![]() ![]() Researchers used the drawings to compute individual-level body sensation maps. The color bar indicates the effect sizes. The body sensation maps show regions where activation increased (warm colors) or decreased (cool colors) in each moral violation condition. Next, they were asked to draw key aspects of their experience on two highly detailed silhouettes of the body, demonstrating areas where feelings were stronger or faster and areas where feelings were weaker or slower. They were asked to rank on a scale of 1 to 5 how morally wrong it was and the strength of their emotional response to the behavior. Participants were randomly assigned to read scenarios involving moral violations, such as someone avoiding sitting next to an obese person on a bus. Participants were scored on their moral concerns of care, fairness, loyalty, authority, and purity. Researchers used a detailed questionnaire to assess the degree to which participants deemed different considerations as relevant when making moral judgments and their agreement with statements about morality. Higher scores indicated someone was more conservative. Researchers then used these to assign a political orientation score. Study participants rated their political affiliation with the Republican or Democratic Party and ranked their conservatism on a scale ranging from 1 (very liberal) to 7 (very conservative). ![]() They also wanted to study whether identification as conservative or liberal could predict where people experienced these emotions. The researchers wanted to take this emotional mapping to another level by examining the body’s sensations and emotions in reaction to moral outrage. ![]() Fear, for example, is represented by activity in the chest and head area, while sadness may accompany slight activations in the chest and deactivations in lower limbs. Some emotions are associated with more activity in certain body parts, like a quickening heartbeat, while other body regions might be “deactivated” in the same emotional experience. It’s widely accepted that the sensing of physiological feedback from the body and its visceral organs is essential for emotional experience, but psychologists have only recently identified the distribution of emotion-related body sensations - or “feeling space” - by distinct maps. In addition, our results highlight a considerable amount of overlap in Republicans’ and Democrats’ emotional responses to moral transgressions,” said Mohammad Atari, the first author of the paper and a third-year PhD student at USC Dornsife. “These findings suggest that at least some of these differences can be attributed to the basic emotional processes, which seem to function somewhat differently according to political affiliation. The results are part of a growing body of research on psychological and physiological differences between liberals and conservatives and adds to the growing scientific body of work on how morality is linked to emotions. Our study finds that liberals and conservatives feel moral violations in different areas of their bodies. For example, liberals feel violations of purity in their crotch area, chest and slightly in their heads while conservatives feel these violations almost exclusively - and very strongly - in their heads. The authors say their study is the first to indicate that political orientation influences where and how violations of specific moral concerns - including care, fairness, purity, loyalty and authority - are felt in the body. Prior research has shown liberals and conservatives rely on different moral foundations and react differently to violations of morals. Liberals and conservatives: Wired differently? The research was published today in Psychological Science. “This was particularly true for perceptions of feelings of loyalty and purity.” “Our study finds that liberals and conservatives feel moral violations in different areas of their bodies, interpret them as distinct complex feelings and make different moral and political judgments,” said Morteza Dehghani, assistant professor of psychology and computer science at the Brain and Creativity Institute and the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. ![]() Researchers with USC’s Brain and Creativity Institute set out to examine how and where emotions associated with violations of moral concerns are experienced in the body, and whether political orientation plays a role. When you see someone being unfair, disloyal or uncaring toward others, do you feel a sense of moral outrage in the form of a twisting stomach, pounding heart or flushing face? And is it possible that your body’s response depends on your political affiliation? ![]()
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