The Affective Harm Account (AHA) of Moral Judgment: Reconciling Cognition and Affect, Dyadic Morality and Disgust, Harm and Purity

• Published in: Journal of personality and social psychology 2022-12, Vol.123 (6), p.1199-1222
• Main Authors: Gray, Kurt, MacCormack, Jennifer K., Henry, Teague, Banks, Emmie, Schein, Chelsea, Armstrong-Carter, Emma, Abrams, Samantha, Muscatell, Keely A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Arousal; Cognition; Constructionism; Deception; Disgust; Double-blind studies; Dyads; Emotions; Evaluation; Female; Human; Information theory; Judgment; Lying; Male; Mind; Moral judgment; Morality; Perceptual Stimulation; Propranolol; Psychology; Purity; Sexual Arousal; Social Cognition; Stimulus; Young adults
• ISSN: 0022-3514; 1939-1315
• DOI: 10.1037/pspa0000310

Moral psychology has long debated whether moral judgment is rooted in harm versus affect. We reconcile this debate with the affective harm account (AHA) of moral judgment. The AHA understands harm as an intuitive perception (i.e., perceived harm), and divides "affect" into two: embodied visceral arousal (i.e., gut feelings) and stimulus-directed affective appraisals (e.g., ratings of disgustingness). The AHA was tested in a randomized, double-blind pharmacological experiment with healthy young adults judging the immorality, harmfulness, and disgustingness of everyday moral scenarios (e.g., lying) and unusual purity scenarios (e.g., sex with a corpse) after receiving either a placebo or the β-blocker propranolol (a drug that dampens visceral arousal). Results confirmed the three key hypotheses of the AHA. First, perceived harm and affective appraisals are neither competing nor independent but intertwined. Second, although both perceived harm and affective appraisals predict moral judgment, perceived harm is consistently relevant across all scenarios (in line with the theory of dyadic morality), whereas affective appraisals are especially relevant in unusual purity scenarios (in line with affect-as-information theory). Third, the "gut feelings" of visceral arousal are not as important to morality as often believed. Dampening visceral arousal (via propranolol) did not directly impact moral judgment, but instead changed the relative contribution of affective appraisals to moral judgment-and only in unusual purity scenarios. By embracing a constructionist view of the mind that blurs traditional dichotomies, the AHA reconciles historic harm-centric and current affect-centric theories, parsimoniously explaining judgment differences across various moral scenarios without requiring any "moral foundations."