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The roles of disgust and harm perception in political attitude moralization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2020

Daniel C. Wisneski ,
Brittany E. Hanson  and
G. Scott Morgan
Daniel C. Wisneski*
Affiliation:
Saint Peter’s University
Brittany E. Hanson
Affiliation:
Saint Peter’s University
G. Scott Morgan
Affiliation:
Drew University
*
Correspondence: Daniel C. Wisneski, Department of Psychology, Saint Peter’s University, Jersey City, New Jersey, USA; email: [email protected]
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Abstract

What causes people to see their political attitudes in a moral light? One answer is that attitude moralization results from associating one’s attitude stance with feelings of disgust. To test the possibility that disgust moralizes, the current study used a high-powered preregistered design looking at within-person change in moral conviction paired with an experimental manipulation of disgust or anger (versus control). Results from the preregistered analyses found that we successfully induced anger but not disgust; however, our manipulation had no effect on moral conviction. Additional exploratory analyses investigating whether emotion and harm predicted increases in moral conviction over time found that neither disgust, anger, nor sadness had an effect on moralization, whereas perceptions of harm did predict moralization. Our findings are discussed in terms of their implications for current theory and research into attitude moralization.

Keywords

MoralizationMoral convictionAttitudesDisgustHarm perception
Type
Article
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 39 , Special Issue 2: Special Issue: Disgust and Political Attitudes , Fall 2020 , pp. 215 - 227
Copyright
© Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 2020

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