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Social transmission favours the ‘morally good’ over the ‘merely arousing’

Author

Listed:
  • Joseph M. Stubbersfield

    (University of Durham)

  • Lewis G. Dean

    (University of St. Andrews)

  • Sana Sheikh

    (University of St. Andrews
    Harvard Medical School)

  • Kevin N. Laland

    (University of St. Andrews)

  • Catharine P. Cross

    (University of St. Andrews)

Abstract

Moral stories are pervasive in human culture, forming the basis of religious texts, folklore, and newspaper articles. We used a linear transmission chain procedure to test three competing hypotheses: (1) that moral content in general is preferentially transmitted between individuals compared to non-moral content; (2) that negativity bias leads specifically to morally bad content being preferentially transmitted; and (3) that a bias towards pro-social information leads specifically to morally good content being preferentially transmitted. While we found no support for a bias for moral content in general, we did find that morally good content was transmitted with greater fidelity than neutral or morally bad content, with ratings of morally good content but not morally bad content predicting transmission. Moral content, therefore, appears to be particularly culturally potent when it describes the ‘virtuous’ rather than the ‘sinful’. A second study repeated the first but also tested the influence of physiological arousal on transmission by measuring the electrodermal activity of participants. This study also found that morally good content was transmitted with greater fidelity than neutral or morally bad content and that physiological arousal had a negative effect on transmission with more arousing material being less faithfully transmitted. These results suggest that the communication of content relating to moral virtue might serve to avoid negative impression formation and promote social bonding, and that this might partially explain the ubiquity of moral content in human culture.

Suggested Citation

  • Joseph M. Stubbersfield & Lewis G. Dean & Sana Sheikh & Kevin N. Laland & Catharine P. Cross, 2019. "Social transmission favours the ‘morally good’ over the ‘merely arousing’," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 5(1), pages 1-11, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:pal:palcom:v:5:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-019-0269-y
    DOI: 10.1057/s41599-019-0269-y
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Melissa A Wheeler & Melanie J McGrath & Nick Haslam, 2019. "Twentieth century morality: The rise and fall of moral concepts from 1900 to 2007," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(2), pages 1-12, February.
    2. M. J. Crockett, 2017. "Moral outrage in the digital age," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 1(11), pages 769-771, November.
    3. Brand, Charlotte Olivia & Acerbi, Alberto & Mesoudi, Alex, 2019. "Cultural evolution of emotional expression in 50 years of song lyrics," SocArXiv 3j6wx, Center for Open Science.
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    Cited by:

    1. Yo Nakawake & Kosuke Sato, 2019. "Systematic quantitative analyses reveal the folk-zoological knowledge embedded in folktales," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 5(1), pages 1-10, December.
    2. Lavinia Țânculescu, 2019. "“Old Church Women”: An Insight into the Less Understood and Their Contribution to the Life of the Orthodox Church," Societies, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-14, September.

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