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Tsikandilakis M, Leong MQ, Yu Z, Paterakis G, Bali P, Derrfuss J, Mevel PA, Milbank A, Tong EMW, Madan C, Mitchell P. "Speak of the Devil… and he Shall Appear": Religiosity, Unconsciousness, and the Effects of Explicit Priming in the Misperception of Immorality. PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 2021; 86:37-65. [PMID: 33484351 DOI: 10.1007/s00426-020-01461-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/06/2020] [Accepted: 12/07/2020] [Indexed: 10/22/2022]
Abstract
Psychological theory and research suggest that religious individuals could have differences in the appraisal of immoral behaviours and cognitions compared to non-religious individuals. This effect could occur due to adherence to prescriptive and inviolate deontic religious-moral rules and socio-evolutionary factors, such as increased autonomic nervous system responsivity to indirect threat. The latter thesis has been used to suggest that immoral elicitors could be processed subliminally by religious individuals. In this manuscript, we employed masking to test this hypothesis. We rated and pre-selected IAPS images for moral impropriety. We presented these images masked with and without negatively manipulating a pre-image moral label. We measured detection, moral appraisal and discrimination, and physiological responses. We found that religious individuals experienced higher responsivity to masked immoral images. Bayesian and hit-versus-miss response analyses revealed that the differences in appraisal and physiological responses were reported only for consciously perceived immoral images. Our analysis showed that when a negative moral label was presented, religious individuals experienced the interval following the label as more physiologically arousing and responded with lower specificity for moral discrimination. We propose that religiosity involves higher conscious perceptual and physiological responsivity for discerning moral impropriety but also higher susceptibility for the misperception of immorality.
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Affiliation(s)
- Myron Tsikandilakis
- School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK.
- Medical School, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK.
| | - Man Qing Leong
- Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
| | - Zhaoliang Yu
- Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore.
| | | | - Persefoni Bali
- School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
| | - Jan Derrfuss
- School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
| | - Pierre-Alexis Mevel
- Department of Modern Languages and Cultures, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
| | - Alison Milbank
- Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
| | - Eddie M W Tong
- Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
| | | | - Peter Mitchell
- School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
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Lindhout P, Reniers G. What about nudges in the process industry? Exploring a new safety management tool. J Loss Prev Process Ind 2017. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jlp.2017.10.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/18/2022]
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