A creative destruction approach to replication: Implicit work and sex morality across cultures

How can we maximize what is learned from a replication study? In the creative destruction approach to replication, the original hypothesis is compared not only to the null hypothesis, but also to predictions derived from multiple alternative theoretical accounts of the phenomenon. To this end, new populations and measures are included in the design in addition to the original ones, to help determine which theory best accounts for the results across multiple key outcomes and contexts. The present pre-registered empirical project compared the Implicit Puritanism account of intuitive work and sex morality to theories positing regional, religious, and social class differences; explicit rather than implicit cultural differences in values; self-expression vs. survival values as a key cultural fault line; the general moralization of work; and false positive effects. Contradicting Implicit Puritanism's core theoretical claim of a distinct American work morality, a number of targeted findings replicated across multiple comparison cultures, whereas several failed to replicate in all samples and were identified as likely false positives. No support emerged for theories predicting regional variability and specific individual-differences moderators (religious affiliation, religiosity, and education level). Overall, the results provide evidence that work is intuitively moralized across cultures

Things Rank and Gross in Nature: Psychological, Physiological and Neuroimaging Investigations of Sociomoral Disgust

Much like unpalatable foods, filthy restrooms and bloody wounds, sociomoral transgressions are often described as “disgusting”. This linguistic similarity suggests that there is a link between sociomoral disgust and more rudimentary forms of disgust associated with toxicity and disease. Critics have argued, however, that such references are purely metaphorical, or that sociomoral disgust may be limited to transgressions that remind us of more basic disgust stimuli. My aim was to provide more direct evidence that sociomoral transgressions do genuinely evoke disgust, and to explore factors that may influence how much disgust is evoked. I first searched for similarity in the facial expressions evoked by gustatory distaste (elicited by unpleasant tastes), physical disgust (elicited by photographs of contaminants), and moral disgust (elicited by unfair treatment in an economic game). I found that all three states evoked activation of the levator labii muscle region of the face, characteristic of an oral-nasal rejection response and consistent with an origin of sociomoral disgust in oral disgust. I next investigated whether individual differences in the tendency to experience physical disgust are related to variability in sociomoral judgement and emotion. In two different populations, heightened sensitivity toward physical disgust was related to more severe sociomoral judgements. A complementary neuroimaging study showed overlap between the neural correlates of physical disgust and sociomoral judgement, as well as highlighting brain regions that may underlie sociomoral hypersensitivity. Finally, I tested the idea that perceived differences in the causal stability of sociomoral transgressions may specifically affect levels of disgust. Although it was not possible to dissociate disgust from anger, the transgressions that were presented did evoke reliable self-reports of disgust. Taken together, these findings converge to support the conclusion that sociomoral transgressions can in fact elicit disgust, and accordingly that references to the disgusting nature of wrongdoing reflect biological reality rather than metaphor.Ph

Fork of State disgust vs. anger + Character

Study of the relationship between anger, disgust and perceptions of moral character

Disgust, Moral Concerns, and Attitudes Toward Bathroom Choice for Transgender People

This research explores the relationship between different subtypes of disgust, different moral concerns, and attitudes toward policies that restrict bathroom choice for transgender people to the sex on one's birth certificate

Cognitive and personality correlates of trait disgust and their relationship to condemnation of nonpurity moral transgressions

Past research has found that individuals who are more sensitive to physically disgusting stimuli also condemn moral transgressions more harshly. However, there is debate about whether this condemnation includes transgressions that do not involve impure behaviors. We present a meta-Analysis of 6 studies (N - 1082) which suggests that trait disgust is associated with condemnation of nonpurity transgressions. This relationship was primarily explained by sensitivity toward the very core disgust stimuli that those transgressions lack. We next tested whether this relationship might be mediated by a third variable. We found that trait core disgust was associated with higher orderliness, lower deviance sensitivity, and preference for intuitive thinking; these variables also correlated with moral condemnation. Trait disgust was also associated with lower generalized social trust, but trust was not correlated with moral condemnation. Neither trait disgust nor moral condemnation were associated with ethnocentrism. Further, none of these variables mediated the relationship between trait disgust and condemnation. Taken together, our results support a role for trait disgust in moral judgments outside of the purity domain, but leave unexplained its association with condemnation of nonpurity transgressions

An orderly personality partially explains the link between trait disgust and political conservatism

Individuals who are more easily disgusted tend to be more politically conservative. Individuals who have a preference for order also tend to be more politically conservative. In the present research, we hypothesised that these three variables are psychologically interrelated. Specifically, trait disgust encourages a generalised search for order, which, in turn, encourages the endorsement of political positions that aim to maintain societal order. Taking an individual differences approach, we operationalised the preference for order via Orderliness, one aspect of the Big Five trait Conscientiousness. Across six samples (total N = 1485), participants completed measures of trait disgust, aspect/trait personality, and political orientation. Analyses revealed that Orderliness was a consistent mediator of the association between trait disgust and conservatism. Analyses of subscales of disgust revealed preliminary evidence that Orderliness most consistently mediated the relationships between Contamination, Pathogen, and Sexual disgust and conservatism. These data suggest that disgust-sensitive people extend their preference for order in the physical environment (e.g. tidying up one's room) to the sociopolitical environment (e.g. strengthening traditional norms). The present findings illustrate one way in which emotional, cognitive, and personality processes work together to influence political orientation