Moral emotions

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Moral emotions are a variety of social emotions that are involved in forming and communicating moral judgments and decisions, and in motivating behavioral responses to one's own and others' moral behavior. [1] [2] [3] As defined by Jonathan Haidt, moral emotions "are linked to the interests or welfare either of a society as a whole or at least of persons other than the judge or agent". [4] A person may not always have clear words to articulate, yet simultaneously knows it to be true.

Contents

Moral emotions include disgust, shame, pride, anger, guilt, compassion, and gratitude, [5] and help to provide people with the power and energy to do good and avoid doing bad. [4] Moral emotions are linked to a person's conscience - these are the emotions that make up a conscience and promote learning the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, virtuous and evil.

When it comes to moral emotions, much changed in recent years. A large part of moral emotions is based on society's interpretation of things. While it is true that many of these emotions are based on the absolute truths of morality, this is only but a part of what moral emotions are about. The full spectrum of what moral emotions entail also includes emotions based on the narratives of what people teach. Much of this leads people to make their own choices in life, through a process formally known as "moral decision-making". This is something that influences people every day, without most people ever even realizing it. [6]

Background

Moral reasoning has been the focus of most study of morality dating back to Plato and Aristotle. The emotive side of morality, worked by Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments , has been looked upon with disdain, as subservient to the higher, rational, moral reasoning, with scholars like Immanuel Kant, Piaget and Kohlberg touting moral reasoning as the key forefront of morality. [7] However, in the last 30–40 years,[ when? ] there has been a rise in a new front of research: moral emotions as the basis for moral behavior. This development began with a focus on empathy and guilt, but has since moved on to encompass new emotional scholarship on emotions such as anger, shame, disgust, awe, and elevation. With the new research, theorists have begun to question whether moral emotions might hold a larger role in determining morality, one that might even surpass that of moral reasoning. [2]

Definitions

There have generally been two approaches taken by philosophers to define moral emotion, with the first approach being "to specify the formal conditions that make a moral statement (e.g., that is prescriptive, that it is universal, such as expedience)". [8] [ page needed ] This first approach is more tied to language and the definitions given to moral emotions. The second approach "is to specify the material conditions of a moral issue, for example, that moral rules and judgments 'must bear on the interest or welfare either of society as a whole or at least of persons other than the judge or agent'". [9] This definition seems to be more action-based. It focuses on the outcome of a moral emotion. The second definition is more preferred because it is not tied to language and therefore can be applied to prelinguistic children and animals. Moral emotions are "emotions that are linked to the interests or welfare either of society as a whole or at least of persons other than the judge or agent." [2] : 853 

Types of moral emotion

Moral emotions, like any emotion, fall under categories of positive and negative. With moral emotions, however, there are two types of negative: inner-directed negative emotions (which motivate people to act ethically) and outer-directed negative emotions (which aim to discipline or punish). [10] Within the positive and negative categories, there are specific emotions. Examples of positive moral emotions are gratitude, elevation, and pride in one's beneficial successes. Examples of negative moral emotions include shame, guilt, and embarrassment. [11]

There is a debate whether there is a set of basic emotions or if there are "scripts or set of components that can be mixed and matched, allowing for a very large number of possible emotions". [2] Even those arguing for a basic set acknowledge that there are variants of each emotion (psychologist Paul Ekman calls these variants "families" [12] ). According to Jonathan Haidt:

The principal moral emotions can be divided into two large and two small joint families. The large families are the "other-condemning" family, in which the three brothers are contempt, anger, and disgust (and their many children, such as indignation and loathing), and the "self-conscious" family (shame, embarrassment, and guilt)…[T]he two smaller families the "other-suffering" family (compassion) and the "other-praising" family (gratitude and elevation). [2]

Haidt would suggest that the higher the emotionality of a moral agent, the more likely the agent is to act morally. He uses the term "disinterested elicitor" to describe an event or situation that provokes emotions in us, even when these emotions do not have anything to do with our own personal welfare. It is these elicitors that cause people to participate in what he calls "prosocial action tendencies" (actions that benefit society). Haidt explains moral emotions as "emotion families", in which each family contains emotions that may be similar although not exactly the same. These moral emotions are provoked by eliciting events that often lead to prosocial action tendencies. Each person's likelihood of prosocial action is determined by his or her degree of emotionality.

Moral emotions and behavior

Empathy also plays a large role in altruism. The empathy-altruism hypothesis states that feelings of empathy for another lead to an altruistic motivation to help that person. [13] In contrast, there may also be an egoistic motivation to help someone in need. This is the Hullian tension-reduction model in which personal distress caused by another in need leads the person to help in order to alleviate their own discomfort. [14] The Altruism Born of Suffering Literature states that individuals who have undergone difficult times and grown from this trauma identify with seeing others in need and respond altruistically by protecting or caring for others. [15] [16] In the context of climate change, it is recognised that for individuals to act altruistically towards their society and environment, they need to learn to increase their capacity to process their emotional experiences as well as increased reflective functioning. [17]

Batson, Klein, Highberger, and Shaw conducted experiments where they manipulated people through the use of empathy-induced altruism to make decisions that required them to show partiality to one individual over another. [13] The first experiment involved a participant from each group choosing someone to experience a positive or negative task. These groups included a non-communication, communication/low-empathy, and communication/high-empathy. They were asked to make their decisions based on these standards resulting in the communication/high-empathy group showing more partiality in the experiment than the other groups due to being successfully manipulated emotionally. Those individuals who they successfully manipulated reported that despite feeling compelled in the moment to show partiality, they still felt they had made the more "immoral" decision since they followed an empathy-based emotion rather than adhering to a justice perspective of morality.

Batson, Klein, Highberger, and Shaw conducted two experiments on empathy-induced altruism, proposing that this can lead to actions that violate the justice principle. The second experiment operated similarly to the first, using low-empathy and high-empathy groups. Participants were faced with the decision to move an ostensibly ill child to an "immediate help" group versus leaving her on a waiting list after listening to her emotionally-driven interview describing her condition and the life it has left her to lead. Those who were in the high-empathy group were more likely than those in the low-empathy group to move the child higher up the list to receive treatment earlier. When these participants were asked what the more moral choice was, they agreed that the more moral choice would have been to not move this child ahead of the list at the expense of the other children. In this case, it is evident that when empathy-induced altruism is at odds with what is seen as moral, oftentimes empathy-induced altruism has the ability to win out over morality. [13]

Recently neuroscientist Jean Decety, drawing on empirical research in evolutionary theory, developmental psychology, social neuroscience, and psychopathy, argued that empathy and morality are neither systematically opposed to one another, nor inevitably complementary. [18] [19]

Emmons (2009) defines gratitude as a natural emotional reaction and a universal tendency to respond positively to another's benevolence. [20] Gratitude is motivating and leads to what Emmons' describes as "upstream reciprocity". This is the passing on of benefits to third parties instead of returning benefits to one's benefactors. [20]

In the context of social networking behavior, research from Brady, Wills, Jost, Tucker, and Van Bavel (2017) shows that the expression of moral emotion amplifies the extent to which moral and political ideals are disseminated in social media platforms. Analyzing a large sample of Twitter communications on polarizing issues, such as gun control, same-sex marriage, and climate change, results indicated that the presence of moral-emotional language in messages increased their transmission by approximately 20% per word, compared to purely-moral and purely-emotional language. [21]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Altruism</span> Principle or practice of concern for the welfare of others

Altruism is the principle and practice of concern for the well-being and/or happiness of other humans or animals above oneself. While objects of altruistic concern vary, it is an important moral value in many cultures and religions. It may be considered a synonym of selflessness, the opposite of selfishness.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Morality</span> Differentiation between right and wrong

Morality is the categorization of intentions, decisions and actions into those that are proper (right) and those that are improper (wrong). Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of conduct from a particular philosophy, religion or culture, or it can derive from a standard that is understood to be universal. Morality may also be specifically synonymous with "goodness", "appropriateness" or "rightness".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Empathy</span> Capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing

Empathy is generally described as the ability to take on another's perspective, to understand, feel, and possibly share and respond to their experience. There are more definitions of empathy that include but are not limited to social, cognitive, and emotional processes primarily concerned with understanding others. Often times, empathy is considered to be a broad term, and broken down into more specific concepts and types that include cognitive empathy, emotional empathy, somatic empathy, and spiritual empathy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Compassion</span> Moved or motivated to help others

Compassion is a social feeling that motivates people to go out of their way to relieve the physical, mental, or emotional pains of others and themselves. Compassion is sensitivity to the emotional aspects of the suffering of others. When based on notions such as fairness, justice, and interdependence, it may be considered partially rational in nature.

Sympathy is the perception of, understanding of, and reaction to the distress or need of another life form.

Moral psychology is a field of study in both philosophy and psychology. Historically, the term "moral psychology" was used relatively narrowly to refer to the study of moral development. Moral psychology eventually came to refer more broadly to various topics at the intersection of ethics, psychology, and philosophy of mind. Some of the main topics of the field are moral judgment, moral reasoning, moral sensitivity, moral responsibility, moral motivation, moral identity, moral action, moral development, moral diversity, moral character, altruism, psychological egoism, moral luck, moral forecasting, moral emotion, affective forecasting, and moral disagreement.

C. Daniel Batson is an American social psychologist. He has two doctoral degrees, in theology and psychology. Batson obtained his doctorate under John Darley and taught at the University of Kansas. He retired in 2006 and now is an emeritus professor in the psychology department of the University of Tennessee. He is best known for his contributions to the social psychology of altruism, empathic concern, and psychology of religion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jean Decety</span> American neuroscientist

Jean Decety is an American–French neuroscientist specializing in developmental neuroscience, affective neuroscience, and social neuroscience. His research focuses on the psychological and neurobiological mechanisms underpinning social cognition, particularly social decision-making, empathy, moral reasoning, altruism, pro-social behavior, and more generally interpersonal relationships. He is Irving B. Harris Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago.

Empathy-altruism is a form of altruism based on moral emotions or feelings for others.

The concept of the evolution of morality refers to the emergence of human moral behavior over the course of human evolution. Morality can be defined as a system of ideas about right and wrong conduct. In everyday life, morality is typically associated with human behavior rather than animal behavior. The emerging fields of evolutionary biology, and in particular evolutionary psychology, have argued that, despite the complexity of human social behaviors, the precursors of human morality can be traced to the behaviors of many other social animals. Sociobiological explanations of human behavior remain controversial. Social scientists have traditionally viewed morality as a construct, and thus as culturally relative, although others such as Sam Harris argue that there is an objective science of morality.

Prosocial behavior, or intent to benefit others, is a social behavior that "benefit[s] other people or society as a whole", "such as helping, sharing, donating, co-operating, and volunteering". Obeying the rules and conforming to socially accepted behaviors are also regarded as prosocial behaviors. These actions may be motivated by culturally influenced value systems; empathy and concern about the welfare and rights of others; egoistic or practical concerns, such as one's social status or reputation, hope for direct or indirect reciprocity, or adherence to one's perceived system of fairness; or altruism, though the existence of pure altruism is somewhat disputed, and some have argued that this falls into the philosophical rather than psychological realm of debate. Evidence suggests that prosociality is central to the well-being of social groups across a range of scales, including schools. Prosocial behavior in the classroom can have a significant impact on a student's motivation for learning and contributions to the classroom and larger community. In the workplace, prosocial behaviour can have a significant impact on team psychological safety, as well as positive indirect effects on employee's helping behaviors and task performance. Empathy is a strong motive in eliciting prosocial behavior, and has deep evolutionary roots.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helping behavior</span> Voluntarily prosocial behaviour

Helping behavior refers to voluntary actions intended to help others, with reward regarded or disregarded. It is a type of prosocial behavior.

In psychology, personal distress is an aversive, self-focused emotional reaction to the apprehension or comprehension of another's emotional state or condition. This negative affective state often occurs as a result of emotional contagion when there is confusion between self and other. Unlike empathy, personal distress does not have to be congruent with the other's state, and often leads to a self-oriented, egoistic reaction to reduce it, by withdrawing from the stressor, for example, thereby decreasing the likelihood of prosocial behavior. There is evidence that sympathy and personal distress are subjectively different, have different somatic and physiological correlates, and relate in different ways to prosocial behavior.

Moral development focuses on the emergence, change, and understanding of morality from infancy through adulthood. The theory states that morality develops across a lifespan in a variety of ways and is influenced by an individual's experiences and behavior when faced with moral issues through different periods of physical and cognitive development. Morality concerns an individual's reforming sense of what is right and wrong; it is for this reason that young children have different moral judgment and character than that of a grown adult. Morality in itself is often a synonym for "rightness" or "goodness." It also refers to a specific code of conduct that is derived from one's culture, religion, or personal philosophy that guides one's actions, behaviors, and thoughts.

Social emotions are emotions that depend upon the thoughts, feelings or actions of other people, "as experienced, recalled, anticipated or imagined at first hand". Examples are embarrassment, guilt, shame, jealousy, envy, elevation, empathy, and pride. In contrast, basic emotions such as happiness and sadness only require the awareness of one's own physical state. Therefore, the development of social emotions is tightly linked with the development of social cognition, the ability to imagine other people's mental states, which generally develops in adolescence. Studies have found that children as young as 2 to 3 years of age can express emotions resembling guilt and remorse. However, while five-year-old children are able to imagine situations in which basic emotions would be felt, the ability to describe situations in which social emotions might be experienced does not appear until seven years of age.

Elevation is an emotion elicited by witnessing actual or imagined virtuous acts of remarkable moral goodness. It is experienced as a distinct feeling of warmth and expansion that is accompanied by appreciation and affection for the individual whose exceptional conduct is being observed. Elevation motivates those who experience it to open up to, affiliate with, and assist others. Elevation makes an individual feel lifted up and optimistic about humanity.

Claus Lamm is a Professor of Biological Psychology and the head of the Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Unit at the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Vienna. His research focuses on the psychological and biological mechanisms underlying social cognition, affect, and behavior. His main research interest are the neural underpinnings of empathy, to whose understanding he has made pioneering contributions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dorsomedial prefrontal cortex</span> Area of some species brains

The dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC or DMPFC is a section of the prefrontal cortex in some species' brain anatomy. It includes portions of Brodmann areas BA8, BA9, BA10, BA24 and BA32, although some authors identify it specifically with BA8 and BA9. Some notable sub-components include the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, the prelimbic cortex, and the infralimbic cortex.

Vicarious embarrassment is the feeling of embarrassment from observing the embarrassing actions of another person. Unlike general embarrassment, vicarious embarrassment is not the feelings of embarrassment for yourself or for your own actions, but instead by feeling embarrassment for somebody else after witnessing that other person experience an embarrassing event. These emotions can be perceived as pro-social, and some say they can be seen as motives for following socially and culturally acceptable behavior.

References

  1. ↑ Pizarro, David A. (2007). "Moral Emotions". In Baumeister, Roy F; Vohs, Kathleen D (eds.). Encyclopedia of Social Psychology . SAGE Publications, Inc. pp.  588–589. doi:10.4135/9781412956253.n350. ISBN   9781412956253.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Haidt, Jonathan (2003). "The Moral Emotions" (PDF). In Davidson, Richard; Scherer, Klaus; Goldsmith, H. (eds.). Handbook of Affective Sciences. Oxford University Press. pp.  855. ISBN   978-0-19-512601-3.
  3. ↑ Tangney, June Price; Stuewig, Jeff; Mashek, Debra J. (January 2007). "Moral Emotions and Moral Behavior" (PDF). Annual Review of Psychology . 58 (1): 345–372. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.56.091103.070145. PMC   3083636 . PMID   16953797. Archived (PDF) from the original on 5 November 2019. Retrieved 25 April 2019.
  4. 1 2 Tangney, June Price; Stuewig, Jeff; Mashek, Debra J. (1 January 2007). "Moral Emotions and Moral Behavior". Annual Review of Psychology. 58 (1): 345–372. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.56.091103.070145. ISSN   0066-4308. PMC   3083636 . PMID   16953797.
  5. ↑ Walsh, Elena (2021), "Moral Emotions", in Shackelford, Todd K.; Weekes-Shackelford, Viviana A. (eds.), Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 5209–5216, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-19650-3_650, ISBN   978-3-319-19650-3, S2CID   264100209, archived from the original on 16 October 2023, retrieved 22 June 2023
  6. ↑ Wang, Dawei; Kong, Xiangwei; Nie, Xinxiao; Shang, Yuxi; Xu, Shike; He, Yingwei; Maguire, Phil; Hu, Yixin (17 November 2021). "The effects of emotion and social consensus on moral decision-making". Ethics & Behavior. 31 (8): 575–588. doi:10.1080/10508422.2020.1830404. ISSN   1050-8422. S2CID   225170770. Archived from the original on 23 June 2023. Retrieved 16 October 2023.
  7. ↑ Kohlberg, Lawrence (1981). The Philosophy of Moral Development. Essays on Moral Development. Vol. 1. San Francisco: Harper & Row. ISBN   978-0-06-064760-5. OCLC   7307342.
  8. ↑ Hare, R. M. (1981). Moral Thinking: Its Levels, Method, and Point . Oxford University Press, UK. ISBN   978-0-19-824659-6.
  9. ↑ Gewirth, A. (1984). "Ethics". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Vol. 6. Chicago. pp. 976–998.{{cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  10. ↑ "Moral Emotions". Ethics Unwrapped. McCombs School of Business, The University of Texas at Austin.
  11. ↑ Tangney, June Price; Stuewig, Jeff; Mashek, Debra J. (1 January 2007). "Moral Emotions and Moral Behavior". Annual Review of Psychology. 58 (1): 345–372. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.56.091103.070145. PMC   3083636 . PMID   16953797.
  12. ↑ Ekman, Paul (1 May 1992). "An argument for basic emotions" (PDF). Cognition and Emotion. 6 (3–4): 169–200. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.454.1984 . doi:10.1080/02699939208411068. ISSN   0269-9931. Archived (PDF) from the original on 5 July 2020. Retrieved 25 April 2019.
  13. 1 2 3 Batson, C. D.; Klein, T. R.; Highberger, L.; Shaw, L. L. (1995). "Immorality from empathy-induced altruism: When compassion and justice conflict". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 68 (6): 1042–1054. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.68.6.1042.
  14. ↑ Batson, C. Daniel; Fultz, Jim; Schoenrade, Patricia A. (1 March 1987). "Distress and Empathy: Two Qualitatively Distinct Vicarious Emotions with Different Motivational Consequences". Journal of Personality. 55 (1): 19–39. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.1987.tb00426.x. ISSN   1467-6494. PMID   3572705.
  15. ↑ Vollhardt, Johanna Ray (March 2009). "Altruism Born of Suffering and Prosocial Behavior Following Adverse Life Events: A Review and Conceptualization". Social Justice Research. 22 (1): 53–97. doi:10.1007/s11211-009-0088-1. S2CID   144224070.
  16. ↑ Staub, E.; Vollhardt, J. M. (2008). "Atruism born of suffering; the roots of caring and helping after victimization and other trauma". American Journal of Orthopsychiatry. 78 (3): 267–280. doi:10.1037/a0014223. PMID   19123746.
  17. ↑ Kieft, J.; Bendell, J (2021). "The responsibility of communicating difficult truths about climate influenced societal disruption and collapse: an introduction to psychological research". Institute for Leadership and Sustainability (IFLAS) Occasional Papers. 7: 1–39. Archived from the original on 10 March 2021. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
  18. ↑ Decety, Jean (1 November 2014). "The Neuroevolution of Empathy and Caring for Others: Why It Matters for Morality". New Frontiers in Social Neuroscience. Research and Perspectives in Neurosciences. Vol. 21. pp. 127–151. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-02904-7_8. ISBN   978-3-319-02903-0.
  19. ↑ Decety, J.; Cowell, J. M. (2014). "The complex relation between morality and empathy" (PDF). Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 18 (7): 337–339. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2014.04.008. PMID   24972506. S2CID   355141. Archived (PDF) from the original on 23 October 2022. Retrieved 25 April 2019.
  20. 1 2 Emmons, Robert A. (29 June 2009), "Greatest of the Virtues? Gratitude and the Grateful Personality", Personality, Identity, and Character, Cambridge University Press, pp. 256–270, doi:10.1017/cbo9780511627125.012, ISBN   9780521895071, archived from the original on 16 October 2023, retrieved 16 May 2023
  21. ↑ Brady, William J.; Wills, Julian A.; Jost, John T.; Tucker, Joshua A.; Bavel, Jay J. Van (11 July 2017). "Emotion shapes the diffusion of moralized content in social networks". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 114 (28): 7313–7318. Bibcode:2017PNAS..114.7313B. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1618923114 . ISSN   0027-8424. PMC   5514704 . PMID   28652356.
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