Testing moral foundation theory: Are specific moral emotions elicited by specific moral transgressions?

Abstract

Moral foundation theory posits that specific moral transgressions elicit specific moral emotions. To test this claim, participants (N = 195) were asked to rate their emotions in response to moral violation vignettes. We found that compassion and disgust were associated with care and purity respectively as predicted by moral foundation theory. However, anger, rage, contempt, resentment and fear were not associated to any single moral transgression. Thus, even though the type of moral violation matters for the type of emotion that is elicited, the link between moral foundations and moral emotions seems more complex than moral foundation theory suggests. Rather, the findings suggest that there are both emotion-specific foundations (i.e. care and purity) and emotion-unspecific foundations (i.e. fairness, authority and loyalty).