With a Clean Conscience
Cleanliness Reduces the Severity of Moral Judgments
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23347697 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Simone Schnall (0000-0002-4672-7534, University of Plymouth, corresponding author), Jennifer Benton (University of Plymouth), Sophie Harvey (University of Plymouth) |
| Year | 2008 |
| Volume | 19 |
| Issue | 12 |
| Pages | 1219-1222 |
| Publication date | 2008-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Psychological Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0956-7976 • E-ISSN: 1467-9280 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02227.x |
| PMID | 19121126 |
| OpenAlex | W2146430341 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 108 |
| References cited | 14 |
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.
Anger · Cognition · Cognitive psychology · Conscience · Disgust · Epistemology · Feeling · Moral behavior · Moral disengagement · Moral psychology · Moral reasoning · Morality · Salient · Social cognitive theory of morality · Emotions and Moral Behavior · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Social Psychology
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Spatial Subsystem of Moral Metaphors
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At the intersection of Behavioural Economics and Philosophy
Bodily moral disgust
A metaphor-enriched social cognition
Things rank and gross in nature
Bidirectionality, mediation, and moderation of metaphorical effects
Why moral psychology needs personality psychology
Pragmatic Mental Imagery
Vicarious Perception
Pragmatic Representations
Perception
Action
Metaphor Wars
Statistical Inference as Severe Testing
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Weight as an Embodiment of Importance
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Prototypes in emotion concepts
Significance Tests
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Gross values
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Relationship-based moral judgments
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Oral hygiene effects verbal and nonverbal displays of confidence
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Disgust Sensitivity, Political Conservatism, and Voting
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The recognizing body
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Coupling of metaphoric cognition and communication
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Primary metaphors
The Indexical Affordance of Metaphor
Metaphorical Character of Moral Cognition
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Research Methodology in Second Language Studies
Black-and-White” thinking
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Disgust as embodied loss aversion
The Moral Implications of Immorality
Further problems with projectivism
Do metaphors make abstract concepts more concrete
Going against the Flow
What the Science of Morality Doesn’t Say About Morality
The Social Motivation Hypothesis for Prosocial Behavior
Straight to heaven
Ad hominem rhetoric in scientific psychology
Social exclusion's effect on psychological needs, sense of agency and moral cognition from an embodied cognition perspective
Retracted
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A clean self can render harsh moral judgment
Gross gods and icky atheism
Enclothed cognition
Macbeth and the Joystick
Moral contagion effects in everyday interpersonal encounters
The emotional basis of moral judgments
Disgust as Embodied Moral Judgment
Washing Away Your Sins
The Moral Mind
Heart Strings and Purse Strings
The emotional dog and its rational tail
The Scrambled Sentence Test
Hypnotic Disgust Makes Moral Judgments More Severe
Affect, culture, and morality, or is it wrong to eat your dog
Body, Psyche, and Culture
| Unique citing works | 108 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 6,35 |
| Citation span | 2009 - 2026 (18) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 96 |