A cultural look at moral purity: wiping the face clean

Abstract

Morality is associated with bodily purity in the custom of many societies. Does that imply moral purity is a universal psychological phenomenon? Empirically, it has never been examined, as all prior experimental data came from Western samples. Theoretically, we suggest the answer is not so straightforward—it depends on the kind of universality under consideration. Combining perspectives from cultural psychology and embodiment, we predict a culture-specific form of moral purification. Specifically, given East Asians' emphasis on the face as a representation of public self-image, we hypothesize that facial purification should have particularly potent moral effects in a face culture. Data show that face-cleaning (but not hands-cleaning) reduces guilt and regret most effectively against a salient East Asian cultural background. It frees East Asians from guilt-driven prosocial behavior. In the wake of their immorality, they find a face-cleaning product especially appealing and spontaneously choose to wipe their face clean. These patterns highlight both culturally variable and universal aspects of moral purification. They further suggest an organizing principle that informs the vigorous debate between embodied and amodal perspectives.

Embodied Concepts and Mental Health

“…A recent fMRI study supports the idea of the sensorimotor grounding of reflection on unethical behavior (Denke et al, 2014). Moreover, physical contamination and moral transgression activate the same facial muscles and corresponding neural networks (Borg, Lieberman, Kiehl, 2008;Chapman et al, 2009;Cannon, Schnall, and White, 2010;Lee et al, 2015).…”

“…11. It should be added that some of the specific details of the link between bodily and moral purity are culture-specific (Lee et al, 2015). However, acknowledging this does not undermine CMT.…”

Joy: a review of the literature and suggestions for future directions

“…Additionally, cross-cultural work is important because a good deal of previous work has found that culture is able to mediate both experience and one's interpretation of that experience. For example, a study on bilingual Chinese-Canadians found that their experience of guilt was different depending on whether their experience of guilt was mediated through Chinese or English (Lee, Tang, Wan, Mai, & Liu, 2015). When the experience was mediated through Chinese, participants experience the guilt as embodied in their face (the body part associated with guilt in Chinese culture), whereas participants experienced the guilt as embodied in their hands (the body part that is more associated with guilt in Western culture) when the experience was mediated in English.…”

The Moral Foundations of Needle Exchange Attitudes

“…The association between cleanliness and morality is clear in many religious traditions (Shweder, Much, Mahapatra, & Park, 1997) as evident in common purification through cleansing rituals (Lee, Tang, Wan, Mai, & Liu, 2015). A striking characteristic of the Purity domain is the phenomenon of moral contamination-pollution of an individual through interaction with impurity.…”