Encouraging moral outrage in education: a pedagogical goal for social justice or not?

Zembylas, Michalinos

doi:10.1080/17449642.2021.1970906

Cited by 7 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 35 publications

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“…In some cases, consistent with the perspective of Tamir (2016), people reported negative emotions regarding the event as a reason to engage. These negative emotions may fuel an interest to learn more about the situation (e.g., moral outrage, Zembylas, 2021). In other cases, engaging with the situation evoked positive emotions (e.g., entertainment, schadenfreude) or a positive feeling towards the participant's own situation (e.g., feeling better).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why do People Engage with the Suffering of Strangers? Exploring Epistemic, Eudaimonic, Social, and Affective Motives

Vivanco Carlevari,

Oosterwijk,

van Kleef

2023

Preprint

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Reading violent stories or watching a war documentary are examples in which people voluntarily engage with the suffering of others whom they do not know. The central question of this paper is why people make these decisions. Using a mixed-method approach, we investigated people’s motives to engage with the suffering of strangers. In doing so, we also mapped the characteristics of strangers’ suffering to enable a rich understanding. In Study 1, an online qualitative study (N = 247), participants described situations of suffering and their reasons to engage with it. Using thematic analysis, we developed a typology of the stranger (who), the situation (what), the source (how), and the reason(s) for engaging with the situation (why). We categorized the motives into four overarching themes – epistemic, eudaimonic, social, and affective –, which reflect diversity in the perceived functionality of engaging with a stranger’s suffering. Next, we tested the robustness of the identified motives in a quantitative study. In Study 2, participants (N = 250) recalled a situation in which they engaged with the suffering of a stranger and indicated their endorsement with a variety of possible motives. Largely mirroring the motives emerging from Study 1, Study 2 participants engaged with strangers’ suffering to acquire knowledge (e.g., learn something about the world), for personal utility (e.g., to prepare for an emergency), for social utility (e.g., supporting others), and to feel positive (e.g., gratitude) and negative (e.g., outrage) emotions. We discuss implications for understanding the exploration of human suffering as a motivated phenomenon.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%