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. To remedy method problems in previous research, community and autonomy violations were created for the same story-frame, by varying the target to be either the community or an individual. Community and autonomy violations did not differ significantly in the emotion elicited: overall, both types of violations elicited more anger than contempt (and more negative emotion of any kind than positive emotion). By verbal rating, Americans and Indians reported more anger than contempt for both types of violation, whereas Japanese reported more contempt than anger for both types. By face selection, the three cultural groups selected anger more than contempt for both types of violation. The results speak against defining distinct domains of morality by their association with distinct emotions.

Emotion and aggressive intergroup cognitions: The ANCODI hypothesis.

Previous research has suggested an important role for the emotion of hatred in intergroup aggression. Recent theoretical and empirical work has strongly suggested that the combination of anger, contempt, and disgust (ANCODI) comprise the basic elements of hatred, and are the key emotions associated with intergroup aggression. No study, however, has provided evidence that these emotions cause hostile cognitions about specific groups. We report two studies that provide initial evidence. In both, participants were members of ideologically motivated groups and were primed with ANCODI. In Study 1 participants primed with ANCODI produced more aggressive cognitions relative to their opponent outgroup than a neutral outgroup; this effect did not occur for participants primed with fear-sadness. In Study 2 participants primed with ANCODI engaged in more competitive decision making against their opponent outgroups than a neutral outgroup; this effect did not occur for participants primed with disgust only. These findings contribute to the literature on the role of emotion in intergroup aggression and hostility, and provide a more nuanced view of the role of emotions in intergroup relations, possibly identifying the basic emotional elements of hatred. Aggr. Behav. 43:93-107, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

On the deep structure of social affect: Attitudes, emotions, sentiments, and the case of "contempt".

Contempt is typically studied as a uniquely human moral emotion. However, this approach has yielded inconclusive results. We argue this is because the folk affect concept "contempt" has been inaccurately mapped onto basic affect systems. "Contempt" has features that are inconsistent with a basic emotion, especially its protracted duration and frequently cold phenomenology. Yet other features are inconsistent with a basic attitude. Nonetheless, the features of "contempt" functionally cohere. To account for this, we revive and reconfigure the sentiment construct using the notion of evolved functional specialization. We develop the Attitude-Scenario-Emotion (ASE) model of sentiments, in which enduring attitudes represent others' social-relational value and moderate discrete emotions across scenarios. Sentiments are functional networks of attitudes and emotions. Distinct sentiments, including love, respect, like, hate, and fear, track distinct relational affordances, and each is emotionally pluripotent, thereby serving both bookkeeping and commitment functions within relationships. The sentiment contempt is an absence of respect; from cues to others' low efficacy, it represents them as worthless and small, muting compassion, guilt, and shame and potentiating anger, disgust, and mirth. This sentiment is ancient yet implicated in the ratcheting evolution of human ultrasocialty. The manifolds of the contempt network, differentially engaged across individuals and populations, explain the features of "contempt," its translatability, and its variable experience as "hot" or "cold," occurrent or enduring, and anger-like or disgust-like. This rapprochement between psychological anthropology and evolutionary psychology contributes both methodological and empirical insights, with broad implications for understanding the functional and cultural organization of social affect.

Expanding our thinking about discrete emotions and politics.

In recent decades, political psychologists have given a lot of attention to the role of emotions in politics. While there have been several different research programs, the dominant paradigm has been set by affective intelligence theory (AIT), developed by George Marcus, Russell Neuman, and Michael Mackuen. AIT has helped explain many puzzles in understanding how emotions influence political decisions, as any good paradigm should. At the same time, I argue it has also had the effect of limiting broader research into the range of discrete emotions, especially contempt. While recognizing the value of AIT, I call for more research that goes beyond its boundaries, showing through several recent studies how a focus on the additional effects of contempt can improve our understanding of voter decision-making.

Negative Influences of Differentiated Empowering Leadership on Team Members' Helping Behaviors: The Mediating Effects of Envy and Contempt.

PURPOSE: Given the popularity of empowerment practices among scholars and practitioners, this research examines whether a manager's differentiated empowering leadership negatively affects team members' helping behaviors and, if so, how. METHODS: The authors conducted one multi-source and time-lagged survey (with 44 managers and 212 team members) and two scenario-based experiments (with 120 participants in Study 2 and 121 participants in Study 3) to test the research model. RESULTS: Team managers' differentiated empowering leadership decreases team members' helping behaviors. In particular, for team members who receive less empowerment, differentiated empowering leadership may decrease their helping behaviors by eliciting their envy. For team members who receive more empowerment, differentiated empowering leadership may decrease their helping behaviors by inducing their contempt. CONCLUSION: This research introduces the concept of differentiated empowering leadership in response to calls to investigate the dark side of empowering leadership. It reveals that unequal distribution of authority among team members by managers can undermine employee relations and elicit negative emotions of envy and contempt, thereby decreasing employees' helping behaviors.

President Obama's Humble Face: An Authentic or a Socially Desirable Posturing? A Study on Reactions to Obama's Autobiographical Self-Disclosures.

Referring to the mainstream studies based on the personalization's hypothesis, which positively evaluates signals of dominance shown by leaders, the analysis of Obama's rhetoric stays a relevant exception. His risky recall, during his political talks, of his social difficulties as a child of a mixed couple was in fact one of the more surprising aspects of his success. Nevertheless, reactions to his autobiographical sharing were scarcely explored. Based on the idea that these self-disclosures signal his responsivity toward the audience of low social condition and can, therefore, be defined as a sign of humility, this research aims to test if coherence between Obama's words and his facial expressions of contempt, due to the seriousness of social injustices endured in his childhood, may influence the receivers' perception of such unexpected communication. Before reading a brief autobiographical sharing taken from a "Back-to-school" speech, a highly ritualized monolog the US President addresses each year to students, 175 Italian participants were presented with a photo of Obama displaying either an expression of contempt (taken from the video of the speech) or a neutral expression. Comparisons between self-assessments of perceptions and reactions of participants assigned to the two experimental conditions show that a facial expression of contempt, coherent with words describing his school difficulties, has been crucial for perceiving this humble political discourse as authentic and not as a simple socially desirable posturing. More studies seem to be needed, however, to understand how humble speech could enhance the positive face of leaders or backfire against them.

Surgical face masks do not impair the decoding of facial expressions of negative affect more severely in older than in younger adults.

Surgical face masks reduce the spread of airborne pathogens but also disturb the flow of information between individuals. The risk of getting seriously ill after infection with SARS-COV-2 during the present COVID-19 pandemic amplifies with age, suggesting that face masks should be worn especially during face-to-face contact with and between older people. However, the ability to accurately perceive and understand communication signals decreases with age, and it is currently unknown whether face masks impair facial communication more severely in older people. We compared the impact of surgical face masks on dynamic facial emotion recognition in younger (18-30 years) and older (65-85 years) adults (N = 96) in an online study. Participants watched short video clips of young women who facially expressed anger, fear, contempt or sadness. Faces of half of the women were covered by a digitally added surgical face mask. As expected, emotion recognition accuracy declined with age, and face masks reduced emotion recognition accuracy in both younger and older participants. Unexpectedly, the effect of face masks did not differ between age groups. Further analyses showed that masks also reduced the participants' overall confidence in their emotion judgements, but not their performance awareness (the difference between their confidence ratings for correct and incorrect responses). Again, there were no mask-by-age interactions. Finally, data obtained with a newly developed questionnaire (attitudes towards face masks, atom) suggest that younger and older people do not differ in how much they feel impaired in their understanding of other people's emotions by face masks or how useful they find face masks in confining the COVID-19 pandemic. In sum, these findings do not provide evidence that the impact of face masks on the decoding of facial signals is disproportionally larger in older people.

Bioethics, Race, and Contempt.

The U.S. healthcare system has a long history of displaying racist contempt toward Black people. From medical schools' use of enslaved bodies as cadavers to the widespread hospital practice of reporting suspected drug users who seek medical help to the police, the institutional practices and policies that have shaped U.S. healthcare systems as we know them cannot be minimized as coincidence. Rather, the very foundations of medical discovery, diagnosis, and treatment are built on racist contempt for Black people and have become self-perpetuating. Yet, I argue that bioethics and bioethicists have a role in combatting racism. However, in order to do so, bioethicists have to understand the workings of contemptuous racism and how that particular form of racism manifests in U.S. healthcare institutions. Insofar as justice is part of the core mission of bioethics, then antiracism must also be part of the mission of bioethics.

Maladaptive blame-related action tendencies are associated with vulnerability to major depressive disorder.

Biases towards self-blaming emotions, such as self-contempt/disgust, were previously associated with vulnerability to major depressive disorder (MDD). Self-blaming emotions are thought to prompt specific action tendencies (e.g. "feeling like hiding"), which are likely to be more important for psychosocial functioning than the emotions themselves. Systematic investigations, however, of these action tendencies in MDD are lacking. Here, we investigated the role of blame-related action tendencies for MDD vulnerability and their relationship with blame-related emotions. 76 participants with medication-free remitted MDD and 44 healthy control (HC) participants without a history of MDD completed the value-related moral sentiment task, which measured their blame-related emotions during hypothetical social interactions and a novel task to assess their blame-related action tendencies (feeling like hiding, apologising, creating a distance from oneself, attacking oneself, creating a distance from other, attacking other, no action). As predicted, the MDD group showed a maladaptive profile of action tendencies: a higher proneness to feeling like hiding and creating a distance from themselves compared with the HC group. In contrast, feeling like apologising was less common in the MDD than the HC group. Apologising for one's wrongdoing was associated with all self-blaming emotions including shame, guilt, self-contempt/disgust and self-indignation. Hiding was associated with both shame and guilt. Our study shows that MDD vulnerability was associated with specific maladaptive action tendencies which were independent of the type of emotion, thus unveiling novel cognitive markers and neurocognitive treatment targets.

'Being human' and the 'moral sidestep' in drug policy: Explaining government inaction on opioid-related deaths in the UK.

BACKGROUND: With drug-related deaths at record levels in the UK, the government faces two potential sources of pressure to implement more effective policies. One source is the individuals and families who are most likely to suffer from such deaths; i.e. working class people living in de-industrialised areas. The other source is experts who argue for different policy on the basis of research evidences. AIM: This article aims to explain why, in the face of these two potential sources of pressure, the UK government has not implemented effective measures to reduce deaths. METHOD: The article uses critical realist discourse analysis of official documents and ministerial speeches on recent British drug policy (2016-2018). It explore this discourse through the theoretical lens of Archer's (2000) ideas on 'being human' and by drawing on Sayer's (2005) work on the 'moral significance of class'. RESULTS: Members of economically 'residual' groups (including working class people who use heroin) are excluded from articulating their interests in 'late welfare capitalism' in a project of depersonalising 'class contempt' through which politicians cast the people most likely to die as passive, 'vulnerable' 'abjects'. Conservative politicians dismiss 'evidence-based' ideas on the reduction of drug-related death through a 'moral sidestep'. They defend policy on the basis of its relevance to conservative moral principles, not effectiveness. This is consistent with the broader moral and political pursuit of partial state shrinkage which Conservative politicians and the social groups they represent have pursued since the 1970s.

Old man-young man: T.S. Eliot's Gerontion and the problem of identity.

BACKGROUND: In his poem Gerontion (1920) Nobel laureate T.S. Eliot uses powerful language to give a fictional, highly condensed, first-person account of medical and psychological conditions that arise with old age: physical frailty, cognitive decline, sensory impairment, depressive symptoms with embitterment, social withdrawal and the psychological strain of having to face old age and make meaning of one's life. Surprisingly, he wrote the poem as a young man. METHODS: In this qualitative study, we used a hermeneutic approach to interpret Gerontion from a psychiatric perspective. We considered how Gerontion could help us to further an empathic understanding of these mental states, why a young man expresses himself through the voice of an old man and how the depressed-aggressive tone of the poem with its contempt and anti-Semitism can be interpreted. CONCLUSIONS: We concluded that Eliot was grappling with his identity as an American in England, as a sexually inhibited husband to a demanding wife, as a banker and poet and as someone who had witnessed the effects of WWI. Readers of the poem can simultaneously experience the suffering of an old man and the identity crisis of a young man. The poem can thus further insight into the development of contempt and promote empathy and professionalism in dealing with states such as late-life depression. Consequently it is well suited for use in medical classes on these issues, particularly because it is much shorter than a novel or film.

Bienestar Social, Autoestima y Reconocimiento: Estudio Empírico sobre Crimen y Exclusión Basado en la Categoría de Menosprecio de Axel Honneth / Social welfare, Self-esteem and Recognition: Empirical Study on Crime and Exclusion Based on the Category of Contempt of Axel Honneth

Resumen Este trabajo estriba en un primer acercamiento empírico a la categoría de menosprecio de Axel Honneth, para quien la lucha por reconocimiento consiste en una negociación intersubjetiva con pretensiones de reivindicación identitaria. Según este autor, el reconocimiento desplaza la concepción de justicia desde su acepción tradicional de redistribución material hacia la noción de vida satisfactoria. Este artículo examinará especialmente la hipótesis de que el crimen, en su interconexión con la exclusión social, sería consecuencia de la negación de reconocimiento. Así, se armó un estudio cuantitativo con sujetos residentes en España, agrupados en presos (n = 117), personas en situación de riesgo social (n = 131) e individuos fuera de ambas condiciones (n = 294). Las variables utilizadas fueron autoestima, bienestar social subjetivo, fatalismo y autoeficacia. Los resultados de los análisis estadísticos sobre diferencias de medias entre grupos, correlaciones y regresiones múltiples indicaron la validez de la categoría de menosprecio de Honneth y confirmaron la hipótesis planteada

Abstract The work is based on a first empirical approach to the category of contempt of Axel Honneth, for whom the struggle for recognition consists of an intersubjective negotiation that the subjects establish among themselves to achieve the consideration of their identity claims . According to this author, recognition displaces the conception of justice from its traditional meaning of material redistribution to the notion of a satisfactory life. This article will examine in particular the hypothesis that crime, in its interconnection with social exclusion, would be a consequence of the denial of recognition. Thus, a quantitative study was set up with subjects residing in Spain, grouped into: prisoners (n=117), people at social risk (n=131) and individuals who were not in the previous conditions (n=294). The variables used were: self-esteem, subjective social welfare, fatalism, and self-efficacy. The results of the statistical analyzes indicated the validity of Honneth's category of contempt and confirmed the hypothesis investigated.

Emotional states of drivers and the impact on speed, acceleration and traffic violations - a simulator study.

Maladjusted driving, such as aggressive driving and delayed reactions, is seen as one cause of traffic accidents. Such behavioural patterns could be influenced by strong emotions in the driver. The causes of emotions in traffic are divided into two distinct classes: personal factors and properties of the specific driving situation. In traffic situations, various appraisal factors are responsible for the nature and intensity of experienced emotions. These include whether another driver was accountable, whether goals were blocked and whether progress and safety were affected. In a simulator study, seventy-nine participants took part in four traffic situations which each elicited a different emotion. Each situation had critical elements (e.g. slow car, obstacle on the street) based on combinations of the appraisal factors. Driving parameters such as velocity, acceleration, and speeding, together with the experienced emotions, were recorded. Results indicate that anger leads to stronger acceleration and higher speeds even for 2 km beyond the emotion-eliciting event. Anxiety and contempt yielded similar but weaker effects, yet showed the same negative and dangerous driving pattern as anger. Fright correlated with stronger braking momentum and lower speeds directly after the critical event.

The communication of "pure" group-based anger reduces tendencies toward intergroup conflict because it increases out-group empathy.

The communication of group-based anger in intergroup conflict is often associated with destructive conflict behavior. However, we show that communicating group-based anger toward the out-group can evoke empathy and thus reduce intergroup conflict. This is because it stresses the value of maintaining a positive long-term intergroup relationship, thereby increasing understanding for the situation (in contrast to the communication of the closely related emotion of contempt). Three experiments demonstrate that the communication of group-based anger indeed reduces destructive conflict intentions compared with (a) a control condition (Experiments 1-2), (b) the communication of group-based contempt (Experiment 2), and (c) the communication of a combination of group-based anger and contempt (Experiments 2-3). Moreover, results from all three experiments reveal that empathy mediated the positive effect of communicating "pure" group-based anger. We discuss the implications of these findings for the theory and practice of communicating emotions in intergroup conflicts.

Autonomic correlates of physical and moral disgust.

Given that the hypothesis of a common origin of physical and moral disgust has received sparse empirical support, this study aimed to shed light on the subjective and autonomic signatures of these two facets of the same emotional response. Participants (20 men, 20 women) were randomly assigned to physical or moral disgust induction by the use of audio scripts while their electrocardiogram was continuously recorded. Affect ratings were obtained before and after the induction. Time and frequency domain heart rate variability (HRV) measures were obtained. After controlling for disgust sensitivity (DS-R) and obsessive-compulsive (OCI-R) tendencies, both scripts elicited disgust but whereas the physical script elicited a feeling of dirtiness, the moral script evoked more indignation and contempt. The disgust-induced subjective responses were associated with opposite patterns of autonomic reactivity: enhanced activity of the parasympathetic nervous system without concurrent changes in heart rate (HR) for physical disgust and decreased vagal tone and increased HR and autonomic imbalance for moral disgust. Results suggest that immorality relies on the same biological root of physical disgust only in subjects with obsessive compulsive tendencies. Disgust appears to be a heterogeneous response that varies based on the individuals' contamination-based appraisal.

Intracategorial Varieties of Contempt in a Heterogeneous Sample / Variedades intracategoriales del desprecio en una muestra heterogénea

Consistent with current emotion theory, we should note that contempt is not a homogeneous category but rather shows intracategorial variability. Previous research on Spanish samples shows a communicative structure in which contempt is felt towards intimate, social or abstract receivers, for reciprocal, altruistic or prejudiced reasons. Our objective was to test, on a large and heterogeneous sample, the previously found structure and variations of the experience of contempt as well as its spontaneous facial expression. Testing the association of contempt varieties with certain subject attributes was a secondary goal. Results from 130 participants from the Spanish general population corroborated the previously found structure and varieties, as well as the associations between contempt receiver and attribution. No relation was found with sex, age or emotion recognition ability. As to spontaneous facial expression, disgust was more often expressed by those who narrated their personal episodes of contempt for reciprocal reasons, and was less often expressed by the people who described prejudiced scenarios. This result indicates that the conventionally considered facial expression of contempt is not the only one, as already stated by Darwin, and should not be considered as such by experimental and psychometric procedures.

De forma consistente con las teorías actuales de la emoción, el desprecio no es una categoría homogénea, sino que presenta variedad intracategorial. La investigación previa en muestras españolas muestra una estructura comunicativa en la que el desprecio se experimenta hacia receptores íntimos, sociales o abstractos por razones recíprocas, altruistas o prejuiciosas. Nuestro objetivo fue poner a prueba, en una muestra grande y heterogénea, la estructura previamente encontrada para la experiencia de desprecio, así como sus variedades y expresión facial espontánea. Un objetivo secundario fue la puesta a prueba de la asociación de las variedades del desprecio con atributos de sujeto. Los resultados de 130 entrevistas procedentes de población general española corroboraron la estructura y variedades previamente halladas, así como la asociación entre el receptor del desprecio y la atribución causal. La relación con el sexo, la edad y la aptitud de reconocimiento emocional no resultó significativa. Con respecto a la expresión facial, la de asco apareció con mayor frecuencia en quienes narraron episodios de desprecio por razones de reciprocidad y con menor frecuencia en quienes describieron escenarios prejuiciosos. Este resultado indica que la expresión convencionalmente considerada como de desprecio no es la única, como ya estableció Darwin, por lo que no debería considerarse como tal en los procedimientos experimentales y psicométricos.

Corpos precários, desrespeito e autoestima: o caso de moradores de rua de Paris-FR / Slum bodies, contempt and self-esteem: case study on homeless people in Paris/FR / Corps précaires, mépris et autoestime: le cas des sans-logis à Paris/FR / Cuerpos precarios, desprecio y autoestima: el caso de las personas sin techo en París/FR

O presente artigo discute quando e sob quais condições determinados signos corporais podem ser considerados ou não como enunciadores da relação íntima entre o corpo de um “morador de rua” parisiense e o universo no qual ele se encontra. São esses fatores que fazem do cuidado do corpo e de si uma experiência difícil de administrar pelos sujeitos pesquisados. Com efeito, marcado pela relação íntima estabelecida com as condições precárias de existência, a hexis corporal das pessoas estudadas passa a ser tanto objeto de “desrespeito social” quanto fonte negativa de autoestima. Ao final, são delineados caminhos possíveis da “retirada da rua” do corpo - isto é, do trabalho árduo de reabilitação física e moral das pessoas estudadas.

This article discusses when and why certain body signs may be considered as a statement of the intimate relation between the body of a homeless person living in Paris and the universe in which he lives. For this purpose, it shows why embodiment and self-awareness are difficult to manage from the point of view of the research subjects. Indeed, marked by the close relationship with the precarious conditions of existence, the corporal hexis of the studied people becomes the very source of both "social contempt" and negative self-esteem. Finally, this paper outlines some possible ways of "resilience" and social integration on the case of the studied homeless people.

Cet article discute quand et sous quelles circonstances certains signes corporels peuvent être considérés ou pas en tant qu’enonciateurs de la relation intime entre le corps d’un “sans-logis” parisien et l’univers social dans lequel il se trouve. Ce sont ces facteurs qui font du souci du corps et du soi une expérience difficile de gérer par les sujets enquêtés. En effet, marquée par la relation intime établie entre les conditions précaires d’existence, l’hexis corporelle des personnes étudiées devient à la fois objet de “mépris social” et source négative d’auto-estime. À la fin de l’article, les chemins possibles de la “resilience” sont présentés, aussi bien que du “retrait de la rue du corps” - autrement dit, du difficile travail de réhabilitation physique et morale des personnes étudiées.

El presente artículo debate cuando y bajo cuales condiciones algunos aspectos corporales pueden o no ser considerados declaradores de la relación íntima entre el cuerpo de un sin techo y el universo donde se encuentra. Son estos factores los que hacen el cuidado del cuerpo y de sí mismo un experimento difícil de manejar por los individuos encuestados. En realidad, marcado por la estrecha relación establecida con las condiciones precarias de existencia, la hexis corporal de las personas encuestadas se convierte tanto objeto de “desprecio social” como creador negativo de autoestima. Al final, se describen caminos posibles de “resiliencia” y de “la remoción de la calle” del cuerpo - o sea, el trabajo duro por la rehabilitación física y moral de las personas estudiadas.