Impact of Moral Elevation on College Students' Sense of Meaning of Life: The Mediating Roles of Gratitude and Perceived Social Support

Purpose

The current study examined the association between moral elevation and college students' sense of meaning of life, along with the potential mediating effects of gratitude and perceived social support on this relationship.

Methods

Using the convenience sampling method, the Moral Elevation Scale, the Sense of Meaning of Life Questionnaire, the Gratitude Questionnaire, and the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support were used to conduct questionnaire surveys on 1088 college students (Mage=19.59 years, SD=1.46). SPSS25.0 data statistics software was used to analyze the data, and the PROCESS macro for SPSS was used to conduct the mediation effect test.

Results

(1) Moral elevation was significantly and positively associated with college students' sense of meaning of life (β = 0.43,p < 0.001). (2) Both gratitude and perceived social support partially mediated the relation between moral elevation and sense of meaning of life. The indirect effect of moral elevation on sense of meaning of life via gratitude was 0.11 (95% CI = [0.0709, 0.1453]), and the mediating effect accounted for 52.71%. The indirect effect of moral elevation on sense of meaning of life via perceived social support was 0.06 (95% CI = [0.0385, 0.0863]), and the mediating effect accounted for 29.41%. (3) Gratitude and perceived social support sequentially mediated the association between moral elevation and sense of meaning of life, the indirect effect through gratitude and perceived social support was 0.04 (95% CI = [0.0237, 0.0512]) and accounted for 17.88%.

Conclusion

This study revealed the chain mediating roles of gratitude and perceived social support in the relation between moral elevation and sense of meaning of life for Chinese college students, which is of great theoretical and practical significance for the formation of a positive sense of meaning of life and the cultivation of moral elevation among college students.

Biopsychosocial Correlates and Individual Differences for Eliciting Moral Elevation in Veterans With PTSD: An Experimental Case Series

ABSTRACT

A promising approach to enhancing trauma-focused treatment is moral elevation-feeling inspired by witnessing a virtuous act. This study explored potential links between eliciting elevation and relevant outcomes in a series of case examples. Veterans with probable posttraumatic stress disorder completed experimental tasks including a written trauma narrative exercise and watching elevation-eliciting videos. Participants also completed baseline assessments, repeated measures of trauma-related cognitions, emotions, elevation, and saliva sample collection. Four cases were identified and reviewed: two positive responders (high elevation after videos) and two nonresponders (restricted elevation response). Positive responder cases reported decreased cognitions, emotions, and moral injury distress from after the trauma narrative to after elevation exercises, whereas nonresponders reported minimal to no changes. Positive responders also demonstrated decreases in cortisol, whereas nonresponders demonstrated increases in cortisol. Future work should examine whether elevation contributes to changes in biopsychosocial outcomes and identify individual factors that indicate who might benefit from elevation-based interventions.

The war next-door-A pilot study on Romanian adolescents' psychological reactions to potentially traumatic experiences generated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Introduction

Romania shares the longest UE border with Ukraine, and since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, many have been involved in helping the refugees. Consequently, children and adolescents might be directly and indirectly exposed to war-related trauma. In the present exploratory research, we investigated Romanian adolescents' potential risk and protective factors related to the psychological outcomes of war exposure. Our cross-sectional study was conducted shortly after February 24th (i.e., the first invasion day).

Methods

The sample included 90 Romanian adolescents aged 11 to 15 (M = 12.90, SD = 1.17), residents in Iași, Romania (i.e., 205,7 km from the Ukrainian border). Participants completed self-reported measures of peritraumatic dissociative experiences, knowledge about the conflict in Ukraine, personal, school, and family implications in volunteering/helping behavior, discussions about the conflict, threat perception (self and perceived parental threat), anxiety, social media engagement, resilience, and moral elevation.

Results

The main findings suggested that participants involved in helping behaviors toward Ukrainian refugees present higher peritraumatic dissociative experiences, anxiety symptoms, and higher moral elevation than boys and participants not involved in these behaviors. Moreover, anxiety symptoms were positively associated with threat perception, peritraumatic dissociation, and social media engagement and negatively related to resilience.

Discussions

Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings concerning their practical utility in managing peritraumatic exposure to war by using interventions designed to increase adolescents' resilience during difficult times.

Development and Validation of the State Moral Elevation Scale: Assessing State-Level Elevation Across Nonclinical and Clinical Samples

Research on moral elevation has steadily increased and identified several psychosocial benefits that bear relevance to both the general population and people with psychological distress. However, elevation measurement is inconsistent, and few state-level measures have been created and critically evaluated to date. To address this gap, the State Moral Elevation Scale (SMES) was developed and tested using an online sample (N = 930) including subsamples of general participants (nonclinical) and those who screened positive for mental health symptoms (clinical). Factor analysis indicated a single factor structure with nine items that demonstrated excellent reliability. Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis indicated good fit statistics and strict measurement invariance across clinical and nonclinical subsamples. Lastly, correlational analyses with related constructs provided evidence of construct validity for both subsamples. Thus, the SMES is a psychometrically valid and reliable assessment tool for state-level elevation which can be used in both general and clinical populations.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10902-022-00533-2.

Changes in Trauma-Related Cognitions and Emotions After Eliciting Moral Elevation: Examining the Effects of Viewing Others' Virtuous Behavior on Veterans with PTSD

Moral elevation is described as feeling inspired after witnessing someone perform a virtuous act. Past work suggests the features of moral elevation may be contrary to PTSD, yet few studies have directly tested its impact on relevant symptoms. This experimental study assessed changes in trauma-related cognitions and emotions from after a trauma reminder task to after an elevation induction exercise. We hypothesized that higher elevation after the induction exercise would be associated with greater reductions in cognitions and emotions. Veterans with probable PTSD (N = 38) completed measures of trauma-related cognitions and emotions, once after a written trauma narrative exercise (T1) and again after watching two videos designed to elicit elevation (T2). Veterans also completed measures of state elevation after each video. Results suggest veterans experienced small, significant decreases in self-blame (d = 0.36) and negative beliefs about others (d = 0.46), and medium, significant decreases in guilt (d = 0.68), shame (d = 0.60), and negative beliefs about self (d = 0.69) between T1 and T2. As hypothesized, higher elevation was associated with significantly greater reductions in multiple outcomes above and beyond the effects of general positive affect. Specifically, there were medium effects for changes in shame (β = -0.42, SE = 0.17, p = .019, Δf ² = 0.25), negative view of others (β = -0.34, SE = 0.16, p = .044, Δf ² = 0.20), and a large effect for changes in negative view of self (β = -0.31, SE = 0.13, p = .019, Δf ² = 0.54). These findings suggest elevation may be well-suited to target trauma-related symptoms and future research should further examine its clinical utility.

SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT EARLY IN THE U.S. COVID-19 CRISIS: EXPLORING SOCIAL SUPPORT AND PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR BETWEEN THOSE WITH AND WITHOUT DEPRESSION OR ANXIETY IN AN ONLINE SAMPLE

Introduction

Social distancing and sheltering-in-place mitigate the physical health risks of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19); however, there are concerns about the impact on mental health and social engagement.

Methods

We used data from a U.S.-based online survey (March 2020) to examine patterns of social support and prosocial behavior, explore differences between people with and without depression or anxiety, and explore correlates of social engagement in both groups, including symptom severity in the clinical group.

Results

The clinical group reported greater social engagement. In both groups, social engagement was positively associated with COVID-19-related worry and trait moral elevation; mindfulness was positively associated with all outcomes for the clinical group only. Social interaction frequency had little influence on outcomes. Depressive symptom severity was positively associated with all outcomes, whereas anxiety was negatively associated with prosocial behavior.

Discussion

These findings highlight how social engagement was experienced early in the U.S. COVID-19 crisis.

Moral Elevation and Moral Beauty: A Review of the Empirical Literature

Moral elevation is defined as the emotional response to witnessing acts of moral beauty. Studies have found that elevation entails pleasant feelings of warmth in the chest, feeling uplifted, moved, and optimistic about humanity. Elevation motivates affiliation with others as well as moral action tendencies. The main goal of this review was to gather and organize the empirical findings from the last 16 years of elevation research with regard to psychological and physiological characteristics, motivational tendencies, behavioral outcomes, neuronal mechanisms, moderators, and correlates of elevation. A secondary goal was to examine whether elevation is congruent with Fredrickson's (2001) broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. It was concluded that there is strong evidence that elevation broadens the thought-action repertoire and relatively weak evidence that it builds lasting resources. Potential evolutionary functions, the forms of measurement of elevation, the process of how elevation is triggered, practical applications and directions for future research were also addressed.

Beyond Dominance and Competence: A Moral Virtue Theory of Status Attainment

Recognition has grown that moral behavior (e.g., generosity) plays a role in status attainment, yet it remains unclear how, why, and when demonstrating moral characteristics enhances status. Drawing on philosophy, anthropology, psychology, and organizational behavior, I critically review a third route to attaining status: virtue, and propose a moral virtue theory of status attainment to provide a generalized account of the role of morality in status attainment. The moral virtue theory posits that acts of virtue elicit feelings of warmth and admiration (for virtue), and willing deference, toward the virtuous actor. I further consider how the scope and priority of moralities and virtues endorsed by a moral community are bound by culture and social class to affect which moral characteristics enhance status. I end by outlining an agenda for future research into the role of virtue in status attainment.

Does Worrying Mean Caring Too Much? Interpersonal Prototypicality of Dimensional Worry Controlling for Social Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms

Worry, social anxiety, and depressive symptoms are dimensions that have each been linked to heterogeneous problems in interpersonal functioning. However, the relationships between these symptoms and interpersonal difficulties remain unclear given that most studies have examined diagnostic categories, not accounted for symptoms' shared variability due to general distress, and investigated only interpersonal problems (neglecting interpersonal traits, interpersonal goals, social behavior in daily life, and reports of significant others). To address these issues, students (Study 1; N=282) endorsed symptoms and interpersonal circumplex measures of traits and problems, as well as event-contingent social behaviors during one week of naturalistic daily interactions (N=184; 7,036 records). Additionally, depressed and anxious patients (N=47) reported symptoms and interpersonal goals in a dyadic relationship, and significant others rated patients' interpersonal goals and impact (Study 2). We derived hypotheses about prototypical interpersonal features from theories about the functions of particular symptoms and social behaviors. As expected, worry was uniquely associated with prototypically affiliative tendencies across all self-report measures in both samples, but predicted impacting significant others in unaffiliative ways. As also hypothesized, social anxiety was uniquely and prototypically associated with low dominance across measures, and general distress was associated with cold-submissive tendencies. Findings for depressive symptoms provided less consistent evidence for unique prototypical interpersonal features. Overall, results suggest the importance of multimethod assessment and accounting for general distress in interpersonal models of worry, social anxiety, and depressive symptoms.

The Role of Moral Emotions in Military Trauma: Implications for the Study and Treatment of Moral Injury

Moral injury, a term coined to represent the potential negative outcomes following transgression of deeply held moral values and beliefs, has recently gained increased recognition as a major concern among military service members exposed to trauma. However, working definitions of moral injury have not yet fully clarified the mechanisms whereby violations of conscience result in these outcomes or their co-occurrence with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In this paper, advances from the field of moral psychology are used to integrate cognitive, affective, and social dimensions of the emerging moral injury construct, while also pointing to new possibilities for clinical intervention. After reviewing the salience of moral injury for military and veteran populations, the presence of negative moral emotions (e.g., guilt, anger, disgust) are examined within the context of trauma and military-related PTSD. Next, social functionalist accounts of moral emotions are used to explain the development of moral injury and are linked to potential etiologies of PTSD that emphasize both fear and nonfear emotions. Finally, the clinical importance of positive moral emotions for existing and emerging trauma-focused interventions is discussed. Future directions for research and clinical interventions are identified highlighting the importance of utilizing community support.