Morality in high definition: Emotion differentiation calibrates the influence of incidental disgust on moral judgments

Beyond Trolleyology: The CNI Model of Moral-Dilemma Responses

PUBLIC ABSTRACT

How do people make judgments about actions that violate moral norms yet maximize the greater good (e.g., sacrificing the well-being of a small number of people for the well-being of a larger number of people)? Research on this question has been criticized for relying on highly artificial scenarios and for conflating multiple distinct factors underlying responses in moral dilemmas. The current article reviews research that used a computational modeling approach to disentangle the roles of multiple distinct factors in responses to plausible moral dilemmas based on real-world events. By disentangling sensitivity to consequences, sensitivity to moral norms, and general preference for inaction versus action in responses to realistic dilemmas, the reviewed work provides a more nuanced understanding of how people make judgments about the right course of action in moral dilemmas.

Acting impulsively when "upset": Examining associations among negative urgency, undifferentiated negative affect, and impulsivity using momentary and experimental methods

INTRODUCTION

Negative urgency is a personality pathway toward impulsive behavior that increases risk for transdiagnostic psychopathology. Limited research supports the core tenant of urgency theory, that is, that individuals with high trait negative urgency act more impulsive when experiencing increased negative emotion. We hypothesized that it may not be negative emotion intensity, but difficulty in differentiating among negative emotions, that prompts impulsive behavior among individuals with elevated negative urgency.

METHODS

We tested this hypothesis in 200 undergraduates using both ecological momentary assessment (measured momentary undifferentiated negative affect and impulsivity) and experimental methods (manipulated emotion differentiation and measured behavioral impulsivity).

RESULTS

Momentary undifferentiated negative affect predicted impulsivity in the specific domains of work/school and exercise, but interactions between momentary undifferentiated negative affect and negative urgency were not supported. Manipulated emotion differentiation did not impact behavioral impulsivity regardless of negative urgency scores.

CONCLUSION

Inconsistent with theory, the impulsive behavior of individuals with negative urgency may not be conditional on elevated or undifferentiated negative affect.

Disgust Processing and Potential Relationships with Behaviors in Autism

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

While there are reports of differences in emotion processing in autism, it is less understood whether the emotion of disgust, in particular, plays a significant role in these effects. Here, we review literature on potential disgust processing differences in autism and its possible associations with autistic traits.

RECENT FINDINGS

In autism, there is evidence for differences in physical disgust processing, pica behaviors, attention away from other's disgust facial expressions, and differences in neural activity related to disgust processing. In typically developing individuals, disgust processing is related to moral processing, but modulated by individual differences in interoception and alexithymia. Autistic individuals may experience atypical disgust, which may lead to difficulty avoiding contaminants and affect socio-emotional processing. In autism, such outcomes may lead to increased occurrences of illness, contribute to gastrointestinal issues, diminish vicarious learning of disgust expression and behaviors, and potentially contribute to differences in processes related to moral reasoning, though further research is needed.

Ownership and convention

The basis of property rights is a central problem in political philosophy. The core philosophical dispute concerns whether property rights are natural facts, independent of human conventions. In this article, we examine adult judgments on this issue. We find evidence that familiar property norms regarding external objects (e.g., fish and strawberries) are treated as conventional on standard measures of authority dependence and context relativism. Previous work on the moral/conventional distinction indicates that people treat property rights as moral rather than conventional (e.g., Dahl & Waltzer, 2020; Nucci & Turiel, 1993; Tisak & Turiel, 1984). However, these studies explicitly assume that one person owns property that another steals. Study 1 explores judgments of authority dependence regarding ownership in cases that explicitly appeal to stealing and prior ownership as compared to cases that omit such explicit appeals. We find that participants tend to treat ownership as authority dependent when explicit appeals to stealing are absent, but not when the explicit appeals are present. Study 2 examines intuitions about authority dependence of ownership violations as compared to canonical conventional and harm-based moral violations. We find that ownership violations are treated as more authority dependent than harm-based moral violations. This all suggests that some central property norms are treated as conventional. However, we also find that the conventionality of property norms is restricted in several ways. In study 3, we find that people do not treat norms of self-ownership as conventional. Other people cannot take your hair or skin cells even if the teacher says it's okay. Study 4 uses a measure of context relativism to examine the conventionality of ownership norms, comparing different possible norms of ownership. We find that participants regard takings that are violations in their own culture as permissible in other cultures; however, only some foreign norms are deemed acceptable. In study 5 we find another limitation - participants think it's impermissible to take resources from someone based on a new property norm that is retrospectively imposed. Finally, in study 6 we explore whether some takings might be judged to be morally (non-conventionally) wrong as a function of scarcity. We find that when asked about another culture that allows taking, participants tend to say that taking a food item from the person who caught it is permissible when the food is plentiful, but not when the food is scarce.

The Moral Injury Experience Wheel: An Instrument for Identifying Moral Emotions and Conceptualizing the Mechanisms of Moral Injury

This paper introduces an infographic tool called The Moral Injury Experience Wheel, designed to help users accurately label moral emotions and conceptualize the mechanisms of moral injury (MI). Feeling wheels have been used by therapists and clinical chaplains to increase emotional literacy since the 1980s. The literature on the skill of emotion differentiation shows a causal relationship between identifying emotions with specificity and emotional and behavioral regulation. Emerging research in moral psychology indicates that differentiating moral emotions with precision is related to similar regulatory effects. Based on this evidence, it is proposed that increasing moral emotional awareness through use of an instrument that visually depicts moral emotions and their causal links to MI will enhance appraisal and flexible thinking skills recognized to reduce the persistent dissonance and maladaptive coping related to MI. Design of the wheel is empirically grounded in MI definitional and scale studies. Iterative evaluative feedback from Veterans with features of MI offers initial qualitative evidence of validity. Two case studies will show utility of the wheel in clinical settings and present preliminary evidence of efficacy.

Just wrong? Or just WEIRD? Investigating the prevalence of moral dumbfounding in non-Western samples

Moral dumbfounding occurs when people maintain a moral judgment even though they cannot provide a reason for this judgment. Dumbfounded responding may include admitting to not having reasons, or the use of unsupported declarations ("It's just wrong") as justification for a judgment. Published evidence for dumbfounding has drawn exclusively on samples of WEIRD backgrounds (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic), and it remains unclear to what extent the phenomenon is generalizable to other populations. Furthermore, the theoretical implications of moral dumbfounding have been disputed in recent years. In three studies we apply a standardized moral dumbfounding task, and show evidence for moral dumbfounding in a Chinese sample (Study 1, N = 165), an Indian sample (Study 2, N = 181), and a mixed sample primarily (but not exclusively) from North Africa and the Middle East (MENA region, Study 3, N = 264). These findings are consistent with a categorization theories of moral judgment.

Feel to Heal: Negative Emotion Differentiation Promotes Medication Adherence in Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a debilitating chronic autoimmune disease of the central nervous system that results in lower quality of life. Medication adherence is important for reducing relapse, disease progression, and MS-related symptoms, particularly during the early stages of MS. However, adherence may be impacted by negative emotional states. Therefore, it is important to identify protective factors. Past research suggests that the ability to discriminate between negative emotional states, also known as negative emotion differentiation (NED), may be protective against enactment of maladaptive risk-related behaviors. However, less is known as to how NED may promote adaptive health behaviors such as medication adherence. Utilizing weekly diaries, we investigated whether NED moderates the association between negative affect and medication adherence rates across 58 weeks among patients (n = 27) newly diagnosed with MS (following McDonald criteria). Results revealed that NED significantly moderated the relationship between negative affect and medication adherence. Specifically, greater negative affect was associated with lower adherence only for individuals reporting low NED. However, this link disappeared for those reporting moderate to high NED. Building upon past research, our findings suggest that NED may promote adaptive health behaviors and have important clinical implications for the treatment and management of chronic illness.

Moral Judgment as Categorization (MJAC)

Observed variability and complexity of judgments of "right" and "wrong" cannot be readily accounted for within extant approaches to understanding moral judgment. In response to this challenge, we present a novel perspective on categorization in moral judgment. Moral judgment as categorization (MJAC) incorporates principles of category formation research while addressing key challenges of existing approaches to moral judgment. People develop skills in making context-relevant categorizations. They learn that various objects (events, behaviors, people, etc.) can be categorized as morally right or wrong. Repetition and rehearsal result in reliable, habitualized categorizations. According to this skill-formation account of moral categorization, the learning and the habitualization of the forming of moral categories occur within goal-directed activity that is sensitive to various contextual influences. By allowing for the complexity of moral judgments, MJAC offers greater explanatory power than existing approaches while also providing opportunities for a diverse range of new research questions.

Emotional Granularity Increases With Intensive Ambulatory Assessment: Methodological and Individual Factors Influence How Much

Individuals differ in their ability to create instances of emotion that are precise and context-specific. This skill - referred to as emotional granularity or emotion differentiation - is associated with positive mental health outcomes. To date, however, little work has examined whether and how emotional granularity might be increased. Emotional granularity is typically measured using data from experience sampling studies, in which participants are prompted to report on their emotional experiences multiple times per day, across multiple days. This measurement approach allows researchers to examine patterns of responses over time using real-world events. Recent work suggests that experience sampling itself may facilitate increases in emotional granularity in depressed individuals, such that it may serve both empirical and interventional functions. We replicated and extended these findings in healthy adults, using data from an intensive ambulatory assessment study including experience sampling, peripheral physiological monitoring, and end-of-day diaries. We also identified factors that might distinguish individuals who showed larger increases over the course of experience sampling and examined the extent of the impact of these factors. We found that increases in emotional granularity over time were facilitated by methodological factors, such as number of experience sampling prompts responded to per day, as well as individual factors, such as resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia. These results provide support for the use of experience sampling methods to improve emotional granularity, raise questions about the boundary conditions of this effect, and have implications for the conceptualization of emotional granularity and its relationship with emotional health.

Investigating the relationship between emotional granularity and cardiorespiratory physiological activity in daily life

Emotional granularity describes the ability to create emotional experiences that are precise and context-specific. Despite growing evidence of a link between emotional granularity and mental health, the physiological correlates of granularity have been under-investigated. This study explored the relationship between granularity and cardiorespiratory physiological activity in everyday life, with particular reference to the role of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), an estimate of vagal influence on the heart often associated with positive mental and physical health outcomes. Participants completed a physiologically triggered experience-sampling protocol including ambulatory recording of electrocardiogram, impedance cardiogram, movement, and posture. At each prompt, participants generated emotion labels to describe their current experience. In an end-of-day survey, participants elaborated on each prompt by rating the intensity of their experience on a standard set of emotion adjectives. Consistent with our hypotheses, individuals with higher granularity exhibited a larger number of distinct patterns of physiological activity during seated rest, and more situationally precise patterns of activity during emotional events: granularity was positively correlated with the number of clusters of cardiorespiratory physiological activity discovered in seated rest data, as well as with the performance of classifiers trained on event-related changes in physiological activity. Granularity was also positively associated with RSA during seated rest periods, although this relationship did not reach significance in this sample. These findings are consistent with constructionist accounts of emotion that propose concepts as a key mechanism underlying individual differences in emotional experience, physiological regulation, and physical health.

Individual Differences in Negative Emotion Differentiation Predict Resting-State Spontaneous Emotional Regulatory Processes

Negative emotion differentiation facilitates emotion regulation. However, whether individual differences in negative emotion differentiation is associated with resting-state spontaneous emotion regulation remains unclear. This study aimed to explore the effect of individual differences in negative emotion differentiation on spontaneous emotional regulatory processes as indexed by resting electroencephalogram (EEG) indicators (e.g., frontal alpha asymmetry and theta/beta ratio). Participants (n = 40, M_age = 21.74 years, 62% women) completed a negative emotion differentiation task. Afterward, 4 min of resting EEG data were recorded. Multiple regression results showed that negative emotion differentiation significantly predicted the alpha asymmetry at electrode pairs (F4–F3 and FP2–FP1) and the theta/beta ratio at the F3 and FZ electrode sites. Individuals with high negative emotion differentiation presented more left-lateralized activations and a lower theta/beta ratio. Taken together, these results suggest that individuals with high negative emotion differentiation show enhanced spontaneous emotional regulatory functioning. Thus, we provided the first resting-state neural evidence on emotion differentiation of spontaneous emotional regulatory functioning.

Sustainable Compassion Training: Integrating Meditation Theory With Psychological Science

Meditation programs continue to proliferate in the modern world, with increasing participation from scientists and many others who seek to improve physical, mental, relational, and social flourishing. In developing such programs, the meditation practices have been adapted to meet the needs of modern cultures. However, through that adaptation, important contextual factors of traditional contemplative cultures are often dropped or forgotten. This article presents a system of compassion and mindfulness training, Sustainable Compassion Training (SCT), which is designed to help people cultivate increasingly unconditional, inclusive, and sustainable care for self and others. SCT aims to recover important contextual factors of meditation that flexibly meet the diverse needs of modern secular and religious participants. SCT draws on Tibetan Buddhism in dialogue with caregivers, other contemplative traditions and relevant scientific theories to inform meditative transformation for secular contexts. We provide an overview of SCT meditations that includes both contemplative and scientific theories that draw out important features of them. Each meditation includes novel hypotheses that are generated from this dialogical process. We also provide links to audio-guided meditations.

Incidental disgust does not cause moral condemnation of neutral actions

Emotivism in moral psychology holds that making moral judgements is at least partly an affective process. Three emotivist hypotheses can be distinguished: the elicitation hypothesis (that moral transgressions elicit emotions); the amplification hypothesis (that disgust amplifies moral judgments); and the moralisation hypothesis (that affect moralises the non-moral). Even though the moralisation hypothesis is the strongest and most radical form of emotivism, it has not been systematically experimentally tested. Most previous studies have used as stimuli morally wrong actions, and thus they cannot answer whether disgust is sufficient to moralise an otherwise neutral action. In Experiment 1 (N = 87) we tested the effect of incidental disgust on morally neutral scenarios, and in Experiment 2 (N = 510) the differential effect of disgust on neutral and wrong scenarios. The results did not support either the moralisation or the amplification hypothesis. Instead, Bayesian analyses provided substantial evidence for the null hypothesis that incidental disgust does not affect moral ratings. The results are in line with a recent meta-analysis suggesting that disgust has no effect on moral ratings.

Reexamining the Effect of Gustatory Disgust on Moral Judgment: A Multilab Direct Replication of Eskine, Kacinik, and Prinz (2011)

Eskine, Kacinik, and Prinz’s (2011) influential experiment demonstrated that gustatory disgust triggers a heightened sense of moral wrongness. We report a large-scale multisite direct replication of this study conducted by labs in the Collaborative Replications and Education Project. Subjects in each sample were randomly assigned to one of three beverage conditions: bitter (disgusting), control (neutral), or sweet. Then, subjects made a series of judgments about the moral wrongness of the behavior depicted in six vignettes. In the original study ( N = 57), drinking the bitter beverage led to higher ratings of moral wrongness than did drinking the control or sweet beverage; a contrast between the bitter condition and the other two conditions was significant among conservative ( n = 19) but not liberal ( n = 25) subjects. In the current project, random-effects meta-analyses across all subjects ( N = 1,137, k = 11 studies), conservative subjects ( n = 142, k = 5), and liberal subjects ( n = 635, k = 9) revealed standardized overall effect sizes across replications that were smaller than reported in the original study. Some were in the opposite of the predicted direction; all had 95% confidence intervals containing zero, and all were smaller than the effect size the original authors could have meaningfully detected. Results of linear mixed-effects regressions revealed that drinking the bitter beverage led to higher ratings of moral wrongness than did drinking the control beverage but not the sweet beverage. Bayes factor tests revealed greater relative support for the null than for the replication hypothesis. The overall pattern provides little to no support for the theory that physical disgust via taste perception harshens judgments of moral wrongness.

The faces of pessimism

In this commentary on May's Regard for Reason in the Moral Mind, I argue that many of the interdisciplinary moral psychologists whom May terms "pessimists" are often considerably more optimistic about the prospects for progress in moral inquiry than he contends.

Affect and Decision Making: Insights and Predictions from Computational Models

In recent years interest in integrating the affective and decision sciences has skyrocketed. Immense progress has been made, but the complexities of each field, which can multiply when combined, present a significant obstacle. A carefully defined framework for integration is needed. The shift towards computational modeling in decision science provides a powerful basis and a path forward, but one whose synergistic potential will only be fully realized by drawing on the theoretical richness of the affective sciences. Reviewing research using a popular computational model of choice (the drift diffusion model), we discuss how mapping concepts to parameters reduces conceptual ambiguity and reveals novel hypotheses.

Collaborating agents: Values, sociality, and moral responsibility

I respond to the Behavioral and Brain Sciences commentaries on my book, Talking to Our Selves: Reflection, Ignorance, and Agency. I defend and amend both the skeptical challenge to morally responsible agency, that is, the book's impetus, and the anti-skeptical theory I develop to address that challenge. Regarding the skeptical challenge, I argue that it must be taken more seriously than some of my sanguine commentators assert, and consider some ways its impact might be blunted, such as by appeal to individual differences and the practical efficacy of human behavior. Regarding my positive theory, I defend the role of values in morally responsible agency against numerous criticisms, and consider various suggestions for elaborating my social, "collaborativist" account of morally responsible agency. In closing, I comment on the appropriate aspirations for theorizing about moral responsibility and agency.

Empirical research on folk moral objectivism

Lay persons may have intuitions about morality's objectivity. What do these intuitions look like? And what are their causes and consequences? In recent years, an increasing number of scholars have begun to investigate these questions empirically. This article presents and assesses the resulting area of research as well as its potential philosophical implications. First, we introduce the methods of empirical research on folk moral objectivism. Second, we provide an overview of the findings that have so far been made. Third, we raise a number of methodological worries that cast doubt upon these findings. And fourth, we discuss ways in which lay persons' intuitions about moral objectivity may bear on philosophical claims.

Differentiate to Regulate: Low Negative Emotion Differentiation Is Associated With Ineffective Use but Not Selection of Emotion-Regulation Strategies

Emotion differentiation, which involves experiencing and labeling emotions in a granular way, has been linked with well-being. It has been theorized that differentiating between emotions facilitates effective emotion regulation, but this link has yet to be comprehensively tested. In two experience-sampling studies, we examined how negative emotion differentiation was related to (a) the selection of emotion-regulation strategies and (b) the effectiveness of these strategies in downregulating negative emotion (Ns = 200 and 101 participants and 34,660 and 6,282 measurements, respectively). Unexpectedly, we found few relationships between differentiation and the selection of putatively adaptive or maladaptive strategies. Instead, we found interactions between differentiation and strategies in predicting negative emotion. Among low differentiators, all strategies (Study 1) and four of six strategies (Study 2) were more strongly associated with increased negative emotion than they were among high differentiators. This suggests that low differentiation may hinder successful emotion regulation, which in turn supports the idea that effective regulation may underlie differentiation benefits.

The search of "canonical" explanations for the cerebral cortex

This paper addresses a fundamental line of research in neuroscience: the identification of a putative neural processing core of the cerebral cortex, often claimed to be "canonical". This "canonical" core would be shared by the entire cortex, and would explain why it is so powerful and diversified in tasks and functions, yet so uniform in architecture. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the search for canonical explanations over the past 40 years, discussing the theoretical frameworks informing this research. It will highlight a bias that, in my opinion, has limited the success of this research project, that of overlooking the dimension of cortical development. The earliest explanation of the cerebral cortex as canonical was attempted by David Marr, deriving putative cortical circuits from general mathematical laws, loosely following a deductive-nomological account. Although Marr's theory turned out to be incorrect, one of its merits was to have put the issue of cortical circuit development at the top of his agenda. This aspect has been largely neglected in much of the research on canonical models that has followed. Models proposed in the 1980s were conceived as mechanistic. They identified a small number of components that interacted as a basic circuit, with each component defined as a function. More recent models have been presented as idealized canonical computations, distinct from mechanistic explanations, due to the lack of identifiable cortical components. Currently, the entire enterprise of coming up with a single canonical explanation has been criticized as being misguided, and the premise of the uniformity of the cortex has been strongly challenged. This debate is analyzed here. The legacy of the canonical circuit concept is reflected in both positive and negative ways in recent large-scale brain projects, such as the Human Brain Project. One positive aspect is that these projects might achieve the aim of producing detailed simulations of cortical electrical activity, a negative one regards whether they will be able to find ways of simulating how circuits actually develop.

On properly characterizing moral agency

Doris (2015b) develops a theory of moral agency to avoid a skeptical challenge arising from psychology studies indicating that (im)moral behavior is caused by trivial situational factors. His theory is flawed in attending only to situational influences on behavior and neglecting individual differences such as moral identity and virtue. A focus on individual differences in resilience to influence from trivial situational factors defangs the skeptical challenge and offers a better account of moral agency.

Searching for Moral Dumbfounding: Identifying Measurable Indicators of Moral Dumbfounding

Moral dumbfounding is defined as maintaining a moral judgement, without supporting reasons. The most cited demonstration of dumbfounding does not identify a specific measure of dumbfounding and has not been published in peer-review form, or directly replicated. Despite limited empirical examination, dumbfounding has been widely discussed in moral psychology. The present research examines the reliability with which dumbfounding can be elicited, and aims to identify measureable indicators of dumbfounding. Study 1 aimed at establishing the effect that is reported in the literature. Participants read four scenarios and judged the actions described. An Interviewer challenged participants’ stated reasons for judgements. Dumbfounding was evoked, as measured by two indicators, admissions of not having reasons (17%), unsupported declarations (9%) with differences between scenarios. Study 2 measured dumbfounding as the selecting of an unsupported declaration as part of a computerised task. We observed high rates of dumbfounding across all scenarios. Studies 3a (college sample) and 3b (MTurk sample), addressing limitations in Study 2, replaced the unsupported declaration with an admission of having no reason, and included open-ended responses that were coded for unsupported declarations. As predicted, lower rates of dumbfounding were observed (3a 20%; 3b 16%; or 3a 32%; 3b 24% including unsupported declarations in open-ended responses). Two measures provided evidence for dumbfounding across three studies; rates varied with task type (interview/computer task), and with the particular measure being employed (admissions of not having reasons/unsupported declarations). Possible cognitive processes underlying dumbfounding and limitations of methodologies used are discussed as a means to account for this variability.

Corruption in Latin America

Latin America has experienced a series of recent corruption scandals, resulting in an unprecedented uncertainty in political leadership across the whole region. Within this context, we have conducted a survey study comprising nine countries in Latin America ( n = 1,250) examining the stereotype content of politicians. We tested a dual effects model in which the stereotypes of politicians were predicted to shape perceptions of justice directly and indirectly through the activation of affect. Our findings revealed that politicians tended to be stereotyped with negative morality traits and with a certain degree of negativity across other stereotype dimensions. Results supported a positive direct effect of morality on perceived justice and a positive indirect effect through the activation of affect. We discuss the implications of these findings for the current political context in Latin America and also for our understanding of perceptions about politicians and their relationship with leader and power legitimacy.

So Gross and Yet so Far Away: Psychological Distance Moderates the Effect of Disgust on Moral Judgment

People morally evaluate norm violations that occur at various distances from the self (e.g., a corrupt politician vs. a cheating spouse). Yet, distance is rarely studied as a moderator of moral judgment processes. We focus on the influence of disgust on moral judgments, as evidence here has remained inconclusive. Based on feelings as information theory and the notion that disgust evolved as a pathogen avoidance mechanism, we argue that disgust influences moral judgment of psychologically distant (vs. near) norm violations. Studies 1 and 3 show that trait disgust sensitivity (but not trait anger and fear) more strongly predicts moral judgment of distant than near violations. Studies 2 and 4 show that incidental disgust affects moral judgment of distant (vs. near) violations and that the moderating role of distance is mediated by involvement of others (vs. the self) in the evaluator’s conceptualization of the violation.

Emotional Granularity Effects on Event-Related Brain Potentials during Affective Picture Processing

There is debate about whether emotional granularity, the tendency to label emotions in a nuanced and specific manner, is merely a product of labeling abilities, or a systematic difference in the experience of emotion during emotionally evocative events. According to the Conceptual Act Theory of Emotion (CAT) (Barrett, 2006), emotional granularity is due to the latter and is a product of on-going temporal differences in how individuals categorize and thus make meaning of their affective states. To address this question, the present study investigated the effects of individual differences in emotional granularity on electroencephalography-based brain activity during the experience of emotion in response to affective images. Event-related potentials (ERP) and event-related desynchronization and synchronization (ERD/ERS) analysis techniques were used. We found that ERP responses during the very early (60-90 ms), middle (270-300 ms), and later (540-570 ms) moments of stimulus presentation were associated with individuals' level of granularity. We also observed that highly granular individuals, compared to lowly granular individuals, exhibited relatively stable desynchronization of alpha power (8-12 Hz) and synchronization of gamma power (30-50 Hz) during the 3 s of stimulus presentation. Overall, our results suggest that emotional granularity is related to differences in neural processing throughout emotional experiences and that high granularity could be associated with access to executive control resources and a more habitual processing of affective stimuli, or a kind of "emotional complexity." Implications for models of emotion are also discussed.

Relative Contribution of Odour Intensity and Valence to Moral Decisions

Meta-analytic evidence showed that the chemical senses affect moral decisions. However, how odours impact on morality is currently unclear. Through a set of three studies, we assess whether and how odour intensity biases moral choices (Study 1a), its psychophysiological responses (Study 1b), as well as the behavioural and psychophysiological effects of odour valence on moral choices (Study 2). Study 1a suggests that the presence of an odour plays a role in shaping moral choice. Study 1b reveals that of two iso-pleasant versions of the same neutral odour, only the one presented sub-threshold (vs. supra-threshold) favours deontological moral choices, those based on the principle of not harming others even when such harm provides benefits. As expected, this odour intensity effect is tracked by skin conductance responses, whereas no difference in cardiac activity - proxy for the valence dimension - is revealed. Study 2 suggests that the same neutral odour presented sub-threshold increases deontological choices even when compared to iso-intense ambiguous odour, perceived as pleasant or unpleasant by half of the participants, respectively. Skin conductance responses, as expected, track odour pleasantness, but cardiac activity fails to do so. Results are discussed in the context of mechanisms alternative to disgust induction underlying moral choices.

The Effects of Disgust on Moral Judgments

There is evidence that inducing feelings of disgust increases the severity of moral judgments, but the size of this association has been questioned by a recent meta-analysis. Based on prior research and theory, we tested whether the effects of disgust on moral judgments might be moderated by sensitivity to bodily states (Studies 1 and 2) and the accessibility of mood (Study 2) in two large samples (total N = 1,412). We did not find that disgust directly increased the severity of moral judgments nor did we find evidence that these moderators influenced the effect of disgust. Thus, the current studies do not support large effects for induced disgust and for two presumed moderators of these effects.

Neurocomputational model of moral behaviour

Our understanding of human morality has dramatically improved in the last decades, thanks to efforts carried out with scientific methods, in addition to the traditional speculative approach. Substantial contributions and relevant empirical data have come from neuroscience, psychology, genetics, comparative ethology, anthropology, and the social sciences. In this fruitful synergy, one useful approach is still missing: computational modeling. More precisely, a neurocomputational model aimed at simulating forms of moral behavior, to our knowledge, has not yet been designed. The purpose of this work is to start filling this gap, proposing MOral Neural Engine (MONE), a model that simulates the emergence of moral cognition. The neural engine in this model is assumed to be based in frontal areas, specifically the orbitofrontal and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and in connections to limbic areas involved in emotions and reward, such as the ventral striatum and the amygdala. Moral cognition is probably the result of a collection of several different neural processes, activated depending on the type of moral problem, each associated with a variety of emotions. This model, in its first implementation, deals with only a single moral situation: stealing someone's food, a transgression that typically elicits guilt, learned in the model from the angry facial expressions of the victim.

Does Incidental Disgust Amplify Moral Judgment? A Meta-Analytic Review of Experimental Evidence

The role of emotion in moral judgment is currently a topic of much debate in moral psychology. One specific claim made by many researchers is that irrelevant feelings of disgust can amplify the severity of moral condemnation. Numerous researchers have found this effect, but there have also been several published failures to replicate it. Clarifying this issue would inform important theoretical debates among rival accounts of moral judgment. We meta-analyzed all available studies—published and unpublished—in which incidental disgust was manipulated prior to or concurrent with a moral judgment task ( k = 50). We found evidence for a small amplification effect of disgust ( d = 0.11), which is strongest for gustatory/olfactory modes of disgust induction. However, there is also some suggestion of publication bias in this literature, and when this is accounted for, the effect disappears entirely ( d = −0.01). Moreover, prevalent confounds mean that the effect size that we estimate is best interpreted as an upper bound on the size of the amplification effect. On the basis of the results of this meta-analysis, we argue against strong claims about the causal role of affect in moral judgment and suggest a need for new, more rigorous research on this topic.

Unpacking Emotion Differentiation

Being able to carefully perceive and distinguish the rich complexity in emotional experiences is a key component of psychological interventions. We review research in clinical, social, and health psychology that offers insights into the adaptive value of putting feelings into words with a high degree of complexity (i.e., emotion differentiation or emotional granularity). According to recent research, upon experiencing intense distress, individuals who experience their emotions with more granularity are less likely to resort to maladaptive self-regulatory strategies such as binge drinking, aggression, and self-injurious behavior; show less neural reactivity to rejection; and experience less severe anxiety and depressive disorders. These findings shed light on how negative emotions and stressful experiences can be transformed by people’s emotion-differentiation skill. Besides basic research suggesting that emotion differentiation is an important developmental process, evidence suggests that interventions designed to improve emotion differentiation can both reduce psychological problems and increase various strands of well-being.

A Constructionist Review of Morality and Emotions

Morality and emotions are linked, but what is the nature of their correspondence? Many “whole number” accounts posit specific correspondences between moral content and discrete emotions, such that harm is linked to anger, and purity is linked to disgust. A review of the literature provides little support for these specific morality–emotion links. Moreover, any apparent specificity may arise from global features shared between morality and emotion, such as affect and conceptual content. These findings are consistent with a constructionist perspective of the mind, which argues against a whole number of discrete and domain-specific mental mechanisms underlying morality and emotion. Instead, constructionism emphasizes the flexible combination of basic and domain-general ingredients such as core affect and conceptualization in creating the experience of moral judgments and discrete emotions. The implications of constructionism in moral psychology are discussed, and we propose an experimental framework for rigorously testing morality–emotion links.

Relating specific emotions to intrinsic motivation: on the moderating role of positive and negative emotion differentiation

Despite the fact that studies on self-determination theory have traditionally disregarded the explicit role of emotions in the motivation eliciting process, research attention for the affective antecedents of motivation is growing. We add to this emerging research field by testing the moderating role of emotion differentiation -individual differences in the extent to which people can differentiate between specific emotions- on the relationship between twelve specific emotions and intrinsic motivation. To this end, we conducted a daily diary study (N = 72) and an experience sampling study (N = 34). Results showed that the relationship between enthusiasm, cheerfulness, optimism, contentedness, gloominess, miserableness, uneasiness (in both studies 1 and 2), calmness, relaxation, tenseness, depression, worry (only in Study 1) on one hand and intrinsic motivation on the other hand was moderated by positive emotion differentiation for the positive emotions and by negative emotion differentiation for the negative emotions. Altogether, these findings suggest that for people who are unable to distinguish between different specific positive emotions the relationship between those specific positive emotions and intrinsic motivation is stronger, whereas the relationship between specific negative emotions and intrinsic motivation is weaker for people who are able to distinguish between the different specific negative emotions. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.