Abstract

The often irrational role of moral disgust in judgment has received a great deal of research and controversy. I will present research from our lab arguing that disgust — or an emotional state identified by people as “disgust” — plays a key role in tracking the moral fitness of people’s character, reacting preferentially to situations that show bad character without necessarily involving harmful consequences. After presenting primary evidence for this proposition, and for parallel outcomes with positive emotions that track character (e.g. Elevation), I will try to theoretically harmonize these findings to other research showing a bodily focus for moral disgust. Finally, I will return to address the question of similarities among emotions labelled “disgust,” presenting a review of cross-cultural research that suggests a hidden emotion class of character-tracking emotion given various translations in various languages, and distinct in its own way from core physical disgust and the behavioural immune system.

Host: Prof Simone Schnall

This talk will be recorded and uploaded to the Zangwill Club Youtube channel in due course.