Abstract
To demonstrate that sensory and emotional states play an important role in moral processing, previous research has induced physical disgust in various sensory modalities (visual, tactile, gustatory, and olfactory modalities, among others) and measured its effects on moral judgment. To further assess the strength of the connection between embodied states and morality, we investigated whether the directionality of the effect could be reversed by exposing participants to different types of moral events prior to rating the same neutral tasting beverage. As expected, reading about moral transgressions, moral virtues, or control events resulted in inducing gustatory disgust, delight, or neutral taste experiences, respectively. Results are discussed in terms of the relation between embodied cognition and processing abstract conceptual representations.
Highlights
Recent years have seen a proliferation of research investigating the relationship between morality and one’s perceptual and emotional states
The two moral transgression vignettes were taken from other research [23], the bribe-accepting congressman and the shoplifter; chosen because they were judged to be harshest by control participants in previous research [9]
The purpose of the present experiment was to investigate the strength of the connection between moral processing and embodied experience by determining whether the direction of previous research’s primary finding could be reversed [9]
Summary
Recent years have seen a proliferation of research investigating the relationship between morality and one’s perceptual and emotional states. Participants completed a role-playing scenario during which they committed a moral transgression (a lie) either via email (with their hands) or voicemail (with their mouths) prior to engaging in a seemingly unrelated consumer research task where they rated various products such as hand-sanitizer and mouthwash. Participants who lied with their mouths indicated a stronger preference for the mouthwash than other products, whereas participants who lied with their hands showed a stronger preference for hand-sanitizer. These results suggest that people feel a need to physically ‘‘purify’’ themselves after committing a moral transgression
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