Independent Scholar.
Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Cogn Emot. 2023 May-Jun;37(3):499-514. doi: 10.1080/02699931.2023.2183179. Epub 2023 Mar 2.
People often appear to conflate anger and disgust, seemingly using expressions of both emotions interchangeably in response to moral violations. Yet, anger and moral disgust differ in their antecedents and consequences. These empirical observations are associated with two broad theoretical perspectives: one describes expressions of moral disgust as metaphors for anger, whereas the other describes moral disgust as functionally distinct from anger. Both accounts have received empirical support from separate and seemingly inconsistent literatures. The present study seeks to resolve this inconsistency by focusing on the different ways moral emotions have been measured. We formalise three theoretical models of moral emotions: one in which expressions of disgust are purely associated with anger (but not physiological disgust), one in which disgust and anger are fully separated and have distinct functions, and an integrative model that accommodates both metaphorical use in language and distinctive function. We test these models on responses to moral violations (four studies; = 1608). Our results suggest that moral disgust has distinct functions, but that expressions of moral disgust are sometimes used to convey moralistic anger. These findings have implications for the theoretical status and measurement of moral emotions.
人们常常混淆愤怒和厌恶，似乎在回应道德违规时会交替使用这两种情绪的表达。然而，愤怒和道德厌恶在其前因和后果上有所不同。这些实证观察与两种广泛的理论观点有关：一种观点将道德厌恶的表达描述为愤怒的隐喻，而另一种观点则将道德厌恶描述为与愤怒功能不同。这两种观点都得到了来自独立且看似不一致的文献的实证支持。本研究试图通过关注道德情感的不同测量方式来解决这种不一致性。我们形式化了道德情感的三个理论模型：一个模型中，厌恶的表达纯粹与愤怒相关（但与生理厌恶无关），一个模型中，厌恶和愤怒完全分离并有不同的功能，以及一个包含语言中隐喻使用和独特功能的综合模型。我们在对道德违规的反应（四项研究；n=1608）上测试了这些模型。我们的结果表明，道德厌恶具有不同的功能，但道德厌恶的表达有时被用来表达道德化的愤怒。这些发现对道德情感的理论地位和测量具有启示意义。
