Moral Violations Research Articles

A social cognitive developmental perspective on moral judgment

Moral judgment constitutes an important aspect of adults’ social interactions. How do adults’ moral judgments develop? We discuss work from cognitive and social psychology on adults’ moral judgment, and we review developmental research to illuminate its origins. Work in these fields shows that adults make nuanced moral judgments based on a number of factors, including harm aversion, and that the origins of such judgments lie early in development. We begin by reviewing evidence showing that distress signals can cue moral judgments but are not necessary for moral judgment to occur. Next, we discuss findings demonstrating that both children and adults distinguish moral violations from violations of social norms, and we highlight the influence of both moral rules and social norms on moral judgment. We also discuss the influence of actors’ intentions on moral judgment. Finally, we offer some closing thoughts on potential similarities between moral cognition and reasoning about other ideologies.

Moral violations reduce oral consumption

Consumers frequently encounter moral violations in everyday life. They watch movies and television shows about crime and deception, hear news reports of corporate fraud and tax evasion, and hear gossip about cheaters and thieves. How does exposure to moral violations influence consumption? Because moral violations arouse disgust and because disgust is an evolutionarily important signal of contamination that should provoke a multi-modal response, we hypothesize that moral violations affect a key behavioral response to disgust: reduced oral consumption. In three experiments, compared with those in control conditions, people drank less water and chocolate milk while (a) watching a film portraying the moral violations of incest, (b) writing about moral violations of cheating or theft, and (c) listening to a report about fraud and manipulation. These findings imply that “moral disgust” influences consumption in ways similar to core disgust, and thus provide evidence for the associations between moral violations, emotions, and consumer behavior.

Tainting the soul: Purity concerns predict moral judgments of suicide

Moral violations are typically defined as actions that harm others. However, suicide is considered immoral even though the perpetrator is also the victim. To determine whether concerns about purity rather than harm predict moral condemnation of suicide, we presented American adults with obituaries describing suicide or homicide victims. While harm was the only variable predicting moral judgments of homicide, perceived harm (toward others, the self, or God) did not significantly account for variance in moral judgments of suicide. Instead, regardless of political and religious views and contrary to explicit beliefs about their own moral judgments, participants were more likely to morally condemn suicide if they (i) believed suicide tainted the victims’ souls, (ii) reported greater concerns about purity in an independent questionnaire, (iii) experienced more disgust in response to the obituaries, or (iv) reported greater trait disgust. Thus, suicide is deemed immoral to the extent that it is considered impure.

The Influence of Adolescents' Moral Salience on Actions and Entertainment Experience in Interactive Media

The current study examines the role of US and German adolescents' innate morality in influencing decisions in and subsequent enjoyment of an interactive media environment. Moving beyond models of moral reasoning, morality was assessed using Moral Foundations Theory allowing for an intuitionist perspective on morality. In an experimental design, adolescents aged 12 to 14 years from the United States (N = 91) and Germany (N = 94), played a modified computer game simulation where they were confronted with the decision to violate or uphold various aspects of morality. Data suggest that in the group of German adolescents moral salience leads to a decrease in decisions to commit moral violations, while in the group of US adolescents decisions to commit moral violations appeared to be random. Enjoyment was not influenced by moral module salience in either group.

Stealing Is Not Gross: Language Distinguishes Visceral Disgust From Moral Violations

The similarity between moral and visceral disgust is a current topic of debate. One method of investigating this issue has been to examine the use of language. Prior work has shown that the words disgust and anger are often used interchangeably to describe offense toward immoral behavior involving harm (autonomy violations), whereas "grossed out" is reserved for viscerally repulsive stimuli. Based on these findings we developed a questionnaire and tested 126 undergraduates for how they used the words disgusted, angry, grossed out, and morally right or morally wrong to rate various responses toward ethics of autonomy social situations. We found that grossed out was least endorsed for these transgressions and that ratings on this measure did not correspond to ratings of moral wrongness. Moreover, individual differences in visceral disgust sensitivity had no association with participants' evaluations or use of any of the descriptors. By contrast, ratings for angry and disgusted were equivalently and highly endorsed for autonomy violations, and the ratings given with these descriptors also corresponded to the ratings given for moral wrongness. These findings add to growing evidence that moral disgust is not visceral (gross) but rather appears to be representative of anger even though autonomy violations are often labeled as "disgusting".

Heart rate correlates of utilitarian moral decision-making in alcoholism

BackgroundRecent studies of moral reasoning in patients with alcohol use disorders have indicated a ‘utilitarian’ bias, whereby patients are more likely to endorse emotionally aversive actions in favor of aggregate welfare (e.g., to kill a person in order to save a group of people). The aim of the present study was to examine psychophysiological correlates of this tendency indexed by heart rate. MethodsThe sample was composed by 31 alcohol-dependent individuals and 34 healthy controls without alcohol use disorders. Electrocardiogram was recorded at rest and during execution of a validated moral judgment task, including non-moral scenarios, and moral dilemmas that were either high in emotional salience (“personal scenarios”) or low in emotional salience (“impersonal scenarios”). ResultsAlcohol-dependent individuals showed a blunted response to moral dilemmas. Furthermore, healthy controls displayed decreased heart rate to the personal vs. impersonal or non-moral scenarios, while alcohol-dependent individuals failed to differentiate dilemmas in terms of heart rate both prior decision-making and its post appraisal. These deficits were not related to baseline differences in Heart Rate. ConclusionOur findings indicate that alcohol-dependent individuals failed to engage emotional aversive reactions to personal moral violations in terms of heart rate response.

The arousal model of moral condemnation

Previous research regarding the affective correlates of moral judgment has emphasized that this relation is rooted in the natural properties of discrete emotions, suggesting that specific emotions (e.g., disgust) increase moral condemnations for specific categories of moral violation (e.g. purity violations). In three experiments, we find that arousal increases the severity of moral condemnations, while emotion specificity effects remain absent. Results are compatible with constructivist approaches to emotion and the feelings as information account of social judgment.

In This Issue

In This Issue

Moral vs. non-moral attribution in adolescence: Environmental and behavioural correlates

According to the domain theory, moral rules are universal, not contingent on rules and authority, and are activated by avoiding harm to other people. Not all individuals, however, interpret moral events in terms of domain in a similar manner. The hypotheses of the present research were: (i) a high exposure to deviant context will affect the manner in which adolescents interpret moral events and their involvement in antisocial behaviour; (ii) the moral attribution style will directly affect involvement in antisocial behaviour and mediate the relationship between deviant context and antisocial behaviour. Four hundred fifty-three adolescents completed self-report questionnaires about their involvement in antisocial behaviours, their friends' involvement, and their exposure to community violence as a witness. Moral versus non-moral attribution (MNMA) was evaluated through a questionnaire consisting of hypothetical scenarios of moral violations followed by questions related to the above-mentioned criteria. Findings, obtained testing a model, were consistent with the hypotheses. Adolescents who live in violent contexts and attend deviant friends tend to interpret moral violation in terms of non-moral domains and are more engaged in antisocial behaviours. Results are discussed with respect to the literature about normativeness of deviance and its consequences.

An Exploration of Moral Rebelliousness with Adolescents and Young Adults

The present pair of studies investigated the assessment, correlates, and evaluation of “moral rebels” who follow their own moral convictions despite social pressure to comply. In Study 1, self, peer, and teacher ratings of adolescents' tendencies to be a moral rebel were positively intercorrelated. In Study 2, young adults' tendencies to be a moral rebel were associated with relatively high self-esteem scores and relatively low willingness to engage in minor moral violations and need to belong scores. Both adolescents and young adults reported relatively favorable attitudes toward a morally rebellious peer, especially when they themselves had heightened ratings on this characteristic.

Predicting moral outrage and religiosity with an implicit measure of moral identity

Previous research on moral identity (the use of moral values to define the self) suggests that implicit measurement of moral identity better predicts real-life moral actions than explicit measurement. We extended this work by considering the relation between explicit and implicit measures of moral identity, moral outrage, and religion. Implicit, but not explicit, moral identity predicted increases in heart rate and diastolic blood pressure in response to moral violations, whereas explicit but not implicit moral identity predicted religiosity. These results help to validate the use of implicit measurements of moral identity while also identifying a relation between moral identity and physiological reactions to moral violations.

Anger at perceived moral violation : A situational determinant of moral outrage

Anger at perceived moral violation : A situational determinant of moral outrage

An Event‐Related Potential Study of Adolescents' and Young Adults' Judgments of Moral and Social Conventional Violations

The neurocognitive development of moral and conventional judgments was examined. Event-related potentials were recorded while 24 adolescents (13 years) and 30 young adults (20 years) read scenarios with 1 of 3 endings: moral violations, conventional violations, or neutral acts. Participants judged whether the act was acceptable or unacceptable when a rule was assumed or removed. Across age, reaction times were faster for moral than conventional violations when a rule was assumed. Adolescents had larger N2 amplitudes than adults for moral and neutral, but not conventional, acts. N2 amplitudes were larger when a rule was removed than assumed for moral, but not conventional, violations. These findings suggest that the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying moral and conventional judgments continue to develop beyond early adolescence.

Climate ethics: with a little help from moral cognitive neuroscience

Carbon emissions threaten the stability of climate systems and change climate dynamics in ways that inflict harm on present and future generations. Therefore, the ultimate moral crux of climate change involves harm avoidance and prevention. Moral cognitive neuroscience, and in particular the dual-process theory, indicates that up, close and personal harm triggers deontological moral reasoning, whereas harm originating from impersonal moral violations, like those produced by climate impacts, prompts consequentialist moral reasoning. Accordingly, climate ethics should be based on consequentialist approaches. Moral cognitive neuroscientific research indicates, in fact, that consequentialism is closer to the moral processes and judgements human beings normally use when faced with issues like climate change that involve impersonal notions of harm.

Omissions and byproducts across moral domains.

Research indicates that moral violations are judged less wrong when the violation results from omission as opposed to commission, and when the violation is a byproduct as opposed to a means to an end. Previous work examined these effects mainly for violent offenses such as killing. Here we investigate the generality of these effects across a range of moral violations including sexuality, food, property, and group loyalty. In Experiment 1, we observed omission effects in wrongness ratings for all of the twelve offenses investigated. In Experiments 2 and 3, we observed byproduct effects in wrongness ratings for seven and eight offenses (out of twelve), respectively, and we observed byproduct effects in forced-choice responses for all twelve offenses. Our results address an ongoing debate about whether different cognitive systems compute moral wrongness for different types of behaviors (surrounding violence, sexuality, food, etc.), or, alternatively, a common cognitive architecture computes wrongness for a variety of behaviors.

Gut or Game? The Influence of Moral Intuitions on Decisions in Video Games

Recent theorizing on the role of morality in media entertainment suggests morality serves as a guiding force in audience reactions to content. Using moral foundations theory as a base, research has found significant associations between moral salience and audience preferences for and responses to film and television varying in their presentations of morality. Our study extends this work by testing the same relationship in video games. Because a distinguishing factor between video games and traditional media is interactivity, our study focuses on how moral salience predicts decisions made in a video game. We find that increased moral salience led to a decreased probability of moral violations, while decreased moral salience led to an observed random (50%) distribution of violations. This finding was largely stable across different morality subcultures (German, United States) and age groups (adolescents and elderly), with deviations from this pattern explained by theory. We interpret this as evidence for a gut or game explanation of decision making in video games. When users encounter virtual scenarios that prime their moral sensitivities, they rely on their moral intuitions; otherwise, they make satisficing decisions not as an indication of moral corruption but merely as a continuation of the virtual experience.

The Moral Cognition/Consciousness Connection

People experience joy and pain. We appreciate brilliant colors. We have awareness of our own mental states, and we attribute mental states to others—not only beliefs and desires, but also phenomenal experiences (such as joy and pain). We knowingly construct conceptions of ourselves and deploy these self-concepts to navigate the world around us. These are fundamental aspects of the human experience, encompassing phenomenal consciousness, on the one hand, and self-consciousness on the other. Let us refer to these collectively as consciousness. Just as we cannot but enjoy conscious experiences, we also naturally conceive of the world in ethical terms with an understanding of right and wrong. Moral violations are continually readily apprehensible; but when it is not obvious that some person should or should not have acted in some particular way, just how they should have acted is often a matter of intense debate. Most of us concede that it would have been wrong for George to shoot Trayvon without provocation, but not if George was violently assaulted after having just stepped out of his car to ask a few questions. But why was George trailing Trayvon for so long? Why was he so intent in knowing what this person was doing in his neighborhood? Doesn’t that display a morally suspect character? Such sensationalized news stories are the fodder of conversations over dinner or on the social network, but in ordinary contexts, often when alone, we cannot but assess the actions of others according to a moral framework. We conclude that it was wrong for that patron to have been so curt with the waiter. We assess that it was good for the young woman to have given up her seat for the octogenarian. These assessments apply not only to our fellows’ actions, but bleed over onto the actors themselves. That the driver cut off the cyclist on a rainy day reveals an inconsiderate villain who cannot easily occupy the mindset of his compatriots. The cyclist is the clear victim here. We feel her pain.

Emotions expressed in speeches by leaders of ideologically motivated groups predict aggression

Anger, contempt, and disgust are emotions associated with violations of ethics and morality, and recent theoretical work has suggested that they are important drivers of group-based aggression and violence. We test this hypothesis by examining the emotions expressed by leaders of ideologically motivated groups when speaking about outgroups they oppose. We analyzed the content of their speeches at three points in time before an identified act of aggression or resistance. We provide initial evidence that leaders' expressions of anger, contempt, and disgust increase immediately before acts of violence, but not those of resistance, and suggest that these emotions are instrumental in inciting groups to commit violence.

Children’s Reasoning About Self‐Presentation Following Rule Violations: The Role of Self‐Focused Attention

Rule violations are likely to serve as key contexts for learning to reason about public identity. In an initial study with 91 children aged 4-9years, social emotions and self-presentational concerns were more likely to be cited when children were responding to hypothetical vignettes involving social-conventional rather than moral violations. In 2 further studies with 376 children aged 4-9years, experimental manipulations of self-focused attention (either by leading children to believe they were being video-recorded or by varying audience reactions to transgressions) were found to elicit greater attention to social evaluation following moral violations, although self-presentational concerns were consistently salient in the context of social-conventional violations. The role of rule transgressions in children's emerging self-awareness and social understanding is discussed.

Elderly people and morality in virtual worlds: A cross-cultural analysis of elderly people’s morality in interactive media

This study examines elderly people’s innate moral foundations in influencing decisions, and their subsequent enjoyment in an interactive media environment. The Moral Foundation Questionnaire was used to distinguish between the moral intuitions of elderly US and German respondents, who were believed to have divergent yet stable moral codes that would be salient in a novel virtual world. In an experimental design, participants (N=116) were confronted with a computer simulation in which they could decide to violate or uphold each of five moral intuitions. Germans and Americans differed in their moral foundations, yet for both groups higher moral salience led to a decrease in decisions to commit moral violations in a virtual world. Results for enjoyment were mixed.