With this semester's Social Cognition seminar coming to a close, I will be posting some musings I had. There will be a few. Comments, criticism, inquiries, and academic discussion on these topics is undoubtedly encouraged.
Embodied cognition refers to the phenomenon in which our sensorimotor sensations and
perceptions impact our cognitive processes (Fiske & Taylor). This implies
that bottom-up processing of information can impact our judgments.
Morality, in
one function, can serve to prevent people from doing something that will hurt
themselves or others.
Many morality judgments respond to disgust (Haidt). It seems as though there is an inherent embodiment of certain behaviors
that are disgusting, which in turn become moralized. That is, when stimuli
invoke feelings of disgust, we feel the need to make a morality judgment
towards that stimulus.
For example, disgust can function to keep pathogens out of our bodies (rotting flesh of animals or decomposing fruits and vegetables),
just as it functions to keep from incurring the genetic costs of inbreeding (incest avoidance; Lieberman).
For example, disgust can function to keep pathogens out of our bodies (rotting flesh of animals or decomposing fruits and vegetables),
just as it functions to keep from incurring the genetic costs of inbreeding (incest avoidance; Lieberman).
However, it seems that we don’t even need to
fully embody the disgusting act to make a morality judgment; we can see someone
engaging in a disgusting behavior and deem it immoral (e.g., bestiality).
It’s
interesting that this link between disgust and morality is so strong; do
political conservatives not gag when they think of homosexual sex, just as they
would gag when biting down on a rotten apple? (here's a softball of a study...)
any second now...they're gonna....do it.
any second now...they're gonna....do it.
Perhaps this gets at the root of
embodied cognition at its purest.
Our ability to feel empathy, to distort the divide between another person and our self, allows us to possess morality. With that same ability to empathize, we can actually sense, in our own body, the emotions being experienced by another, and disgust is just as vital of an emotion as pain in our moral compass.
Our ability to feel empathy, to distort the divide between another person and our self, allows us to possess morality. With that same ability to empathize, we can actually sense, in our own body, the emotions being experienced by another, and disgust is just as vital of an emotion as pain in our moral compass.
Embodied cognition, therefore embodied emotion, is sensorimotor input that
affects our judgments, might be responsible for the morality that is unique to
humans.
I am always amazed at how many things in life people attach morality judgments. In my limited experience in psychotherapy, everyone of my clients has had an issue or concern which directly related to something they had deemed "Right" or "Wrong," which left them to deal with some form of psychopathy, dissonance, or in other words, disgusted with themselves.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, getting a speeding ticket may be viewed as Wrong by some (especially when someone has been issued a citation for violating the posted standard), but where does morality really factor into a simple case of speeding? Furthermore, does violating a societal standard equate to being necessarily all "bad" or "Wrong?" In my opinion: hardly! Still, value judgments persist and often on a subconscious level, where people give moral judgments to all kinds of acts, thoughts, and beliefs which might more accurately viewed as either helpful or not-helpful instead of Right or Wrong.