Abstract
There has been much recent speculation regarding the
relationship between sociomoral disgust, which refers to disgust
elicited by moral violations, and the type of disgust elicited by
physical stimuli such a rotten food. This study investigated
whether there were similar facial expressions of disgust elicited
by two types of moral transgressions and physically disgusting
behaviors. This study also explored whether facial muscle activity
would reflect spontaneous person affect knowledge retrieval after
participants were presented with minimal information regarding a
person's face and behavior. The two types of moral transgressions
were fairness and purity moral transgressions, which are two out of
the five moral foundations (purity, fairness, harm, authority,
ingroup) in the Moral Foundations Theory (Haidt and Joseph, 2004).
Facial muscle activity related to disgust (levator labii) and anger
as well as overall negative affect (corrugator supercilii) was
recorded while participants associated faces with behavioral
statements. The same facial muscle activity was also recorded while
participants were shown faces that were previously associated with
behavioral statements in a later task. Facial disgust reactions
were similar in response to physically disgusting behaviors as well
as purity transgressions, but fairness transgressions did not
elicit significant facial reactions. Faces that had been previously
associated with moral transgressions, physically disgusting, or
neutral behaviors also did not evoke facial disgust, showing no
transfer of person affective trait knowledge, contrary to previous
neuroimaging findings (Todorov et al., 2007). These results suggest
that purity vs. fairness transgressions differentially elicit
facial disgust reactions, with only purity transgressions eliciting
facial disgust activity. These results suggest that these two
domains of moral transgressions differ in their similarity to the
processing of physical disgust stimuli, consistent with theoretical
views that posit that only some moral violations have a basis in
the basic emotion of disgust.
Table of Contents
Introduction...1
Objectives...10
Methods...11
Participants...11
Stimuli...11
Procedures...12
Encoding...12
Test...13
Recall...14
Ratings...15
Psychophysiological Analyses...15
Statistical Analyses...16
Results...17
EMG Activity Results...17
Encoding Phase...18
Figure 1. Change in EMG activity during Encoding...20
Figure 2. EMG activity for purity behaviors...21
Test Phase...21
Figure 3. Change in EMG activity during Test...23
Behavioral Results...24
Person Judgments: Categorization...24
Ratings...24
Discussion...26
Limitations...29
Significance and Future Directions...30
Additional Comments: Legal and Social Implications of
Disgust...32
Conclusion...35
Appendix 1...37
Appendix 2...41
References...42
About this Honors Thesis
Rights statement
- Permission granted by the author to include this thesis or dissertation in this repository. All rights reserved by the author. Please contact the author for information regarding the reproduction and use of this thesis or dissertation.
| School |
|
|---|
| Department |
|
|---|
| Degree |
|
|---|
| Submission |
|
|---|
| Language |
|
|---|
| Research Field |
|
|---|
| 关键词 |
|
|---|
| Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor |
|
|---|
| Committee Members |
|
|---|