Moral shock

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In sociology, moral shock is a cognitive and emotional process that encourages participation. James M. Jasper, who originally coined the term, used it to help explain why people might join a social movement in the absence of pre-existing social ties with members. It denotes a kind of visceral unease, triggered by personal or public events, that captures people’s attention. Moral shocks often force people to articulate their moral intuitions. It is an appealing concept because it brings together emotional, moral, and cognitive dynamics. [1] According to David A. Snow and Sarah A. Soule, authors of “A Primer on Social Movements”, the moral shock argument says that some events may be so emotionally moving or morally reprehensible that individuals will feel that they must join the cause regardless of their connection or ties to members of that organization. [2] Moral shock is similar in many ways to shock advertising which uses analogous techniques to help increase brand success and awareness. Moral shocks have been shown to help recruit people to the animal rights movement, [3] the movement for peace in Central America, [4] anti-abortion campaigns [2] and anti-racist movements. [5]

James Macdonald Jasper is a writer and sociologist who has taught Ph.D. students at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York since 2007. He is best known for his research and theories about culture and politics, especially the cultural and emotional dimensions of protest movements.

Social movement type of group action

A social movement is a type of group action. There is no single consensus definition of a social movement. They are large, sometimes informal, groupings of individuals or organizations which focus on specific political or social issues. In other words, they carry out, resist, or undo a social change. They provide a way of social change from the bottom within nations.

David A. Snow is a Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine.

Deborah Gould has suggested another role for moral shocks: radicalizing or reinforcing the commitment of those already active in a protest movement. She says that the 1986 Bowers v. Hardwick decision by the U.S. Supreme Court had this effect on the U.S. gay and lesbian rights movements. Hardwick told the lesbian and gay community that their own government supported their oppression. [6] Indignation at one’s own government can be especially moving, as it involves a sense of betrayal. Furthermore, violent repression of peaceful protest is thus a frequent source of moral shock.

Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986), is a United States Supreme Court decision that upheld, in a 5–4 ruling, the constitutionality of a Georgia sodomy law criminalizing oral and anal sex in private between consenting adults, in this case with respect to homosexual sodomy, though the law did not differentiate between homosexual sodomy and heterosexual sodomy. This case was overturned in 2003 in Lawrence v. Texas.

The impact of moral shock is illustrated in the film Unborn in the USA in which the ProLife on Campus organization is highlighted in its travels to college campuses across the country. Using a set of extremely large and graphic images of abortion and abortion procedures the group attempts to portray their anti-abortion messages on college campuses—targeting young people who they believe are particularly prone to getting involved. They believe the images are very effective ways to shine light on the truth of what abortion does to innocent children. Unless the public is made aware of this perceived injustice, it will never be able to end, according to statements on their website. The group’s slogan is “Winning Hearts…Changing Minds…and Saving Lives…” [7]

Unborn in the USA: Inside the War on Abortion is a 2007 documentary film featuring interviews with pro-life activists across the United States. Its tagline is, "How the pro-lifers are winning". The film was started as a thesis project by students Stephen Fell and Will Thompson of Rice University.

Brian Lowe suggests that moral shocks are especially likely when someone holds a sweeping movement ideology that takes the form of a “quasi-religion.” [8]

Jasper on Moral Shocks

In Chapter 5 of The Art of Moral Protest, Jasper defines a moral shock as "an unexpected event or piece of information [which] raises such a sense of outrage in a person that she becomes inclined toward political action, with or without the network of personal contacts emphasized in mobilization and process theories." [9] For example, seeing a documentary about illicit banking practices may motivate an individual to participate in financial reform efforts. The motivation generated by a moral shock is, as the conceptual label makes plain, moral in nature; it operates at a level of normative force beyond just the purely cognitive or emotional. However, it is important to note that "for a moral shock to lead to protest, it must have an explicit cognitive dimension as well as moral and emotional ones." [10] Moral shocks are moral insofar as they create a sense of outrage or indignation, emotional insofar as anger or frustration accompanies this outrage, and cognitive insofar as the shock is delivered via words and symbols. For instance, the aforementioned documentary uses such cognitive devices to get its message across, but it also relies on emotional appeal and the resulting, normatively stronger, sense of moral outrage.

Moral shock as a concept is especially important because it pinpoints a factor that motivates individuals to protest that is not reducible to factors highlighted by resource mobilization and political opportunity theories (e.g., social networks, preexisting beliefs). The Art of Moral Protest shows that would-be protestors do not always know other protestors and often formulate their beliefs on the fly, so to speak. Hence, Jasper’s concept is able to account for an additional path into protest, a path emphasizing the relative importance of events and their initial consciousness-raising effects on individuals.

Resource mobilization

Resource mobilization is the process of getting resources from resource provider, using different mechanisms, to implement an organization's pre-determined goals.

Political opportunity theory, sometimes also known as the political process theory or political opportunity structure, is an approach of social movements heavily influenced by political sociology. It argues that success or failure of social movements is primarily affected by political opportunities. Social theorists Peter Eisinger, Sidney Tarrow, David Meyer and Doug McAdam are considered among the most prominent supporters of this theory.

Related Research Articles

Normative generally means relating to an evaluative standard. Normativity is the phenomenon in human societies of designating some actions or outcomes as good or desirable or permissible and others as bad or undesirable or impermissible. A norm in this normative sense means a standard for evaluating or making judgments about behavior or outcomes. Normative is sometimes also used, somewhat confusingly, to mean relating to a descriptive standard: doing what is normally done or what most others are expected to do in practice. In this sense a norm is not evaluative, a basis for judging behavior or outcomes; it is simply a fact or observation about behavior or outcomes, without judgment. Many researchers in this field try to restrict the use of the term normative to the evaluative sense and refer to the description of behavior and outcomes as positive, descriptive, predictive, or empirical.

Contentious politics is the use of disruptive techniques to make a political point, or to change government policy. Examples of such techniques are actions that disturb the normal activities of society such as demonstrations, general strike action, riot, terrorism, civil disobedience, and even revolution or insurrection. Social movements often engage in contentious politics. The concept distinguishes these forms of contention from the everyday acts of resistance explored by James C. Scott, interstate warfare, and forms of contention employed entirely within institutional settings, such as elections or sports. Historical sociologist Charles Tilly defines contentious politics as "interactions in which actors make claims bearing on someone else's interest, in which governments appear either as targets, initiators of claims, or third parties."

United States anti-abortion movement

The United States anti-abortion movement contains elements opposing elective or therapeutic abortion on both moral and sectarian grounds and supports its legal prohibition or restriction. Advocates generally argue that human life begins at conception and that the human zygote is a person and therefore has a right to life. The anti-abortion movement includes a variety of organizations, with no single centralized decision-making body. There are diverse arguments and rationales for the anti-abortion stance. Some anti-abortion activists concede arguments for permissible abortions, including therapeutic abortions, in exceptional circumstances such as incest, rape, severe fetal defects or when the woman's health is at risk.

The animal rights movement, sometimes called the animal liberation movement, animal personhood, or animal advocacy movement, is a social movement which seeks an end to the rigid moral and legal distinction drawn between human and non-human animals, an end to the status of animals as property, and an end to their use in the research, food, clothing, and entertainment industries.

Social movement theory is an interdisciplinary study within the social sciences that generally seeks to explain why social mobilization occurs, the forms under which it manifests, as well as potential social, cultural, and political consequences.

A countermovement in sociology means a social movement opposed to another social movement. Whenever one social movement starts up, another group establishes themselves to undermine the previous group. Many social movements start out as an effect of political activism towards issues that a group disagrees with. “Researchers have used resource mobilization to study all manner of social and political movements such as environmentalism, father's rights groups, religious movements, and abortion rights”. The reason for the start of countermovement groups is that people are competing for resources for political influence. Countermovement groups are a part of American society that try to compete for government legislation to support their own views.

Collective identity is the shared sense of belonging to a group.

Indignation emotion

Indignation is a complex and discrete emotion that is triggered by social emotions and social environments. Feelings of anger and disgust are some emotions that make up indignation. The feeling of indignation can occur when one is mistreated by another or negative feelings are sparked when a situation is out of the normal realm of society. When situations or actions that are considered to be unjust behavior occur, the feeling of indignation is experienced. With unjust actions and behaviors comes to blame. Blame also helps to make up the emotion of indignation. When blameworthy actions take place, the emotion of indignation occurs and negative feelings are projected onto the person who is to blame. Which can be brought on by disturbances that go against social normative. According to Claude Miller, “indignation is defined as a non-primary, discrete, social emotion, specifying disapproval of someone else's blameworthy action, as that action is explicitly viewed to be in violation of the objective order, and implicitly perceived as injurious to the perceiver’s self-concept”. Indignation is experienced when violations are made to our daily lives. Indignation is an emotion that is considered to be an adaptive behavior. Social environment and social emotions being a stimuli for indignation. Our emotions and behaviors adapt depending on certain situations. Internal and external social norms play a part in experiencing the emotion of indignation. It is expected that everyone coexists and follows the social normative behaviors society has put in place. When something disrupts what is considered to be a social norm, a violation occurs, both internally and externally. A range of feelings are experienced internally, as well as a desire to be removed from the situation externally. When norms are disrupted, offense is taken and the emotion of indignation is ignited.

Sociology of emotions

The sociology of emotion applies sociological theorems and techniques to the study of human emotions. As sociology emerged primarily as a reaction to the negative effects of modernity, many normative theories deal in some sense with emotion without forming a part of any specific subdiscipline: Karl Marx described capitalism as detrimental to personal 'species-being', Georg Simmel wrote of the deindividualizing tendencies of 'the metropolis', and Max Weber's work dealt with the rationalizing effect of modernity in general.

A social conscience is "a sense of responsibility or concern for the problems and injustices of society".

John D. McCarthy American sociologist

John David McCarthy is an American sociologist. He earned his Ph.D degree in Sociology at University of Oregon in 1968. He is currently a Professor of Sociology at Pennsylvania State University.

Social movement impact theory

Social movement impact theory is a subcategory of social movement theory, and focuses on assessing the impacts that social movements have on society, as well as what factors might have led to those effects.

Activism efforts to promote, impede, or direct social, political, religious, economic, or environmental change, or stasis

Activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct, or intervene in social, political, economic, or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society. Forms of activism range from mandate building in the community, petitioning elected officials, running or contributing to a political campaign, preferential patronage of businesses, and demonstrative forms of activism like rallies, street marches, strikes, sit-ins, or hunger strikes.

Drew Halfmann American sociologist

Drew Halfmann is an American sociologist best known for his research on social policy in the United States.

The Charles Tilly Award for Best Book is given by the Collective Behavior and Social Movements section of the American Sociological Association in recognition of a significant contribution to the field. Nominees of the award are regarded as being representative of the "best new books in the field of social movements." The award was established in 1986 and is named after sociologist Charles Tilly.

References

  1. ↑ James M. Jasper, The Art of Moral Protest (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997).
  2. 1 2 Snow, David A., and Sarah Anne Soule. A Primer on Social Movements. New York, NY: W. W. Norton, 2010. Print.
  3. ↑ James M. Jasper and Jane Poulsen, "Recruiting Strangers and Friends: Moral Shocks and Social Networks in Animal Rights and Antinuclear Protest," Social Problems 42 (1995), pp. 493-512.
  4. ↑ Sharon Erikson Nepstad, Convictions of the Soul (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2004).
  5. ↑ Mark R. Warren, Fire in the Heart: How White Activists Embrace Racial Justice (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).
  6. ↑ Deborah Gould, Moving Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009).
  7. ↑ ProLife on Campus." Pro Life On Campus - Pro Life on Campus. 2009. Web. 04 Dec. 2011. http://www.prolifeoncampus.com/home.
  8. ↑ Brian M. Lowe, Emerging Moral Vocabularies (Lanham, MD.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006).
  9. ↑ The Art of Moral Protest, 106.
  10. ↑ The Art of Moral Protest, 180.
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