Appraisals explain how moral events elicit emotions

Appraisal is a prominent component of theories of emotion. It explains how different people or even the same person can have various emotional reactions to the same event. Despite this, appraisal has played a minimal role in research on moral emotions. Theories of moral emotions have either omitted appraisal or examined a limited number of appraisal dimensions. Here, across four studies, we used appraisal dimensions to account for the multifarious relations between moral events and emotions. Results from Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated that individuals have a broader range of emotional responses to moral events than previously assumed, and that appraisals accounted for these differences. Specifically, appraisals of personal value increased all negative emotional reactions, while appraisals of control, unexpectedness and uncertainty distinguished between anger, disgust and surprise and fear, respectively. Study 3 demonstrated that experimentally manipulating these events to accentuate significant appraisal dimensions increased participants' corresponding appraisals and emotions. Finally, Study 4 showed that appraisals accounted for emotional responses to events before, during and after the 2020 US presidential election as real-world events unfolded. This research shows the need to incorporate appraisals into research on moral emotions, and it offers a framework for meeting this need.