Abstract
Moral judgments can be positive or negative: we can judge action as good or wrong. Here we show that good judgments and wrong judgments are influenced by incidental emotions. Using instrumental music as an induction method, we show that anger, but not happiness, increases the tendency to judge actions as wrong (Experiment 1). We also show that happiness increases the tendency to praise actions as both good and obligatory, while anger reduces these judgments (Experiment 2). These findings extend the literature on emotions and moral judgment by demonstrating impact of anger and happiness, and by contrasting goodness and wrongness in their emotional valence. The findings also show that music can have a significant impact on moral judgment. This is important because music is a highly prevalent situational variable. The use of instrumental music may have advantages over other induction techniques because it does not carry specific semantic cues that might encourage people to think about morality.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Algoe, B. S., & Haidt, J. (2009). Witnessing excellence in action: the ‘other-praising’ emotions of elevation, gratitude, and admiration. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 4, 105–127.
Aristotle (2000). Politics (B. Jowett, Trans.). Mineola, NY: Dover.
Blair, R. J. (in press). Considering anger from a cognitive neuroscience perspective. Trends in Cognitive Science.
Bodenhausen, V. J., Sheppard, A. L., & Kramer, P. G. (1994). Negative affect and social judgment: The differential impact of anger and sadness. European Journal of Social Psychology, 24, 45–62.
Carlsmith, J. M., Darley, J. M., & Robinson, P. H. (2002). Why do we punish? Deterrence and just deserts as motives for punishment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 284–299.
Dunn, R. J., & Schweitzer, E. M. (2005). Feeling is believing: The influence of emotion on trust. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 736–748.
Eskine, J. K., Kacinik, A. N., & Prinz, J. J. (2011). A bad taste in the mouth: Gustatory disgust influences moral judgment. Psychological Science, 22, 295–299.
Fehr, E., & Gachter, S. (2002). Altruistic punishment in humans. Nature, 415, 137–140.
Fried, R., & Berkowitz, L. (1979). Music hatch charms…and can influence helpfulness. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 9, 199–208.
Grieg, E. (1875). Morning mood [Recorded by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra]. In Grieg: Peer Gynt suites, Holberg suite [CD]. Hamburg: Deutsche Grammophon (1993).
Haidt, J. (2003). Elevation and the positive psychology of morality. In C. L. Keyes & J. Hadit (Eds.), Flourishing: Positive psychology and the life well-lived (pp. 275–289).
Harmon-Jones, C., Schmeichel, B. J., Mennit, E., & Harmon-Jones, E. (2011). The expression of determination: Similarities between anger and approach-related positive affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100, 172–181.
Horberg, E. J., Oveis, C., & Keltner, D. (2009). Emotions as moral amplifiers: An appraisal tendency to the influence of distinct emotions upon moral judgment. Emotion Review, 3, 1–8.
Hume, D. (1739/1978). A treatise of human nature. In P. H. Nidditch (Ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Isen, A. M., & Levin, P. F. (1972). The effects of feeling good on helping: Cookies and kindness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 21, 384–388.
Johnson, W. B. (1937). Euphoric and depressed moods in normal subjects I & II. Journal of Character and Personality, 6, 79–98.
Keltner, D., Ellsworth, P. C., & Edwards, K. (1993). Beyond simple pessimism: Effects of sadness and anger on social perception. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 740–752.
Knoch, D., Nitsche, M. A., Fischbacher, U., Eisenegger, C., Pascual-Leone, A., & Fehr, E. (2008). Studying the neurobiology of social interaction with transcranial direct current stimulation—The example of punishing unfairness. Cerebral Cortex, 18, 1987–1990.
Labouvie-Vief, G., Lumney, M. A., Jain, E., & Heinze, H. (2003). Age and gender differences in cardiac reactivity. Emotion, 3, 115–126.
Lerner, J., Goldberg, J., & Tetlock, P. E. (1998). Sober second thought: The effects of accountability, anger, and authoritarianism on attribution of responsibility. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24, 563–574.
Mackie, M. M., Devos, T., & Smith, R. E. (2000). Intergroup emotions: Explaining offensive action tendencies in an intergroup context. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 602–616.
Mullen, E., & Skitka, J. L. (2006). Exploring the psychological underpinnings of the moral mandate effect: Motivated reasoning, group differentiation, or anger? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 629–643.
Nelissen, R. M. A., & Zeelenberg, M. (2009). Moral emotions as determinants of third-party punishment: Anger, guilt, and the functions of altruistic sanctions. Judgment and Decision Making, 4, 543–553.
Pillutla, M. M., & Murnighan, J. K. (1996). Unfairness, anger, and spite: Emotional rejections of ultimatum offers. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 68, 208–224.
Polman, E., & Ruttan, L. R. (2012). Effects of anger, guilt and envy on moral hypocrisy. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 129–139.
Prinz, J. J. (2007). The emotional construction of morals. New York: Oxford University Press.
Rozin, P., Lowery, L., Imada, S., & Haidt, J. (1999). The CAD triad hypothesis: A mapping between three moral emotions (contempt, anger, disgust) and three moral codes (community, autonomy, divinity). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76, 574–586.
Sanfey, A. G., Rilling, J. A., Aronson, J. K., Nystrom, L., & Cohen, J. D. (2003). The neural basis of economic decision making in the ultimatum game. Science, 300, 1755–1757.
Schnall, S., Haidt, J., Clore, G., & Jordan, A. (2008). Disgust as embodied moral judgment. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 1096–1109.
Schwarz, N., & Clore, G. L. (1983). Mood, misattribution, and judgments of well-being: Informative and directive functions of affective states. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45, 513–523.
Seidel, A. L., & Prinz, J. J. (2012). Sound morality: Icky and irritating sounds amplify severity of moral judgment. Manuscript submitted for publication.
Shenhav, A. S., & Greene, J. D. (2010). Moral judgments recruit domain-general valuation mechanisms to integrate representations of probability and magnitude. Neuron, 67, 667–677.
Small, D. A., & Lerner, J. S. (2008). Emotional policy: Personal sadness and anger shape judgments about a welfare case. Political Psychology, 29, 149–168.
Strohminger, N., Lewis, L. R., & Meyer, E. M. (2011). Divergent effects of different positive emotions on moral judgment. Cognition, 119, 295–300.
Takushi, M. (1996). Inner mind mystique 1 [Recorded by Masonna]. In Inner mind mystique [CD]. Upper Darby, PA: Relapse Records.
Tiedens, Z. L., & Linton, S. (2001). Judgments under emotional certainty and uncertainty: The effects of specific emotions on information processing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 973–988.
Valdesolo, P., & DeSteno, D. (2006). Manipulations of emotional context shape moral judgment. Psychological Science, 17, 476–477.
Weyant, J. M. (1978). Effects of mood states, costs, and benefits on helping. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 1169–1176.
Wheatley, T., & Haidt, J. (2005). Hypnotic disgust makes moral judgments more severe. Psychological Science, 18, 780–784.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the editor and reviewers at Motivation and Emotion for their extremely helpful comments.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding authors
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Seidel, A., Prinz, J. Mad and glad: Musically induced emotions have divergent impact on morals. Motiv Emot 37, 629–637 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-012-9320-7
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-012-9320-7