Does inappropriate behavior hurt or stink? The role of pain and disgust on moral decisions

Our study aimed to elucidate if moral cognition is grounded in sensory-specific aspects of disgust or in representations of supramodal dimensions (such as valence or arousal) that we also find in other unpleasant experiences. To do so, we compared the effect of disgust and pain on moral judgement with 22 participants (Age M= 26.23, SD ± 4.88) who evaluated the appropriateness of dilemmas after seeing a cue predicting what stimulation they will get subsequently to the dilemma. This paradigm also allowed to see the effect of the appropriateness of the dilemma on the perceived unpleasantness of the following stimulation. Our hypotheses were that if moral cognition is grounded on sensory-specific aspects of disgust, expecting disgust, but not pain, should make moral judgement hasher and exposure to inappropriate conducts should enhance the subsequent experience of disgust but not of pain. On the contrary, if moral cognition is grounded on supramodal dimensions, then both pain and disgust should be associated with the same effects. Our results showed a sensory specific effect of disgust as well as a supramodal effect of the unpleasantness of the stimulus