On the limits of the relation of disgust to judgments of immorality.

Two correlational studies (ns = 400; 90) examined the association of judgments of immorality and disgust (hypothesized in much current research and theory). Across 40 scenarios in Study 1, immorality was positively correlated with negative emotions, especially anger. With anger partialed, disgust was significantly, but weakly, correlated with immorality, r(38) = 0.22, p < 0.05. Study 2 asked whether the immorality-disgust correlation is due to a confound: immoral events often include elements implicitly or explicitly implying pathogens, such as blood or semen. Across 22 scenarios, those implying pathogens were associated with disgust, but those without pathogens, whether moral or immoral, rarely were. We propose that the relation between disgust and immorality is largely coincidental, resulting from (a) using the word disgust to express anger with or even dislike of immoral acts and (b) the presence of incidental elements capable of eliciting disgust.

Americans and Palestinians judge spontaneous facial expressions of emotion.

The claim that certain emotions are universally recognized from facial expressions is based primarily on the study of expressions that were posed. The current study was of spontaneous facial expressions shown by aborigines in Papua New Guinea (Ekman, 1980); 17 faces claimed to convey one (or, in the case of blends, two) basic emotions and five faces claimed to show other universal feelings. For each face, participants rated the degree to which each of the 12 predicted emotions or feelings was conveyed. The modal choice for English-speaking Americans (n = 60), English-speaking Palestinians (n = 60), and Arabic-speaking Palestinians (n = 44) was the predicted label for only 4, 5, and 4, respectively, of the 17 faces for basic emotions, and for only 2, 2, and 2, respectively, of the 5 faces for other feelings. Observers endorsed the predicted emotion or feeling moderately often (65%, 55%, and 44%), but also denied it moderately often (35%, 45%, and 56%). They also endorsed more than one (or, for blends, two) label(s) in each face-on average, 2.3, 2.3, and 1.5 of basic emotions and 2.6, 2.2, and 1.5 of other feelings. There were both similarities and differences across culture and language, but the emotional meaning of a facial expression is not well captured by the predicted label(s) or, indeed, by any single label.