Eager Feelings and Vigilant Reasons: Regulatory Focus Differences in Judging Moral Wrongs

For over a decade, moral psychologists have been actively researching the processes underlying moral judgments that are made intuitively without reference to an action's concrete harms or injustice, such as the well-known case of nonprocreative, consensual incest. We suggest that the reason som...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of experimental psychology. General 2016-03, Vol.145 (3), p.338-355
Main Authors: Cornwell, James F. M, Higgins, E. Tory
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Cognition & reasoning
Emotional Regulation
Emotions
Emotions - physiology
Female
Human
Humans
Incest
Intuition
Judgment
Judgment - physiology
Male
Morality
Morals
Psychology
Reasoning
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Summary:For over a decade, moral psychologists have been actively researching the processes underlying moral judgments that are made intuitively without reference to an action's concrete harms or injustice, such as the well-known case of nonprocreative, consensual incest. We suggest that the reason some judge such scenarios as wrong (using intuitive feelings) and others do not (using deliberative reasons) is due to an important motivational distinction. Consistent with this view, across 7 studies, we demonstrate that negative judgments of such moral scenarios are more intense when processed in the promotion focus compared to the prevention focus, and that this is due to differences in whether eager (intuitive feelings) versus vigilant (deliberative reasons) means are employed in judging these moral wrongs. By examining both boundary conditions and possible underlying mechanisms for regulatory focus differences in moral judgment intensity, we expand our understanding of the differences between promotion and prevention regarding how proscriptive judgments are processed, while integrating these differences with existing theories in moral psychology.
ISSN:0096-3445
1939-2222
DOI:10.1037/xge0000136