Disease and Disapproval: COVID-19 Concerns Relate to Greater Moral Condemnation

https://doi.org/10.1177/14747049211021524

Commentary

Studies conducted in the past have shown that the threat and disgust of disease is associated with greater moral condemnation.

And this study was supposed to investigate the role of a specific and very prominent health concern for moral disapproval, in this case the spread of coronaviruses and the associated COVID-19 disease.

The hypothesis was that individuals with greater subjective concern about COVID-19 would be more sensitive to moral violations. Across the three studies (N= 913), conducted between March and May 2020, when the pandemic began to emerge in the United States, we found that individuals who were worried about contracting the infection made harsher moral judgments than those who were relatively unconcerned.

This effect was not limited to violations involving purity, but extended to violations involving harm, fairness, authority, and loyalty, and was found to be maintained when managing political orientation. Furthermore, when the pollution subscale of the Disgust Scale - Revised was considered in Studies 1 and 2, the effect was also found to be powerful.

These findings, that concrete threats to health can play a role in abstract moral considerations, are said to support the notion that cheating decisions are not based solely on rational thought.