Moral elevation reduces prejudice against gay men

Abstract

Disgust is linked to social evaluation. People with higher disgust sensitivity exhibit more sexual prejudice (Inbar, Pizarro, Knobe, & Bloom, 2009), and inducing disgust increases sexual prejudice (Dasgupta, DeSteno, Williams, & Hunsinger, 2009). We tested whether inducing moral elevation, the theoretical opposite of disgust, would reduce sexual prejudice. In four studies (N = 3,622), we induced elevation with inspiring videos and then measured sexual prejudice with implicit and explicit measures. Compared to control videos that elicited no particular affective state, we found that elevation reduced implicit and explicit sexual prejudice, albeit very slightly.No effect was observed when the target of social evaluation was changed to race (Black-White).Inducing amusement, another positive emotion, did not significantly affect sexual prejudice. We conclude that elevation weakly but reliably reduces prejudice toward gay men.Word count = 131 Keywords = attitudes, prejudice, sexual orientation, elevation, Implicit Association Test ELEVATION REDUCES PREJUDICE 3 Moral Elevation Reduces Prejudice Against Gay Men Emotions alter evaluations of outgroups. Disgust, in particular, is associated with physical and social repulsion from people with physical deformities or disease (Rozin, Haidt, & McCauley, 2008). Disgust is best understood as an emotion that evolved to protect human beings from pathogens ingested via the mouth. However, in all cultures studied, the elicitors of disgust have expanded to include social elicitors, such as certain classes of people or behaviors (Rozin et al., 2008). Most generally, disgust leads to repulsion from people who engage in behaviors perceived to be morally degrading or inhuman (Schaller & Park, 2011). One class of people commonly treated as disgusting is gay men. Sensitivity to disgust is related to greater sexual prejudice (i.e., negative attitudes toward gay people; Herek, 2009;Inbar, Pizarro, Knobe, & Bloom, 2009). Experimentally induced disgust from unrelated sources leads to increased sexual prejudice (Dasgupta, DeSteno, Williams, & Hunsinger, 2009). Conversely, priming thoughts of gay men leads to greater disgust toward unrelated stimuli (Tapias, Glaser, Keltner, Vasquez, & Wickens, 2007). If inducing disgust can increase sexual prejudice, then inducing the opposite of disgust could decrease sexual prejudice.What is the opposite of disgust? Haidt ( , 2006 suggested that it is moral elevation, an emotion that is elicited by witnessing acts of moral beauty such as charity, gratitude, generosity, or loyalty (Algoe & Haidt, 2009;Haidt, , 2004Keltner & Haidt, 2003). Disgust, including moral disgust, leads people to feel degraded and leads them to close themselves off to others (Rozin et al., 2008). Experiences of elevation, in contrast, lead people to report feeling uplifted, inspired, more open to others, and more motivated to engage in prosocial behavior themselves (Algoe & Haidt, 2009;Schnall, Roper, & Fessler, 2010).While emotion inductions have been used to increase social ...

Harmonious Contact: Stories About Intergroup Musical Collaboration Improve Intergroup Attitudes

“…With the appropriate music, we might expect emotional responses such as elevation (Bartsch, Oliver, Nitsch, & Scherr, ; Oliver et al, ), and subsequent positive effects on intergroup attitudes. We already know that elevation is associated with reduced prejudice (Lai, Haidt, & Nosek, ), including when it is media‐induced (Oliver et al, ; Shade, Kim, Jung, & Oliver, ). In the current study, we did explore effects of musical exposure on elevation; however, our musical stimulus was in the background and was a dance song designed to appeal to our undergraduate subjects.…”

How Can Prosocial Behavior Be Motivated? The Different Roles of Moral Judgment, Moral Elevation, and Moral Identity Among the Young Chinese

“…Like any other moral emotion, moral elevation may conduct as the primary source of moral motivation, motivating goodness or directly holding a person back from doing something bad directly ( Hoffman, 2000 ; Jones and Fitness, 2008 ; Lai et al, 2014 ). Significant effects of moral elevation on helping behavior have been documented in a variety of studies.…”

Moving Through The Literature: What Is The Emotion Often Denoted Being Moved?

“…Scores of studies on the elevation concept have further supported this notion (see Pohling & Diessner, 2016;Thomson & Siegel, 2016). In addition, studies have provided evidence that being moved may reduce stereotypes and prejudice (Bartsch, Oliver, Nitsch, & Scherr, 2016;Krämer et al, 2016;Lai, Haidt, & Nosek, 2014;Oliver et al, 2015); increase altruistic helping behavior (Batson et al, 1988;Cova et al, 2016;Cox, 2010;Schnall et al, 2010;Strick et al, 2015;Thomson & Siegel, 2013); increase humanization of out-groups (Blomster, Seibt, & Thomsen, 2019); and foster interpersonal closeness and communal relations (Oliver et al, 2015;Steinnes, 2017;Zickfeld, 2015).…”

“…Empathic concern ----Being moved (Cova & Deonna, 2014) Tears, warmth in the chest, lump in the throat +HR* - Cova and Deonna (2014) Being moved Tears, chills/goosebumps +HR +RR +SCR Subcortical areas of basic reward system Research on elevation and on empathic concern have used quite a large set of lexemes to measure the constructs (Batson et al, 1987;Thomson & Siegel, 2016). On different occasions, elevation has been measured using ratings of touched, inspired (Silvers & Haidt, 2008); gratitude, love (Algoe & Haidt, 2009); compassion, admiration (Freeman, Aquino, & McFerran, 2009); moved, uplifted, optimistic about humanity (Schnall et al, 2010); emotional, meaningful, tender (Oliver, Hartmann, & Woolley, 2012); respect, inspiration, awe ; and emotionally, morally uplifted (Lai et al, 2014). These measures have not been convergently validated, so they may not measure the same thing.…”