Moral elevation affects the causal attributions about others’ behavior

ABSTRACT

Moral elevation refers to the positive emotional response resulting from witnessing acts of virtue or moral beauty. While the evidence demonstrates that experiencing elevation has a positive effect on people’s prosocial behavior, an intriguing question is whether this emotion also affects social-cognitive processes involved in the perception of others’ behavior. The present research aims to study whether this elevation affects the causal attributions people make about the behavior of others. The results of three studies (total N = 267 adults from Spain; 79.03% women) show that a) elevation trait correlates with internal causal attributions about others’ behavior, b) experimental manipulation of elevation affects causal attributions about others’ behavior, and c) experimental manipulation of elevation can reduce correspondence bias (fundamental attributional error). The results are discussed within the framework of the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions.

KEYWORDS:

• Moral elevation
• positive emotions
• prosocial behavior
• social perception
• cognitive bias
• causal attribution
• correspondence bias

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in OSF at http://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/53FTN

Open scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badges for Open Data and Open Materials through Open Practices Disclosure. The data and materials are openly accessible at http://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/53FTN

Notes

1. In this pilot study participants (N = 173) watched several videos and rated the degree to which they had felt a series of feelings and appraisals (same as Study 3). This video’s mean score in the compound of the items relating to elevation (all except ‘amused’ and “laughter; see Table 2) was 6.63 (SD = 1.32; nine-point scale). The internal consistency of this compound was excellent (Cronbach’s α = 0.90).