Purity is not a distinct moral domain.

Purity violations overlap with other moral domains. They are not uniquely characterized by hypothesized markers of purity - the witness's emotion of disgust, taint to perpetrator's soul, or the diminished role of intention in moral judgment. Thus, Fitouchi et al.

On the set of emotions with facial signals.

Which, if any, emotions have a facial signal? Studies from AI to Zoology sometimes presuppose an answer to this question. According to one important and influential research program, the basic (fundamental and discrete) emotions can be identified by their possession of a biologically based unique and universally recognized facial signal. To the classic set of six such emotions, researchers recently advanced 12 new candidates, which were examined in the present study with a standard free-labeling procedure in three samples: English-speaking Americans ( = 200), Mandarin-speaking Chinese ( = 101), and Malayalam-speaking Indians ( = 200).

Is purity a distinct and homogeneous domain in moral psychology?

"No" is our answer to the question in our title. In moral psychology, a purity violation (defined as an immoral act committed against one's own body or soul) was theorized to be a homogeneous moral domain qualitatively distinct from other moral domains. In contrast, we hypothesized heterogeneity rather than homogeneity, overlapping rather than distinct domains, and quantitative rather than qualitative differences from other hypothesized domains (specifically, autonomy, which is harm to others).

Deconstructing disgust as the emotion of violations of body and soul.

Through the evolutionary process of preadaptation, disgust was coopted to serve as the guardian not just of one's body but also of one's soul-or so it has been theorized. On this theory, elicitors include health-related threats and nonhealth-related degrading acts, which together form a pancultural domain of morality. A prediction from this theory was examined here in four samples: 96 English-speaking Americans, 96 Malayalam-speaking Indians, 136 Japanese-speaking Japanese, and 194 Arabic-speaking Egyptians.

On evidence for a dozen new basic emotions: A methodological critique.

Much theory, research, and application regarding emotion is based on a set of basic emotions. But the question remains: which emotions are in that set? One proposal is to expand the classic set of six with 12 new ones, each indicated by a facial expression purported to convey that one specific emotion universally. A series of studies offered as support for this proposal relied on presenting participants with the emotion label embedded in a story and then asking them to choose among four facial expressions or none.

Do community and autonomy moral violations elicit different emotions?

According to one important set of theories, different domains of immorality are linked to different discrete emotions-panculturally. Violations against the community elicit contempt, whereas violations against an individual elicit anger. To test this theory, American, Indian and Japanese participants (N = 480) indicated contempt and anger reactions (with verbal rating and face selection) to both the types of immorality.

Disgust and the sacred: Do people react to violations of the sacred with the same emotion they react to something putrid?

Disgust has been hypothesized to be uniquely linked to violations of a distinct moral domain (called divinity, purity, or sacred) aimed at preserving one's body from contamination with pathogens and preserving one's soul from violations of what is sacred. Here we examined whether the same emotion-core disgust-occurs when witnessing both types of violation, and we proposed a specific method for doing so. In two studies (N = 160; 240), American and Indian participants indicated their emotional reaction to (stories depicting) sacred or nonsacred violations, each either with or without pathogens.

Even unpleasant reminders that you are an animal need not disgust you.

Three studies (Ns = 200, 400, 400) tested the hypothesis that we humans feel disgust when reminded of our animal nature. Participants verbally rated their disgust reaction to pictures of humans engaged in various unpleasant actions. For pictures of events that present danger or suffering, accompanied by an explicit and vivid reminder that animals face the same situation, participants reported fear and sadness rather than disgust.

Is it disgusting to be reminded that you are an animal?

Six studies (Ns = 65, 96, 120, 129, 40, 200) tested the hypothesis that being reminded of our animal nature makes us feel disgust. Participants from three cultural groups indicated the intensity of their disgust reactions to pleasant and unpleasant animal reminder stories and pictures as well as to a statement directly reminding them of their animal nature. Findings did not support the hypothesis: Pleasant animal reminders reminded respondents of their animal nature (even more powerfully than did unpleasant ones), but were not disgusting.

The English word disgust has no exact translation in Hindi or Malayalam.

Do different languages have a translation for the English word disgust that labels the same underlying concept? If not, the English word might label a culture-specific concept. Four studies (Ns = 93, 90, 180, 960) compared disgust to its common translation in Hindi (an Indo-European language) and in Malayalam (a Dravidian language) by examining two components of the concept thought of as a script: causal antecedent and facial expression. The English word was used to refer to reactions to both unclean substances and moral violations; Hindi and Malayalam translations referred mainly to moral violations.