Is moral disgust socially learned?

Area of Science:

• Developmental Psychology
• Moral Psychology
• Emotion Science

Background:

• Disgust is a fundamental emotion influencing social and moral judgments.
• Understanding the development of moral disgust in children is crucial for developmental psychology.
• Previous research has primarily focused on pathogen disgust, with less attention to moral disgust development.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how mothers and children discuss moral and pathogen disgust.
• To examine age-related differences in children's understanding and expression of disgust.
• To explore the association between moral transgressions, anger, and disgust.

Main Methods:

• 68 mother-child dyads with children aged 4, 6, and 8 years participated.
• Participants engaged in four tasks involving emotion recognition, item generation, and transgression categorization.
• Data included accuracy in emotion recognition and ratings of moral and pathogen transgressions.

Main Results:

• Children recognized happiness better than disgust, but disgust recognition was comparable to sadness and anger.
• Moral transgressions were associated with anger, while pathogen transgressions were linked to disgust.
• Both children and mothers rated pathogen-related scenarios as more disgusting than moral ones.

Conclusions:

• Children as young as 8 years old demonstrate a developing understanding of moral disgust, often using it metaphorically.
• Pathogen disgust is understood earlier and more distinctly than moral disgust in early childhood.
• This research highlights the distinct developmental trajectories of pathogen and moral disgust processing.