Developmental Trend of the Effect of Disgust Emotion on Moral Judgement in Children and Adolescents

Abstract

Disgusting emotion was evolved to avoid disease infection. When the risk of contracting disease increases, people become more compliant with social rules to avoid the infection of disease. Previous studies showed that when primed with disgusting emotion (vs. neutral emotion), young adults rated moral violation behaviors more severely. In the present study, we examined the developmental trend of the influence of primed disgusting emotion on moral judgment across age groups. Participants rated either disgusting or neutral pictures and then completed a standardized moral questionnaire. Results showed that 10 and 16-year-old participants’, but not 6 or 13-year-old participants, rated the moral violations more severely when disgust primed. These findings suggest that the influence of disgusting emotion on moral judgements is not constant but varies at different developmental stages.