Visceral
Listen to Your Heart: When False Somatic Feedback Shapes Moral Behavior
Jun Gu, Chen-Bo Zhong & Elizabeth Page-Gould
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, forthcoming
Abstract:
A pounding heart is a common symptom people experience when confronting moral dilemmas. The authors conducted 4 experiments using a false feedback paradigm to explore whether and when listening to a fast (vs. normal) heartbeat sound shaped ethical behavior. Study 1 found that perceived fast heartbeat increased volunteering for a just cause. Study 2 extended this effect to moral transgressions and showed that perceived fast heartbeat reduced lying for self-gain. Studies 3 and 4 explored the boundary conditions of this effect and found that perceived heartbeat had less influence on deception when people are mindful or approach the decision deliberatively. These findings suggest that the perceived physiological experience of fast heartbeats may signal greater distress in moral situations and hence motivate people to take the moral high road.
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How Quick Decisions Illuminate Moral Character
Clayton Critcher, Yoel Inbar & David Pizarro
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
It has been suggested that people attend to others' actions in the service of forming impressions of their underlying dispositions. If so, it follows that in considering others' morally relevant actions, social perceivers should be responsive to accompanying cues that help illuminate actors' underlying moral character. This article examines one relevant cue that can characterize any decision process: the speed with which the decision is made. Two experiments show that actors who make an immoral decision quickly (vs. slowly) are evaluated more negatively. In contrast, actors who arrive at a moral decision quickly (vs. slowly) receive particularly positive moral character evaluations. Quick decisions carry this signal value because they are assumed to reflect certainty in the decision (Experiments 1 and 2), which in turn signals that more unambiguous motives drove the behavior (Experiment 2), which in turn explains the more polarized moral character evaluations. Implications for moral psychology and the law are discussed.
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Creatureliness priming reduces aggression and support for war
Matt Motyl et al.
British Journal of Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Terror management theory (TMT) posits that humans distance themselves from, or elevate themselves above, other animals as a way of denying their mortality. The present studies assessed whether the salience of aggressive tendencies that humans share with other animals make thoughts of death salient and whether depicting human aggression as animalistic can mitigate aggressive behaviour and support for aggression. In Study 1, participants primed with human-animal similarities (i.e., human creatureliness) exhibited elevated death-thought accessibility (DTA) after hitting a punching bag. In Studies 2a and 2b, creatureliness priming caused participants to hit a punching bag with less frequency, perceived force, and comfort. In Study 3, participants primed to view violence as animalistic exhibited increased DTA and reported less support for war against Iran. These studies suggest that portraying violence as creaturely may reduce the intensity of aggressive actions and support for violent solutions to international conflicts.
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Regional variation in pathogen prevalence predicts endorsement of group-focused moral concerns
Florian van Leeuwen et al.
Evolution and Human Behavior, September 2012, Pages 429-437
Abstract:
According to Moral Foundations Theory, people endorse "individualizing" foundations (Harm/care, Fairness/reciprocity) or "binding" foundations (Ingroup/loyalty, Authority/respect, Purity/sanctity) to varying degrees. As societies with higher pathogen prevalence have been found to exhibit more pronounced antipathogen psychological tendencies and cultural practices (e.g., conformity, collectivism), we hypothesized that pathogen prevalence may predict endorsement of the binding moral foundations, which may also serve to minimize pathogen transmission. We examined associations between historical and contemporary pathogen prevalence and endorsement of the moral foundations via multilevel analyses. Country-level analyses showed that even when controlling for gross domestic product per capita, historical (but not contemporary) pathogen prevalence significantly predicted endorsement of the binding foundations, but not individualizing foundations. Multilevel analyses showed that this pattern held even when controlling for individual-level variation in political orientation, gender, education, and age. These results highlight the utility of a functional-evolutionary approach to understanding patterns of morals across societies and individuals.
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Human responses to unfairness with primary rewards and their biological limits
Nicholas Wright et al.
Scientific Reports, August 2012
Abstract:
Humans bargaining over money tend to reject unfair offers, whilst chimpanzees bargaining over primary rewards of food do not show this same motivation to reject. Whether such reciprocal fairness represents a predominantly human motivation has generated considerable recent interest. We induced either moderate or severe thirst in humans using intravenous saline, and examined responses to unfairness in an Ultimatum Game with water. We ask if humans also reject unfair offers for primary rewards. Despite the induction of even severe thirst, our subjects rejected unfair offers. Further, our data provide tentative evidence that this fairness motivation was traded-off against the value of the primary reward to the individual, a trade-off determined by the subjective value of water rather than by an objective physiological metric of value. Our data demonstrate humans care about fairness during bargaining with primary rewards, but that subjective self-interest may limit this fairness motivation.
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Grin and bear it: The influence of manipulated facial expression on the stress response
Tara Kraft & Sarah Pressman
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study investigated whether covert positive facial expression manipulation would influence cardiovascular and affective responses to stress. Participants (N = 169) were told a "multitasking" cover story and completed two different stressful tasks while holding chopsticks in their mouths in a manner that produced either a Duchenne smile, a standard smile, or no smile. Awareness was manipulated with half of all smiling participants told to smile and the others left unaware. Findings revealed that all smiling participants, regardless of awareness, showed lower levels of heart rate during stress recovery with a slight advantage for those with Duchenne smiles. Non-aware smiling participants also reported less of a decrease in positive affect during a stressful task than the neutral group. Importantly, these findings indicate both physiological and psychological benefits of positive facial expression during stress.
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Spike Lee & Norbert Schwarz
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Metaphorical effects are commonly assumed to be unidirectional, running from concrete to abstract domains but not vice versa. Noting that metaphorical effects are often found to be bidirectional, we explore how they may be mediated and moderated according to the principles of knowledge accessibility and applicability. Using the example of "something smells fishy" (a metaphorical expression of social suspicion), 7 experiments tested for the behavioral effects of fishy smells on social suspicion among English speakers, the reversed effects of suspicion on smell labeling and detection, and the underlying mechanism. Incidental exposure to fishy smells induced suspicion and undermined cooperation in trust-based economic exchanges in a trust game (Study 1) and a public goods game (Study 2). Socially induced suspicion enhanced the correct labeling of fishy smells, but not other smells (Studies 3a-3c), an effect that could be mediated by the accessibility and moderated by the applicability of metaphorically associated concepts (Studies 4-6). Suspicion also heightened detection sensitivity to low concentrations of fishy smells (Study 7). Bidirectionality, mediation, and moderation of metaphorical effects have important theoretical implications for integrating known wisdom from social cognition with new insights into the embodied and metaphorical nature of human thinking. These findings also highlight the need for exploring the cultural variability and origin of metaphorical knowledge.
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The Bitter Truth about Morality: Virtue, Not Vice, Makes a Bland Beverage Taste Nice
Kendall Eskine, Natalie Kacinik & Gregory Webster
PLoS ONE, July 2012
Abstract:
To demonstrate that sensory and emotional states play an important role in moral processing, previous research has induced physical disgust in various sensory modalities (visual, tactile, gustatory, and olfactory modalities, among others) and measured its effects on moral judgment. To further assess the strength of the connection between embodied states and morality, we investigated whether the directionality of the effect could be reversed by exposing participants to different types of moral events prior to rating the same neutral tasting beverage. As expected, reading about moral transgressions, moral virtues, or control events resulted in inducing gustatory disgust, delight, or neutral taste experiences, respectively. Results are discussed in terms of the relation between embodied cognition and processing abstract conceptual representations.
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Daniel Quintana et al.
International Journal of Psychophysiology, forthcoming
Abstract:
It is well established that heart rate variability (HRV) plays an important role in social communication. Polyvagal theory suggests that HRV may provide a sensitive marker of one's ability to respond and recognize social cues. The aim of the present study was to directly test this hypothesis. Resting-state HRV was collected and performance on the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test was assessed in 65 volunteers. Higher HRV predicted improved performance on this emotion recognition task confirming our hypothesis and these findings were retained after controlling for a variety of confounding variables known to influence HRV - sex, BMI, smoking habits, physical activity levels, depression, anxiety, and stress. Our data suggests that increased HRV may provide a novel marker of one's ability to recognize emotions in humans. Implications for understanding the biological basis of emotion recognition, and social impairment in humans are discussed.
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Disgust elevates core body temperature and up-regulates certain oral immune markers
Richard Stevenson et al.
Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, forthcoming
Abstract:
Recent findings suggest that disgust can activate particular aspects of the immune system. In this study we examine whether disgust can also elevate core body temperature (BT), a further feature of an immune response to disease. In addition, we also examined whether food based disgust - a core eliciting stimulus - may be a more potent immune stimulus than non-food based disgust. Healthy males were randomly assigned to view one of four sets of images - food disgust, non-food disgust, food control and negative emotion control. Measures of BT, salivary immune and related markers, and self-report data, were collected before, and at two time points after image viewing. Disgust elevated BT relative to the negative emotion control condition, as did food images. Different mechanisms appeared to account for these effects on BT, with higher initial levels of Tumor Necrosis Factor alpha (TNF-a) and disgust, predictive of BT increases in the disgust conditions. Disgust also increased TNF-a, and albumin levels, relative to the control conditions. Type of disgust exerted little effect. These findings further support the idea that disgust impacts upon immune function, and that disgust serves primarily a disease avoidance function.
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A memory advantage for untrustworthy faces
Nicholas Rule, Michael Slepian & Nalini Ambady
Cognition, forthcoming
Abstract:
Inferences of others' social traits from their faces can influence how we think and behave towards them, but little is known about how perceptions of people's traits may affect downstream cognitions, such as memory. Here we explored the relationship between targets' perceived social traits and how well they were remembered following a single brief perception, focusing primarily on inferences of trustworthiness. In Study 1, participants encoded high-consensus trustworthy and untrustworthy faces, showing significantly better memory for the latter group. Study 2 compared memory for faces rated high and low on a series of traits (dominance, facial maturity, likeability, and trustworthiness), and found that untrustworthy and unlikeable faces were remembered best, with no differences for the other traits. Finally, Study 3 compared information about trustworthiness from facial appearance and from behavioral descriptions. Untrustworthy targets were remembered better than trustworthy targets both from behavior and faces, though the effects were significantly stronger for the latter. Faces perceived as untrustworthy therefore appear to be remembered better than faces perceived as trustworthy. Consistent with ecological theories of perception, cues to trustworthiness from facial appearance may thus guide who is remembered and who is forgotten at first impression.
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Viewing Loved Faces Inhibits Defense Reactions: A Health-Promotion Mechanism?
Pedro Guerra et al.
PLoS ONE, July 2012
Abstract:
We have known for decades that social support is associated with positive health outcomes. And yet, the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying this association remain poorly understood. The link between social support and positive health outcomes is likely to depend on the neurophysiological regulatory mechanisms underlying reward and defensive reactions. The present study examines the hypothesis that emotional social support (love) provides safety cues that activate the appetitive reward system and simultaneously inhibit defense reactions. Using the startle probe paradigm, 54 undergraduate students (24 men) viewed black and white photographs of loved (romantic partner, father, mother, and best friend), neutral (unknown), and unpleasant (mutilated) faces. Eye-blink startle, zygomatic major activity, heart rate, and skin conductance responses to the faces, together with subjective ratings of valence, arousal, and dominance, were obtained. Viewing loved faces induced a marked inhibition of the eye-blink startle response accompanied by a pattern of zygomatic, heart rate, skin conductance, and subjective changes indicative of an intense positive emotional response. Effects were similar for men and women, but the startle inhibition and the zygomatic response were larger in female participants. A comparison between the faces of the romantic partner and the parent who shares the partner's gender further suggests that this effect is not attributable to familiarity or arousal. We conclude that this inhibitory capacity may contribute to the health benefits associated with social support.
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Understanding the placebo effect from an evolutionary perspective
Pete Trimmer et al.
Evolution and Human Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
A placebo is a treatment which is not effective through its direct action on the body, but works because of its effect on the patient's beliefs. From an evolutionary perspective, it is initially puzzling why, if people are capable of recovering, they need a placebo to do so. Based on an argument put forward by Humphrey [Great expectations: the evolutionary psychology of faith-healing and the placebo effect. In: Humphrey, N (2002). The mind made flesh. Oxford University Press, Oxford. 255-285], we present simple mathematical models of the placebo effect that involve a trade-off between the costs and benefits of allocating resources to a current problem. These models show why the effect occurs and how its magnitude and timing can depend on different factors. We identify a particular aspect of belief which may govern the effect and conclude that a deeper understanding of why the placebo effect exists may allow it to be invoked more easily in the future.
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Toxoplasma Gondii and Homicide
David Lester
Psychological Reports, August 2012, Pages 196-197
Abstract:
In a sample of 20 European nations, the prevalence of the brain parasite Toxoplasma gondii was positively associated with national homicide rates, amplifying previous research indicating a positive association of Toxoplasma gondii with suicide rates. Possible causal mechanisms were proposed.
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The Immediate and Delayed Cardiovascular Benefits of Forgiving
Britta Larsen et al.
Psychosomatic Medicine, forthcoming
Background: The putative health benefits of forgiveness may include long-term buffering against cardiovascular reactivity associated with rumination. Although studies show short-term benefits of adopting a forgiving perspective, it is uncertain whether this perspective protects against repeated future rumination on offenses, which may be necessary for long-term health benefits. Also unclear is whether forgiveness offers unique benefits beyond simple distraction.
Methods: Cardiovascular parameters (systolic blood pressure [SBP], diastolic blood pressure [DBP], and heart rate) were measured while 202 participants thought about a previous offense from an angry or forgiving perspective or were distracted. All participants were then distracted for 5 minutes, after which they freely ruminated on the offense.
Results: Angry rumination initially yielded the greatest increase in blood pressure from baseline (mean [M] [standard deviation {SD}]: SBP = 9.24 [11.16]; M [SD]: DBP = 4.69 [7.48]) compared with forgiveness (M [SD]: SBP = 3.30 [6.48]; M [SD]: DBP = 1.51 [4.94]) and distraction (M [SD]: SBP = 4.81 [6.28]; M [SD]: DBP = 1.75 [3.80]), which did not differ from each other (p > .30). During free rumination, however, those who had previously > focused on forgiveness showed less reactivity (M [SD]: SBP = 7.33 [9.61]; M [SD]: DBP = 4.73 [7.33]) than those who had been distracted (M [SD]: SBP = 10.50 [7.77]; M [SD]: DBP = 7.71 [6.83]) and those who previously focused on angry rumination (M [SD]: SBP = 12.04 [11.74]; M [SD]: DBP = 8.64 [12.63]). There were no differences for heart rate.
Conclusions: Forgiveness seems to lower reactivity both during the initial cognitive process and, more importantly, during mental recreations of an offense soon thereafter, potentially offering sustained protection, whereas effects of distraction appear transient.
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To know is not to love: Cognitive and affective barriers toward the adoption of evolutionary theory
Tomás Cabeza De Baca & Ashley Jordan
Personality and Individual Differences, October 2012, Pages 681-686
Abstract:
Despite widespread acceptance of natural selection in biology and the life sciences, social and developmental scientists have resisted incorporating evolutionary frameworks into research and teaching curricula. Charlesworth (1992) has argued that developmentalists avoid evolution because they perceive it as running contrary to meliorist attitudes that are predominate in the field. Other scholars have suggested that evolution is ignored by social scientists because of a lack of knowledge about the theory. In this study, we suggest that resistance among developmentalists toward evolution may occur due to individual differences in life history and personality traits. We examine the meliorist attitudes, life history and personality traits of faculty, graduate and undergraduates in family studies in human development and the effect these variables have on the acceptance and usage of evolutionary theory in academia. Results reveal that life history may contribute to more meliorism, increasing disuse of evolutionary theory due to affective reasons.
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Imagining One's Own and Someone Else's Body Actions: Dissociation in Anorexia Nervosa
Dewi Guardia et al.
PLoS ONE, August 2012
Background: Patients with anorexia nervosa (AN) usually report feeling larger than they really are. This body overestimation appears to be related not only to the patient's body image but also to an abnormal representation of the body in action. In previous work on a body-scaled anticipation task, anorexic patients judged that they could not pass through a door-like aperture even when it was easily wide enough - suggesting the involvement of the body schema. In the present study, we sought to establish whether this erroneous judgment about action is specifically observed when it concerns one's own body or whether it is symptomatic of a general impairment in perceptual discrimination.
Methods: Twenty-five anorexic participants and 25 control participants were presented with a door-like aperture. They had to judge whether or not the aperture was wide enough for them to pass through (i.e. first-person perspective, 1PP) and for another person present in the testing room to pass through (i.e. third-person perspective, 3PP).
Results: We observed a higher passability ratio (i.e. the critical aperture size to shoulder width ratio) in AN patients for 1PP but not for 3PP. Moreover, the magnitude of the passability ratio was positively correlated not only with the extent of the patient's body and eating concerns but also with the body weight prior to disease onset. Our results suggest that body overestimation can affect judgments about the capacity for action but only when they concern the patient's own body. This could be related to impairments of the overall network involved in the emergence of the body schema and in one's own perspective judgments.
Conclusion: Overestimation of the body schema might occur because the central nervous system has not updated the new, emaciated body, with maintenance of an incorrect representation based on the patient's pre-AN body dimensions.
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Lot Sternheim et al.
Psychiatry Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
People with Anorexia Nervosa (AN) have well-documented socio-emotional and neurocognitive impairments. As yet, little is known about their ability to solve problems in social situations, although a link with cognitive avoidance has been suggested. This study explored social problem-solving (SPS), using an experimental task. Secondly, the role of cognitive avoidance in SPS was investigated. Individuals with AN (n=31) and healthy controls (HC; n=39) completed the Social Problem Resolution Task which consists of problem scenarios involving awkward everyday social situations. Participants were asked to generate both the optimal solution and their personal solution. Solutions were rated in terms of how socially sensitive and practically effective they were. AN patients produced relatively poorer personal solutions compared to optimal solutions than HC participants and had higher scores on a measure of cognitive avoidance than the HC group. In AN patients, cognitive avoidance was partially associated with poor SPS. These findings suggest that whilst people with AN have no difficulty in generating socially sensitive and effective solutions to problems, but may have difficulty applying this knowledge to themselves.
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Damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex reduces interpersonal disgust
Elisa Ciaramelli et al.
Social Cognitive an Affective Neuroscience, forthcoming
Abstract:
Disgust for contaminating objects (core disgust), immoral behaviors (moral disgust), and unsavory others (interpersonal disgust), have been assumed to be closely related. It is not clear, however, whether different forms of disgust are mediated by overlapping or specific neural substrates. We report that 10 patients with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex avoided behaviors that normally elicit interpersonal disgust (e.g., using the scarf of a busker) less frequently than healthy and brain-damaged controls, whereas they avoided core and moral disgust elicitors at normal rates. These results indicate that different forms of disgust are dissociated neurally. We propose that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex is causally (and selectively) involved in mediating interpersonal disgust, shaping patterns of social avoidance and approach.