Author

Steven Nydick

Degree Type

Honors Capstone Project

Date of Submission

Spring 5-1-2007

Capstone Advisor

Dr. Larry Lewandowski

Honors Reader

Dr. Brian Martens

Capstone Major

Psychology

Capstone College

Arts and Science

Audio/Visual Component

no

Capstone Prize Winner

no

Won Capstone Funding

no

Honors Categories

Social Sciences

Subject Categories

Other Psychology | Psychology | Social Psychology

Abstract

With regard to moral judgments. Lawrence Kohlberg claimed that reason and logic lead to answers about right and wrong. By contrast, Jonathan Haidt proposed an “emotivist” theory of morality in which feelings take center stage. I tested Haidt’s theory of moral judgment by showing 59 college undergraduate participants an abortion video while instructing them to increase, decrease, or make no attempt to change their level of emotion during the video. I found that the video succeeded at both increasing negative emotions (particularly disgust) and changing abortion attitudes to a more pro-life stance. Furthermore, the moral views of participants asked to down-regulate emotions by viewing the video analytically were less affected by the video. Implications and methodological problems are discussed.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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