Imagining wrong: fictitious contexts mitigate condemnation of harm more than impurity

Over five experiments we test the fictive pass asymmetry hypothesis. Following observations of ethics and public reactions to media, we propose that fictional contexts, such as reality, imagination, and virtual environments, will mitigate people’s moral condemnation of harm violations, more so than purity violations. That is, imagining a purely harmful act is given a “fictive pass,” in moral judgment, whereas imagining an abnormal act involving the body is evaluated more negatively because it is seen as more diagnostic of bad character. For Experiment 1, an undergraduate sample (N = 250) evaluated nine vignettes depicting an agent committing either violations of harm or purity in real life, watching them in films, or imagining them. For Experiments 2 and 3, online participants (N = 375 and N = 321, respectively) evaluated a single vignette depicting an agent committing a violation of harm or purity that either occurred in real life, was imagined, watched in a film, or performed in a video game. Experiment 4 (N = 348) used an analysis of moderated mediation to demonstrate that the perceived wrongness of fictional purity violations is explained both by the extent to which they are seen as a cue to, and a cause of, a poor moral character. Lastly, Experiment 5 (N = 484) validated our manipulations and included the presumption of desire as an additional mediator of the fictive pass asymmetry effects. We discuss implications for moral theories of act and character, anger and disgust, and for media use and regulation

Perceiving mixed valence emotions reduces intergroup dehumanisation

To deny others’ humanity is one of the most heinous forms of intergroup prejudice. Given evidence that perceiving various forms of complexity in outgroup members reduces intergroup prejudice, we investigated across three experiments whether the novel dimension of emotional complexity, or outgroup members’ joint experience of mixed-valence emotions, would also reduce their dehumanisation. Experiment 1 found that perceiving fictitious aliens’ experience of the same primary emotions (e.g. sadness) presented in mixed vs. non-mixed valence pairs led to reduced prejudice via attenuated dehumanisation, i.e. attribution of uniquely human emotions. Experiment 2 confirmed these results, using an unfamiliar real-world group as an outgroup target. Experiment 3 used a familiar outgroup and found generally similar effects, reducing social distance through reduced dehumanisation. These processes suggest that an alternate route to reduced dehumanising of outgroups might involve presenting mixed valence emotions

It’s time to be ashamed! Reactions to the breaking of a long-lasting self-censorship on ingroup war crimes

This study explores the reactions of Italian university students to information about colonial crimes perpetrated by the Italian Army during the invasion of Ethiopia (1935-36), events that are still self-censored in intergenerational narratives. Participants reported their emotions about the Italian colonial past and their knowledge of this historical period was examined. Then they read a parrhesic (i.e., straightforward) or, alternatively, an evasive narrative of crimes committed in Ethiopia in 1935-36 and, once again, reported related emotions. A week later, they evaluated the crimes’ seriousness, reported for the third time their emotions about Italy’s colonial past, and declared their moral shame, social shame, and guilt for colonial crimes. Finally, they expressed their support for reparative actions. As expected, the vast majority of participants knew little about past misdeeds. Participants presented with a parrhesic narrative were more able to acknowledge older generations’ responsibilities and to distance themselves morally from them. Moral and social shame, outrage, and a reduced sense of pride, rather than guilt or anger, predicted support for reparations. The limitations of the present study, and future research perspectives, are discussed

Call for Papers for a Special Issue of Group Processes & Intergroup Relations in Intergroup Emotions

Copyright © 2005 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi) 8:4; 470; DOI: 10.1177/1368430205060648 0 8 call for papers 30/9/05 1:53 pm Page 47

Imagined contact with atypical outgroup members that are anti-normative within their group can reduce prejudice

Can imagining contact with anti-normative outgroup members be an effective tool for improving intergroup relations? Extant theories predict greatest prejudice reduction following contact with typical outgroup members. In contrast, using subjective group dynamics theory, we predicted that imagining contact with anti-normative outgroup members canpromote positive intergroup attitudes because these atypical members potentially reduce intergroup threat and reinforce ingroup norms. In Study 1 (N = 79) when contact was imagined with an anti-normative rather than a normative outgroup member, that member was viewed as less typical and the contact was less threatening. Studies 2 (N = 47) and 3 (N = 180), employed differing methods, measures and target groups, and controlled for the effects of direct contact. Both studies showed that imagined contact with anti-normative outgroup members promoted positive attitudes to the outgroup, relative both to a no contact control condition and (in Study 3) to a condition involving imagined contact with an ingroup antinormative member. Overall, this research offers new practical and theoretical approaches to prejudice reduction

Disgusting but harmless moral violations are perceived as harmful due to the negative emotions they elicit

Harmless but disgusting moral violations can be justified as harmful to others due to the negative emotions they elicit. The relationship between the emotions of anger and disgust and the harm associated to these emotions as a result of a moral violation was investigated. Results showed that a disgusting moral violation (taboo violation) described as harmless to others is more related to disgust than to anger. Such violation created a presumption of harm of three different types: to the community, nature, and the individual. Disgust was a mediator between the taboo violation and the presumption of harm to nature, whereas anger was a mediator between the taboo violation and the presumption of harm to the individual. In general, results also showed that in moral violations that are harmless to others, the emotions of anger and disgust allow people to presume harm to symbolic entities such as nature and the community as a result of such violations

Heroes against homophobia: Does elevation uniquely block homophobia by inhibiting disgust?

Homophobia has decreased in past decades, but gut-level disgust towards gay men lingers. It has been suggested that disgust can be reduced by inducing its proposed opposite emotion, elevation. Elevation is elicited by witnessing self-sacrifice and other uncommon acts of moral goodness. Research suggests elevation might reduce homophobia, but only general elevation (not elevation specifically evoked by gay people) and general attitudes (rather than disgust) have been studied. Nor has elevation’s proposed specific effect on homophobia been differentiated from effects of related emotions, such as admiration or surprise. A series of news stories featuring either a gay man or a man of unspecified sexuality that were intended to elicit elevation, admiration, or surprise distinctly were pretested. We pre-registered the prediction that an elevation-inducing story would reduce negative attitudes by reducing disgust. In Study 1 (N = 593), participants who read elevation-inducing stories did not express more positive attitudes or less disgust towards gay men than those who read stories inducing admiration or surprise. The admiration stories elicited similar or lower levels of disgust than the elevation stories. Study 2 (N = 588), replicated the findings of Study 1 with improved stimuli and measures. Both studies suggest that elevation may not uniquely reduce homophobia, as elevation and admiration have similar effects on this prejudice

Denying humanness to victims: How gang members justify violent behavior

The high prevalence of violent offending amongst gang-involved youth has been established in the literature. Yet the underlying psychological mechanisms that enable youth to engage in such acts of violence remain unclear. 189 young people were recruited from areas in London, UK, known for their gang activity. We found that gang members, in comparison to non-gang youth, described the groups they belong to as having recognized leaders, specific rules and codes, initiation rituals, and special clothing. Gang members were also more likely than non-gang youth to engage in violent behavior and endorse moral disengagement strategies (i.e., moral justification, euphemistic language, advantageous comparison, displacement of responsibility, attribution of blame, and dehumanization). Finally, we found that dehumanizing victims partially mediated the relationship between gang membership and violent behavior. These findings highlight the effects of groups at the individual level and an underlying psychological mechanism that explains, in part, how gang members engage in violence

Deciding what to replicate: a decision model for replication study selection under resource and knowledge constraints

Robust scientific knowledge is contingent upon replication of original findings. However, replicating researchers are constrained by resources, and will almost always have to choose one replication effort to focus on from a set of potential candidates. To select a candidate efficiently in these cases, we need methods for deciding which out of all candidates considered would be the most useful to replicate, given some overall goal researchers wish to achieve. In this article we assume that the overall goal researchers wish to achieve is to maximize the utility gained by conducting the replication study. We then propose a general rule for study selection in replication research based on the replication value of the set of claims considered for replication. The replication value of a claim is defined as the maximum expected utility we could gain by conducting a replication of the claim, and is a function of (a) the value of being certain about the claim, and (b) uncertainty about the claim based on current evidence. We formalize this definition in terms of a causal decision model, utilizing concepts from decision theory and causal graph modeling. We discuss the validity of using replication value as a measure of expected utility gain, and we suggest approaches for deriving quantitative estimates of replication value. Our goal in this article is not to define concrete guidelines for study selection, but to provide the necessary theoretical foundations on which such concrete guidelines could be built.Translational Abstract Replication-redoing a study using the same procedures-is an important part of checking the robustness of claims in the psychological literature. The practice of replicating original studies has been woefully devalued for many years, but this is now changing. Recent calls for improving the quality of research in psychology has generated a surge of interest in funding, conducting, and publishing replication studies. Because many studies have never been replicated, and researchers have limited time and money to perform replication studies, researchers must decide which studies are the most important to replicate. This way scientists learn the most, given limited resources. In this article, we lay out what it means to think about what is the most important thing to replicate, and we propose a general decision rule for picking a study to replicate. That rule depends on a concept we call replication value. Replication value is a function of the importance of the study, and how uncertain we are about the findings. In this article we explain how researchers can think precisely about the value of replication studies. We then discuss when and how it makes sense to use replication value as a measure of how valuable a replication study would be, and we discuss factors that funders, journals, or scientists could consider when determining how valuable a replication study is.Multivariate analysis of psychological dat