Abstract
The moral foundations theory (MFT) proposes that there are five moral foundations that work as the standard to make moral judgments. Among them, the purity foundation is a complex concept. It is considered to be a distinctive foundation compared with the other ones partly because it involves religious beliefs. The assumption underlying the purity foundation is Christian beliefs, so the MFT was developed and made prevalent mostly in the Western cultures. However, because of that assumption, cultural differences in perceiving the purity foundation should be observed with a non-Western sample, such as Japan. It would be important to discuss and clarify the Japanese unique aspect of their orientation toward the pure and impure. We constituted a scale to measure people's tendency toward purity orientation–pollution avoidance (POPA), based on the purity/sanctity subscale of the MFT. For validation, we administered several scales along with POPA. In Study 1, we developed the scale and measured the relationship between the degree of one's POPA, disgust, and animism. We identified four factors as POPA subscales. In Study 2, we investigated the test–retest reliability of POPA and conducted questionnaire surveys to measure attitudes toward paranormal phenomena and the degree of concern for each of the moral foundations. The results showed the validity of the scale, based on the moderate correlations with other scales. The POPA can be a promising tool to better understand the phenomena involving the purity foundation in a Japanese context.
Highlights
Research on morality has been increasing significantly, with such studies gaining significance in a conflict-ridden world, given the growing disputes between and within countries and even districts
Because the ideas underlying the “Bodily Purity” and “Pathogen Avoidance” are about being polluted in a physical sense, those subscales should be related to the pollution avoidance aspect of Japanese purity orientation
All the purity orientation–pollution avoidance (POPA) subscales, including “Bodily Purity,” are not highly correlated with the DS-R-J Scale because pollution avoidance is the feeling to seek psychological cleanliness, which is more than just physical hygiene
Summary
Research on morality has been increasing significantly, with such studies gaining significance in a conflict-ridden world, given the growing disputes between and within countries and even districts. The violation of purity or impurity is considered to be associated with infection and sexual components (Koleva et al, 2012; Van Leeuwen et al, 2012) These concepts have not been tested in relation to the purity foundation in the Asian cultures. To test the validity of our purity scale for the Japanese people, we measured one’s level of animism (one’s belief that natural objects possess minds and spirits and one’s worship of nature involving awe), one’s familiarity with and the tendency to believe in non-scientific supernatural phenomena, and the emotion of disgust that has been found to be associated with pollution. Since we needed to find the difference between the concepts of disgust and avoidance of pollution (i.e., impurity), the DS-R-J and Animism Scales were included to investigate the validity of our POPA. The correlation between the POPA and animism would be moderate, as well
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