harm/Care foundation involves emotions of approval regarding the prevention or alleviation harm,
while the Fairness/Reciprocity foundation involves emotions motivating
reciprocal altruism. Finally, the divinity ethic is underpinned by the
Purity/Sanctity foundation that encompasses emotions related to the use of the body
(Haidt & Graham, 2007).
Moral
values across cultures (Graham et al., 2011) utilise one or more of these fundamentally
affective foundations (Haidt & Graham, 2007). However, while the emotions associated
with Shweder’s (1990) ethics are well supported (Rozin et al., 1999; Russell
& Giner-Sorolla, 2011), the MFT was just operationalised as the Moral
Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ)(Graham et al., 2011). The MFQ gauges
individuals’ sensitivity to violations of each foundation, but this has not
been independently validated. If the MFT construct is a valid update and extension
of Shweder’s (1990) ethics, the same emotions tied to each ethic should also be
associated with their corresponding MFT foundation(s) on the MFQ.
The Emotion-Judgment Link
Recent
research has also emphasised the primacy of emotions in making moral judgments (Monin,
Pizarro, & Beer, 2007). For example, Haidt’s (2001) social intuitionist
model (SIM) holds that moral judgments are directly produced by moral
intuitions, defined as sudden, affectively-charged, moral judgments that occur
without conscious prior deliberation. This “intuitive judgment link” (p.818,
Haidt, 2001) stems from a largely unconscious collection of interconnected
moral concepts that are rooted in our physical experiences and, in turn, become
metaphorically extended into moral codes as a form of ‘embodied cognition’. For
example, the contamination of pure substances underpins moral codes regarding bodily
purity and sexual conduct (Haidt, 2001).
Moral
intuitions reliably occur in personal moral dilemmas (Greene, Nystrom, Engell,
Darley, Cohen, 2004). These scenarios portray a conflict between two moral
principles (Monin et al., 2007) and a involves “ME HURT YOU” formula (p.389,
Greene et al., 2004), where ME (the agent) causes serious bodily HURT to YOU (another
individual), in a way that does not simply deflect an imminent existing threat
onto someone else. One paradigm with this formula is the footbridge dilemma: a
runaway trolley is hurtling towards 5 workmen on the track and will kill them. The
agent stands on a footbridge across the tracks and the only way to save them is
to push a large stranger into the trolley’s path to stop it, but he would die in
saving the others (Moore, Clark, & Kane, 2008). Pushing the stranger, a ME
HURT YOU action, is a utilitarian response that promotes the ‘greater good’. Not
pushing the stranger is a deontological response that respects certain moral
rights and duties irrespective of the consequences (Greene et al., 2004). These
responses could be associated with moral intuitions that stem from individual emotional
dispositions. For instance, individuals who frequently experience disgust have
high disgust propensity (DP) and generally shun utilitarian judgments in favour
of deontological responses (Choe & Min, 2011). The same study also found significant
relationships between footbridge responses and other emotional measures like
trait anger (TA), which measures how frequently individuals experience anger.
However, studies exploring these emotions in relation to such personal moral
dilemmas are few and far between. To enhance our understanding of the
emotion-judgment link, we must ask if certain emotions like anger and disgust
lead individuals to favour certain moral judgments in these dilemmas.
Based
on the literature reviewed, this study focuses on two relationships that
require further examination. Firstly, this study examines the
foundation-emotion relationship by exploring the construct validity of the MFT.
If the MFT construct is valid, it is hypothesised that TA will be positively
correlated with harm sensitivity on the MFQ and, also, that DP will be
positively correlated with purity sensitivity on the MFQ. Secondly, this study examines
the emotion-judgment link and hypothesises that both DP and TA will be
negatively correlated with utilitarian responses for the personal dilemma.
Method
Participants
Five
hundred and ninety-six undergraduates (151 males and 445 females) participated
in this study as part of a psychology subject at the University of Melbourne. Participants
were aged between 18 to 68 years old with a mean of 22.42 years (SD = 6.40).
Materials
The
moral foundations questionnaire (MFQ) measured participants’ sensitivity to infringements
of each moral foundation (MFQ) (Graham et al., 2011). The MFQ was decomposed
into five subscales, one for each foundation, and each subscale contained 3
items (e.g. for purity, “Chastity is an important and valuable virtue”).
Responses were plotted on a 6-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = strongly
disagree, to 6 = strongly agree. Scores within each subscale were averaged to
create a summary score, and higher scores reflect a greater sensitivity towards
violations of that foundation.
The
frequency with which participants experienced disgust was measured with the
8-item Disgust Propensity (DP) subscale of the broader Disgust Propensity and
Sensitivity Scale-Revised (Olatunji, Cisler, Deacon, Connolly, & Lohr, 2007). Responses (e.g.
“I experience disgust”) were made on 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = never,
to 5 = always. Scores were averaged to create a summary score where higher
scores indicated greater disgust frequency.
The
frequency with which participants experienced anger was measured with the 10-item
Trait Anger (TA) subscale from the broader State-Trait Anger Scale (Forgays, Forgays,
& Spielberger, 1997). Item responses (e.g. “I have a fiery temper”) were
made on a 4-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = almost never, to 4 = almost
always. Scores were averaged to create a summary score where higher scores
indicated greater anger frequency.
The
footbridge dilemma (Moore et al., 2008) was used as the personal moral dilemma.
Participants read a description of the situation and rated the acceptability of
the utilitarian response (“how morally acceptable is pushing this stranger onto
the tracks to save the five workmen?”) on a 6-point Likert scale ranging from 1
= absolutely unacceptable, to 6 = absolutely acceptable. Higher scores indicated
acceptance of the utilitarian response, while lower scores indicated that they
preferred the deontological response instead.
Procedure
Before
their tutorial, participants were told that this study was part of a larger
study in moral psychology. These materials, among others, were presented using
individual computers in a classroom and participants answered the items at
their own time. Upon completion, the tutor collectively debriefed the class.
Results
Bivariate
associations between measures were tested with Spearman’s correlations. Table 1
below summarises the mean, standard deviation, and correlations between these
measures.
Table
1.
Mean
|
SD
|
1.
|
2.
|
3.
|
4.
|
|
1. Trait Anger
|
1.87
|
.44
|
||||
2. Disgust Propensity
|
2.74
|
.51
|
.24**
|
|||
3. MFQ Harm
|
4.62
|
.85
|
-.12**
|
.07
|
||
4. MFQ Purity
|
3.50
|
1.11
|
.02
|
.21**
|
.26**
|
|
5. Utilitarian Response Acceptability
|
2.46
|
1.36
|
.02
|
-.09*
|
-.20**
|
-.22**
|
Table 1. Means, standard deviations, and Spearman's
correlations between all measures.
Table
1 shows a significant positive correlation between DP and the purity measure on
the MFQ (r = .21, df = 594, p = < .01). There is also a significant negative correlation
between DP and utilitarian responses for the personal dilemma (r = -.09, df = 594, p = < .05). In
addition, TA has a significant negative correlation with harm sensitivity on
the MFQ (r = -.12, df = 594, p = < .01). However, the positive correlation between TA and
utilitarian responses was not significant (r
= .02, df = 594, p = >.05).
Interestingly,
there is also a significant negative correlation between harm sensitivity on
the MFQ and utilitarian responses (r
= -.20, df = 594, p = < .01), as well as a significant
negative correlation between purity sensitivity on the
MFQ and utilitarian responses (r = -.22, df = 594, p = < .01).
Discussion
The Foundation-Emotion Link
Results
support the hypotheses that disgust propensity (DP) will be positively
correlated with purity sensitivity on the MFQ and trait anger (TA) would be
positively correlated with harm sensitivity on the MFQ. Previous research tied
Shweder’s (1990) three ethics to specific emotions: contempt to ‘community’,
anger to ‘autonomy’, and disgust to ‘divinity’ (Rozin et al., 1999; Russell
& Giner-Sorolla, 2011). The MFT further expanded Community into
Ingroup/Loyalty and Authority/Respect, autonomy into Harm/Care and Fairness/Reciprocity,
and divinity into Purity (Haidt & Graham, 2007). If the MFT construct is a
valid extension of Shweder’s ethics, the same emotions tied to each ethic
should also be associated with their corresponding foundations, as measured by
the moral foundations questionnaire (MFQ). This study provides preliminary
support for the construct validity of the MFT by establishing a significant positive
correlation between DP and TA and their corresponding foundations of purity and
harm.
The Emotion-Judgment Link
Results
also support the hypothesis that DP will be negatively correlated with
utilitarian responses for the personal moral dilemma. However, the hypothesis
that TA will be negatively correlated with utilitarian responses is not
supported. One explanation involves Haidt’s (2001) social intuitionist model
(SIM), which postulates an “intuitive judgement link” where moral intuitions
directly produce moral judgments. These intuitions reliably occur in personal
moral dilemmas like the footbridge scenario (Greene et al., 2004) and it is
possible that individuals with high DP avoid utilitarian responses because it
induces an aversive emotion (disgust) that leads to its rejection (Choe &
Min, 2011). In social intuitionist terms, disgust may feed into a moral
intuition that produces a moral judgement against the utilitarian option. This
disgust may be a form of ‘embodied cognition’, where previous physical
experiences are metaphorically extended into moral codes that underpin moral
intuitions (Haidt, 2001). In the footbridge example, the ME HURT YOU action could
involve ‘blood on one’s hands’ or the sinful taint of murder. However, there
was no significant relationship between TA and footbridge responses, suggesting
that TA may not be significant when making moral judgments in personal dilemmas.
Limitations and Future Research
While
the emotions tied to the foundations of Harm and Purity have been validated, the
emotions tied to the remaining three domains should also be ascertained before
the MFT can claim full construct validity. Future research could also examine
if other potentially relevant emotions like guilt and sympathy are involved
and, if so, whether they complement or compete with contempt, anger, and
disgust in forming moral judgments.
Also,
this study explored the foundation-emotion and emotion-judgment links as
separate rather than inter-connected relationships. However, a more holistic approach
would integrate both links into a three-stage, ‘foundation-emotion-judgment’ model
that establishes a relationship between violations of a foundation, the
emotion(s) or moral intuitions it induces, and moral judgment(s) that result. This
seems plausible given the significant negative correlation between utilitarian
responses and MFQ measures of harm and disgust that was noted in the results
above. Future research could examine if utilitarian responses are rejected
because they violate these foundations and induce moral intuitions that rule
against them.
Conclusion
In
conclusion, this study builds on the literature regarding the
foundation-emotion link and the emotion-judgment link. In the former, findings
support the construct validity of Haidt and Graham’s (2007) moral foundations
theory, specifically the foundations of harm and purity. As for the latter, results
suggest that disgust, but not anger, is intuitively linked to the rejection of
utilitarian responses in personal moral dilemmas. Future research could extend
these findings into a more comprehensive test of the emotions tied to each
moral foundation and connect them to moral judgments in a three-stage ‘foundation-emotion-judgment’
process.
References
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