Theories of moral judgment have long emphasized reasoning and conscious thought while downplaying the role of intuitive and contextual influences. However, recent research has demonstrated that incidental feelings of disgust can influence moral judgments and make them more severe. This study involved two experiments demonstrating that the reverse effect can occur when the notion of physical purity is made salient, thus making moral judgments less severe. After having the cognitive concept of cleanliness activated (Experiment 1) or after physically cleansing themselves after experiencing disgust (Experiment 2), participants found certain moral actions to be less wrong than did participants who had not been exposed to a cleanliness manipulation. The findings support the idea that moral judgment can be driven by intuitive processes, rather than deliberate reasoning. One of those intuitions appears to be physical purity, because it has a strong connection to moral purity.

This study examined whether mock-jurors' comprehension of judicial self-defence instructions improved when an audio-visual instructional format involving computer animations and a flow chart was used. In a mock-juror paradigm, 90 law students (experts) and 90 legally untrained adults (novices) were randomly allocated to one of three instructional conditions (audio, audio-elaborated, audio-visual). Dependent measures of self-defence comprehension included verdict delivery, multiple-choice (recognition), paraphrasing (recall) and novel scenarios (transfer). Law students performed better on self-defence comprehension tests than novices in the audio-only conditions. The audio-visual format significantly enhanced novices' comprehension, with their comprehension scores matching those of law students.