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Moral Emotions (Guilt (functions:
appeasement function = show that…
Moral Emotions
Guilt
functions:
- appeasement function = show that transgressor is also "suffering" > evoke sympathy, forgiveness, reduces punishment
- signal that transgressor is aware of and committed to the norms of the group
a feeling of regret over wrongdoing, involves accepting responsibility for/ association with transgression
- agitation-based emotion
- aroused when actor actually cause, anticipates causing, is associated with aversive event
Collective responsibility:
accepting responsibility and seek to compensate for negative actions of ingroup members
- young children accept responsibility for ingroup members
Shame
Unpleasant emotional reaction to an actual/ presumed negative judgement of self by others
- Dejection-based emotion, passive, helpless
- aroused by self-related aversive events
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Pride
feelings of competence/ efficacy
- must appraise the source of pride as contingent upon own characteristics
Emotions that respond to moral violations/ motivate moral behavior
- important for upholding cooperation
- self-conscious/ self-evaluative emotions since they are evoked by individual's understanding and evaluation of the self
- require higher degree of cognitive infusion
Research 1: Choosing your informant: weighing familiarity and recent accuracy (Corriveau and Harris, 2009)
- Whether preschool children trust a familiar rather than an unfamiliar informant whether that preference is altered if the familiar informant proves accurate or inaccurate
Procedure:
A “transgressor” accidentally harmed a “victim” i.e. by destroying the victim’s toys
- use facial expressions to express guilt
- use explicit apologies to express guilt
Results:
- age 4 and 5 = sensitive to appeasement function of guilt displays
- by age 4 = grasp appeasement functions of explicit apologies, but NOT the guilt and remorse presented by apologies
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Experimental paradigm:
• engage children in 1-on-1 interview procedure where they listen to a short story involving a prototypical moral violation (e.g. physical harm – pushing a peer to the ground) between the victim and victimizer.
• Standard emotion attribution question is asked (e.g. “how does the victimizer feel?”)
young children consistently indicated that the victimizer is happy
results:
- age 4 = expect victimizer to feel happy even after being explicitly directed to sadness of victim = phenomenon cannot be explained by lack of probing for additional emotions
limitations:
- most studies ask children how somebody else feels ("other" attributions), not how they would feel for themselves in the same situation ("self" attributions) = may respond from detached POV + since victimizer engaged in intentional action, it is natural to expect victimizer to feel good