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Guided by appraisal-based models of the influence of emotion upon judgment, we propose that disgust moralizes--that is, amplifies the moral significance of--protecting the purity of the body and soul. Three studies documented that state and trait disgust, but not other negative emotions, moralize the purity moral domain but not the moral domains of justice or harm/care. In Study 1, integral feelings of disgust, but not integral anger, predicted stronger moral condemnation of behaviors violating purity. In Study 2, experimentally induced disgust, compared with induced sadness, increased condemnation of behaviors violating purity and increased approval of behaviors upholding purity. In Study 3, trait disgust, but not trait anger or trait fear, predicted stronger condemnation of purity violations and greater approval of behaviors upholding purity. We found that, confirming the domain specificity of the disgust-purity association, disgust was unrelated to moral judgments about justice (Studies 1 and 2) or harm/care (Study 3). Finally, across studies, individuals of lower socioeconomic status (SES) were more likely than individuals of higher SES to moralize purity but not justice or harm/care. Keywords: purity, disgust, moral judgment, emotion, socioeconomic status DOI: 10.1037/a0017423

In 3 studies, the authors found support for the value-congruence model that accounts for cultural variations in memory for emotional experiences. In Study 1, the authors found that in the made-in-the-U.S. scenario condition, European Americans were more accurate than were Asian Americans in their retrospective frequency judgments of emotions. However, in the made-in-Japan scenario condition, European Americans were less accurate than were Asian Americans. In Study 2, the authors demonstrated that value orientation mediates the Culture x Type of Event congruence effect. In Study 3 (a daily event sampling study), the authors showed that the congruence effect was explained by the importance of parental approval. In sum, emotional events congruent with personal values remain in memory longer and influence retrospective frequency judgments of emotion more than do incongruent events. Keywords: culture, emotion, well-being, frequency judgments

Based on complementary survey and focus group data on Canadian mass attitudes, this essay examines the effects of changing contexts--public versus private--on the assessment of ethically charged political behaviour. In general, acts seen as public will face harsher scrutiny and more stringent expectations than those deemed to be private matters. The divide between public and private realms is not, however, a simple, linear border, but rather one that shifts and extends along multiple conceptual dimensions, depending upon the details of the activity being assessed and the context of the observer. Locating this boundary more precisely can enhance understanding of ethical priorities. En tenant compte de donnees complementaires sur les attitudes collectives des Canadiens provenant d'un sondage et d'un groupe de discussion, cet article examine les repercussions du contexte public par rapport au contexte prive sur l'evaluation de comportements politiques ethiques. En general, des actions jugees <> seront examinees de plus pres et seront visees par des attentes plus rigoureuses que des actions jugees <>. La ligne de separation entre le domaine public et le domaine prive n'est toutefois pas si aisement delimitee mais peut se deplacer et comprendre plusieurs dimensions conceptuelles selon les details de l'activite qui est evaluee et le contexte de l'observateur. Si ces limites peuvent etre identifiees plus clairement, les priorites ethiques peuvent etre mieux comprises.

Justifications that invoke moral claims are highly effective in shaping public opinion. But moral justifications ('I am obeying the dictates of my conscience'; 'This policy is in the community's best interests') are difficult to verify as to their truthfulness, raising the possibility that they can be used deceptively. In this article, the psychological and political literatures are reviewed to illustrate why it is so difficult to detect deceptive moral justifications. The difficulty arises because (1) people are not very good at detecting deception in general; (2) the mediated nature of :political communication eliminates the nonverbal cues that are most predictive of deception; (3) social judgment biases lead people to focus on the individual and inhibit suspicion; (4) the norms of political culture constrain politicians from accusing each other of lying, so that the public is not prompted by other sources to regard moral claims with suspicion., The polls in the state clearly favored him....From a political standpoint, I badly wanted to vote for Clarence Thomas. However, my conscience wouldn't let me do it. I thought she [...]

Objective: The moral development of three groups of children, who had been subjected to varying degrees of political violence and economic advantage, was examined in an attempt to determine if group membership or gender influenced the level of moral reasoning or orientation. Method: Ninety-three 8- to 13-year-old Israeli Jewish and Bedouin school children, and Palestinian West Bank school children were asked various moral reasoning questions based on an animal fable involving a moral dilemma under three (hypothetical, role-taking, political) conditions. Results: Results indicate that mutuality solutions to moral dilemmas were given more frequently by Israeli Jewish children than Israeli Bedouin or Palestinian children as the questions shifted from abstract to real-life situations. No significant gender differences were found between Jewish children and Bedouin children in hypothetical issues; however, violence and limited resources were found to affect moral judgment in real-life situations for boys, but not for girls. Conclusions: These findings supported the hypothesis that moral reasoning in children is significantly linked to real-life situations and resources. The results were discussed in terms of their relevance to future researchers and the manner in which children interpret moral questions. Key Words - Political violence, Children, Moral reasoning.

The disease AIDS has given rise to a host of social dilemmas. Here we explore the rhetoric that affects people's reasoning about actions taken in the face of such dilemmas. We presented a group of 514 undergraduates with vignettes depicting dilemmas having to do with the distribution of sexually explicit educational material to high school students and with the forced HIV blood testing of factory workers. Subjects rated the acceptability of arguments for and against courses of action taken by persons in the vignettes. The arguments embodied concerns typical of moral reasoning at each of Kohlberg's six stages. We found that the acceptability of stage-typical moral arguments about AIDS-related dilemmas depends on both the dilemma at hand and the course of action being argued for. We argue that knowledge of how people respond to different kinds of moral arguments concerning AIDS-related dilemmas is valuable for informing efforts to advocate humane and life-saving policies to particular audiences.

Highly hypnotizable participants were given a posthypnotic suggestion to feel a flash of disgust whenever they read an arbitrary word. They were then asked to rate moral transgressions described in vignettes that either did or did not include the disgust-inducing word. Two studies show that moral judgments can be made more severe by the presence of a flash of disgust. These findings suggest that moral judgments may be grounded in affectively laden moral intuitions.

'Avoiding Moral Choices' by Gordon Marino, in Commonweal (Mar. 23, 2001), 475 Riverside Dr., Rm 405, New York, N.Y. 10115. About 30 years ago, a stranger began to appear at [...]

ABSTRACT The paper uses an account of 'tradition' by the philosopher, Alisdair MacIntyre, to argue for the view that local Aboriginal culture that has been through extensive change is nonetheless [...]

Students are increasingly reluctant to take moral stands because they hold a number of incorrect assumptions about multiculturalism and ethical absolutes. They assume that making moral judgments betrays inflexibility and the biases all humans hold make impartiality impossible. They also believe that critical discussion does not aid the discovery and correction of individual and collective prejudices. Teachers should instruct their students that it is both possible and desirable to exercise moral judgment in a multicultural society. They must also point out the contradictions in students' positions.

An experienced literature teacher is dismayed by her most recent students' tolerant attitudes toward the practice of human sacrifice portrayed in Shirley Jackson's short story 'The Lottery.' Not one student in a class of more than 20 would speak out against the immorality of human sacrifice. Some even seemed to understand and condone the need for it in certain societies. While student short stories and anthologies reflect the social attitudes of the time in which they are written or compiled, Jackson's message had always spurred previous classes' moral sensibilities and sparked moral judgments from them.