Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 45 (2009) 155160

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Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

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Reports

Pursuing moral outrage: Anger at torture

C. Daniel Batson *, Mary C. Chao, Jeffery M. Givens
University of Kansas, Kansas 66045, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Moral outrageanger at violation of a moral standardshould be distinguished from anger at the harm
Received 17 April 2008 caused by standard-violating behavior. Recent research that used experimental manipulation to disentan-
Revised 28 July 2008 gle these different forms of anger found evidence of personal and empathic anger, but not of moral outrage.
Available online 19 August 2008
We sought to extend this research by assessing anger at a more extreme moral violation: torture. If the per-
son tortured is a member of ones group (nationality), anger may not be over the moral violation but over the
Keywords: harm done to one of us. In an experiment designed to create the necessary appraisal conditions, we found
Moral outrage
clear evidence of identity-relevant personal anger (anger when a person from ones nationality is tortured)
Identity-relevant personal anger
Moral emotion
but little evidence of moral outrage (anger even when a person from an identity-irrelevant nationality is tor-
tured). Implications for understanding moral emotion and moral motivation are discussed.
2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Here are initial reactions of four U.S. undergraduates after read-
ing a graphic account (actually ctitious) of the torture of a U.S.
Marine.
I felt upset and mad.
I understand they had a job to do but that [the specic torture]
disgusts me, and the use of torture wasnt even authorized.
Thats just sick.
Made me angry more than anything... No one has to torture
anyone or anything else. Its simply a cruel and awful way of
gaining information.
I think it is terrible that people actually do things like this.
Those angered by reports of torture have been described as feel-
ing moral outrage. Moral outrage can be dened as anger provoked
by the perception that a moral standard or principle has been vio-
lated (Batson et al., 2007; Hoffman, 2000; Montada & Schneider,
1989). Such outrage is considered a prevalent and powerfuleven
prototypicalmoral emotion (Haidt, 2003). It is assumed to be a
potent source of moral motivation, prompting efforts to uphold
and reafrm moral standards either by compensating victims or
by punishing standard violators (Carlsmith, Darley, & Robinson,
2002; Darley, 2002; Darley & Pittman, 2003; de Rivera, Gerstmann,
& Maisels, 2002; de Waal, 1996; Haidt, 2003; Mikula, Scherer, &
Athenstaedt, 1998; Schmitt & Maes, 1998; Solomon, 1990; Tetlock,
Kristel, Elson, Green, & Lerner, 2000).
Distinguishing moral outrage from other forms of anger
Does, however, anger felt after learning about an act of torture
deserve the label moral outrage? As Batson et al. (2007) pointed
* Corresponding author. Address: 7917 Woodland Brac, Knoxville, TN 37919, USA.
E-mail address: dbatson@ku.edu (C.D. Batson).
out when considering anger provoked by unfair treatment, it is
important to distinguish moral outrage from personal angerthe
kind of anger one might feel when undeservedly harmed. Even
when an immoral act harms someone else, distinctions are needed.
If one cares for the other, the anger one feels may be empathic an-
ger (anger at undeserved harm to a cared-for other) rather than
moral outrage (Hoffman, 2000).
These different emotional reactions to the violation of moral
standards may all be expressedeven experiencedsimply as an-
ger. Still, from an appraisal-theory perspective on emotions (Ar-
nold, 1960; Frijda, 1988; Rosenman, 1984; Scherer, 1984; Smith
& Ellsworth, 1987), these forms of anger are importantly if subtly
different because they are evoked by different cognitive appraisals
of the situation and, as a result, produce different motivational
consequences. The appraisal producing moral outrage is that a
moral standard or principle (e.g., Do unto others, Do no harm)
has been violated, and the resulting motive is to re-establish the
standard. The appraisal evoking personal anger is that I have been
undeservedly harmed, and the resulting motive is to undo the
harm and/or punish the harm-doer. The appraisal evoking em-
pathic anger is that a person for whom I care has been undeserv-
edly harmed, and the resulting motive is, again, to undo the
harm and/or punish the harm-doer. Given these differences, Batson
et al. (2007) argued that neither personal anger nor empathic anger
should be considered a moral emotion or a source of moral motiva-
tion. These two forms of anger may motivate action described as
moral (e.g., punishing the standard-violator), but the goal is not
to uphold a moral standard; it is to protect ones own or the
cared-for others interests.
These three forms of anger cannot be distinguished by relying
on self-reports alone. All three are likely to lead to reports of anger
or outrage, even moral anger or outrage. However, it is possible to

0022-1031/$ - see front matter 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2008.07.017
156 C.D. Batson et al. / Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 45 (2009) 155160
distinguish among them by experimentally manipulating condi-
tions relevant to the different appraisals (immoral treatment of
self, of a cared-for other, and of an unknown other) and observing
the resulting pattern of self-reported anger. In two experiments
designed to do this, Batson et al. (2007) found evidence of personal
anger and empathic anger, but not of moral outrage. Participants
perceived unfair treatment of anothereven another for whom
they had not been induced to feel empathic concernto be as un-
fair and immoral as they perceived unfair treatment of themselves.
But in the absence of empathic concern, unfair treatment of an-
other evoked little anger. Anger was triggered by unfair treatment
of self or a cared-for other, not by unfairness per se. These results
suggest that at least some emotion thought moral actually is not.
What has been thought to be moral outrage may instead be per-
sonal or empathic anger.
This suggestion should not, however, be accepted too quickly. In
their experiments, Batson et al. (2007) had undergraduates witness
a relatively minor example of unfair treatment: another research
participant took advantage of an opportunity to gain unearned
self-benets at someone elses expense. This action violated well-
known distributive-justice standards of equality and equity, and
research participants perceived it to be both unfair and immoral.
Still, the harm was not extreme. No explicit rulesand certainly
no lawswere broken. The same concern applies to similar nd-
ings in the research of Gordijn, Wigboldus, and Yzerbyt (2001)
and Yzerbyt, Dumont, Wigboldus, and Gordijn (2003), in which
students learned of an academic policy change that affected not
themselves but other students whom they had been led to perceive
either as in-group or as out-group. Perhaps if the consequences
were more extreme, or if the moral standard were more funda-
mental and intuitive (Haidt, 2001), there would be more evidence
of moral outrage.
Turning to torture
To explore this possibility, we turned to torture. Although few of
us have suffered the agony and humiliation of torture, the distinc-
tion between moral outrage and personal anger still seems relevant.
Hearing about torture of another member of a group of which we are
members may produce a less direct form of personal anger. As so-
cial-identity theorists have long pointed out, we have a stake in
what happens to other people in our group, especially a group with
which we identify (Tajfel, 1981; Tajfel & Turner, 1986). Anger at
harm done to one of useven if not to oneself or to a known
and cared-for othermight be called identity-relevant personal anger
(it might also be called anger at harm to someone from a common
groupYzerbyt et al., 2003). Reading about the torture of a U.S.
Marine, as did the undergraduates quoted at the outset, may not
evoke direct personal anger or empathic anger. But in these U.S. cit-
izens, it may evoke identity-relevant personal anger.
Like direct personal anger and empathic anger, identity-rele-
vant personal anger may be called moral outrage to give it legiti-
macy and rhetorical power. Yet, such anger should probably not
be considered a moral emotion or a source of moral motivation.
It may motivate action described as moral (e.g., tracking down
and punishing the torturer), but the goal may not be to uphold a
moral standard so much as to protect the interests of ones group
(Lickel, Miller, Stenstrom, Denson, & Schmader, 2006).
The present research
Building on this reasoningand on the method introduced by
Batson et al. (2007) for differentiating moral outrage from other
forms of anger through manipulation of appraisal conditionswe
conducted an experiment in which U.S. university students were
presented with a news story (actually ctitious) describing a case
of torture. For half the participants, the person tortured was a
U.S. Marine (identity-relevant); for half, a Sri Lankan soldier (iden-
tity-irrelevant). Participants were then asked to report (a) their
emotional response, including feelings of anger, and (b) whether
the torture was morally wrong.
To assess both generality of the emotional reaction and nature
of the moral proscription against torture, we also varied conse-
quences of the torture (saved only property vs. saved lives). From
the perspective of standards such as the Golden Rule, do no
harm, the sanctity of human life, and treating persons as Ends
not Means, torture is always immoral. Such standards are categor-
ical (or deontologicalKant, 1785/1898; Rawls, 1971). The Geneva
Conventions and the U.N. Convention Against Torture appeal to
categorical standards in outlawing torture regardless of circum-
stance. If our participants embraced such standards, they should
perceive the torture to be wrong even when it saves lives. Alterna-
tively, from the perspective of a Utilitarian standard of the great-
est good for the greatest number, torture may at times be judged
moralif, for example, torture of one prevents the death of many.
Such a standard is conditional (or consequentialistMill, 1861/
1987). Recently, the U.S. government seems to have adopted a con-
ditional standard against torture (relabeled harsh interrogation
techniques). If our participants embraced a conditional standard,
they might perceive the torture to be less wrongand so feel less
moral outrageif it saves lives than if it saves only property.
Predictions
If participants perceive torture to be morally wrong regardless
whether it saves only property or saves lives, reports of high anger
in both the identity-relevant and identity-irrelevant conditions
would provide evidence of moral outrage (i.e., anger at the viola-
tion of moral standards per se). Reports of high anger in the iden-
tity-relevant conditions but low anger in the identity-irrelevant
conditions would provide evidence of identity-relevant personal
anger (i.e., anger at torture of one of us). If participants perceived
torture to be morally acceptable if it saves lives, the foregoing pre-
dictions would be limited to the saved-only-property conditions.
Identity-relevant personal anger might appear when a U.S. Marine
was tortured even to save lives, but there would be no reason to
expect moral outrage.
Method
Participants
Participants in our experiment were 48 introductory psychol-
ogy students at the University of Kansas during the fall semester,
2006, when insurgent activity in Iraq was high. They participated
as part of a course research requirement. Using a randomized block
procedure (blocking on both gender and experimental condition),
we assigned 12 participants (6 men, 6 women) to each condition
of the 2 (identity-relevant; identity-irrelevant)  2 (saved only
property; saved lives) design. One additional woman (identity-
irrelevant/saved-lives condition) was dropped from the design
and replaced because during debrieng she expressed doubts
about the veracity of the news story. We kept gender of participant
and experimenter the same to minimize cross-gender self-presen-
tation concerns (Jones & Pittman, 1982).
Procedure
Participation was by individual appointment. On arrival, partic-
ipants were greeted by a same-sex experimenter, escorted to a re-
 C.D. Batson et al. / Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 45 (2009) 155160
search cubicle, seated at a desk, and informed that the study con-
cerned reactions to newspaper articles reporting violent acts. After
having participants select a number from 1 to 10 to determine
which of the available articles they would evaluate, the experi-
menter left them alone to read a written introduction. The intro-
duction explained the purpose of the study as follows:
Unfortunately, violence and brutality are facts of modern life.
Reporters are faced with writing about cases of child abuse,
domestic violence, mistreatment of animals, torture, rapethe
list seems endless. Most people agree that newspapers should
cover these events, but how is it best done? What level of gra-
phic detail is appropriate?... In this study, you will be randomly
assigned a newspaper story to read that covers a violent or bru-
tal act. Then you will be asked to report the thoughts and feel-
ings it evokes in you.
The introduction also explained that the stories used in the
study comprised
A carefully selected sample of 10 stories covering violent or bru-
tal acts, all of which have two features. First, each story has
been checked and found to be factually accurate. Second, each
story has not been published in the U.S. The reason for using
unpublished stories is that it is important to get initial reactions
to the stories.
Finally, the introduction cautioned participants about the possi-
bility that they could nd the assigned story upsetting.
All the articles have been screened and considered acceptable
for a general adult readership. However, different individuals
will react differently to any given story. Should you nd the
story you are given too upsetting, you should stop reading
immediately and inform the experimenter that you do not wish
to read any more. To stop is entirely acceptable, and you will in
no way be penalized for doing so.
Unknown to participants, the story they randomly chose to
read was always the same ctitious account of torture. The elabo-
rate cover story about how newspapers should report violence and
brutality was used, rst, to convince participants that the torture
actually occurred and, second, to prevent them from realizing that
the research was specically about reactions to torture, a realiza-
tion we feared might produce scripted responses.
Once participants nished reading the introduction, the exper-
imenter returned, answered any questions, produced a folder
with the number from 1 to 10 the participant had previously se-
lected, and explained that the folder contained the article he or
she had chosen to read. The experimenter also placed a feelings
questionnaire face down on the desk; it was to be turned over
and completed only after the participant had read the article. Par-
ticipants were left alone to read the article and complete the
questionnaire.
Reading about a case of torture
For participants randomly assigned to the identity-relevant/
saved-only-property condition, the article carried the headline
Torture Produces Information, Prevents Destruction. It read:
Baghdad, IraqAl Qaida in Iraq militants have admitted tortur-
ing a U.S. Marine to gain information last Saturday. The informa-
tion prevented destruction of an al Qaida in Iraq stronghold in
the volatile Anbar province west of Baghdad. The information
led to location and defusing of a bomb planted inside the strong-
hold building by commandos. Defusing occurred less than
5 minutes before the bomb would have exploded, completely
destroying the building. No one would have been killed because
the building was unoccupied at the time.
157
We knew he had information about a planned bombing, said
the militant commander who ordered the interrogation. We
tried to get it without using torture, but he wouldnt cooperate.
So we used extreme measures. Further questioning revealed
that the extreme measures used were, rst, a severe beating
that broke the captives jaw and right arm, then waterboard-
ing (being tied to a plank and submerged in a tank of water
until almost drowned), and nally, ripping off three of the cap-
tives ngernails with pliers. He was tough, but the ngernails
did it. After three, he was begging us to stop. He talked. We got
the information just in time.
When asked whether the use of torture was authorized, the
commander replied, No, not really. But were expected to get
resultsand we did. Its not what we want to do; its what we
have to do.
For participants in the identity-relevant/saved-lives condition,
the article carried the headline Torture Produces Information, Pre-
vents Destruction and Deaths. Content of the article was identical
to that above except that (a) in the second sentence of the rst par-
agraph, we added and the death of eight militants following
stronghold, and (b) we replaced the last sentence of the rst par-
agraph with one that read: Eight militants were inside the build-
ing at the time and would have been killed.
For participants in the two identity-irrelevant conditions (saved
only property; saved lives), the headlines were the same as those
above. However, the by-line of the article was changed to Colum-
bo, Sri Lanka. The content of the article in the saved-only-property
and saved-lives conditions was identical to that above, except the
torture was by Tamil rebels of a Sri Lankan soldier to prevent
the destruction of a Tamil stronghold in the volatile Bangar prov-
ince east of Columbo, and the quotes were from the rebel com-
mander. (We chose a Sri Lankan soldier as our identity-
irrelevant victim because we wished to parallel the situation of
our identity-relevant victim in all respects except the absence of
any national or other identity ties.) The experimenter was kept
unaware of which version of the article each participant received
until all measures had been taken.
Anger after reading about the case of torture
After reading the article, participants completed the feelings
questionnaire. First, consistent with the cover story, participants
were asked to write a few sentences describing your initial feel-
ings and thoughts about the events reported in the article you
read. Then, on the next page, they were provided with a list
of adjectives describing different feelings and emotions. Partici-
pants were asked to indicate by circling a number the degree
to which you are feeling each of these emotional reactions as
a result of reading the article (1 = not at all, 7 = extremely).
Intermixed with ller adjectives (e.g., shocked, confused, satised,
indifferent) were six adjectives used to assess feelings of anger
and outrage (e.g., angry, offended, outraged, mad, perturbed, and
indignant).
Assessing the immorality of the torture
After completion of the feelings questionnaire, the experi-
menter returned, collected it and the article, and left participants
alone to complete a thoughts questionnaire. On this questionnaire,
participants were rst asked to describe in their own words the
brutality (violence) reported in the article they read. This item
was included both to conrm that the torture was perceived to
be brutal and violent, which it was by all participants, and to make
sure that the subsequent questions referring to brutality (consis-
tent with the cover story) were answered with regard to the tor-
ture. Next, to assess whether participants judged the specic
instance of torture they read about to be morally wrong, they were
158 C.D. Batson et al. / Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 45 (2009) 155160
asked, Do you think this brutality was morally wrong? (1 = Not at
all, 9 = Yes, totally). Only if participants judged the torture to be
wrong should it have the potential to provoke moral outrage. (In
addition to the possibility of employing a conditional moral stan-
dard, our participants might exclude from their moral community
anyone with whom they had no identity connectionOpotow,
1990; Staub, 1990and therefore judge the torture of a Sri Lankan
soldier less wrong than torture of a U.S. Marine.)
Other items on the thoughts questionnaire assessed attitudes
about whether articles like the one read should be published in
the U.S. and questions about brutality and violence in general. Fi-
nally, participants completed a background information question-
naire, providing information about place of birth and citizenship
(we included only U.S.-born citizens in our sample), religious afl-
iation and interest, political afliation, and political liberalism-con-
servatism. The feelings questionnaire was given before the
thoughts questionnaire to avoid possible demand (Orne, 1962) that
might arise from answering questions about the morality of the
torture prior to reporting ones emotional response.
Debrieng
After participants completed the questionnaires, the experi-
menter returned and interviewed them about their reaction to
the article. This interview involved a careful probing for possi-
ble distress and suspicion, followed by a full debrieng in
which the true purpose of the research and all deceptions were
revealed. Many participants reported being surprised by the
graphic content of the article, but none indicated a desire to
stop reading. After debrieng, most expressed relief at learning
that the torture described in the article had not actually taken
place. Participants seemed readily to understand the need for
deception used in the research, and none appeared upset by
it. Once debriefed, participants were thanked for their time
and excused.
Results
Effects of gender and of religious and political attitudes
Preliminary analyses revealed a signicant main effect of gen-
der on the morally-wrong item, F(1, 40) = 4.31, p < .05, but no inter-
action of gender with either experimental manipulation. Women
said the torture was more morally wrong (M = 8.08 on the 19
scale) than did men (M = 6.96). There was no reliable effect of gen-
der, either main effect or interaction, on reported anger, all Fs > 2.0.
Given that the one gender difference was a main effect and did not
qualify effects of the experimental manipulations, all reported
analyses are collapsed across gender. There were no reliable asso-
ciations of religious afliation, religious interest, political aflia-
tion, or political liberalism-conservatism either with judgments
of how morally wrong the torture was or with reported anger.
(For convenience, all statistical tests are reported two-tailed, even
for directional predictions.)
Immorality of the torture
Mean response to the morally-wrong item in each of the four
experimental conditions is reported in the rst column of Table
1. Participants in each condition judged the brutality (i.e., torture)
to be quite wrong, overall M = 7.52 on the 19 scale, with no reli-
able differences across conditions (all Fs < 1.70, all ps > .20). Indi-
cating a universal, categorical standard, torture of a Sri Lankan
soldier was clearly thought wrong (M = 7.42), much like torture
of a U.S. Marine (M = 7.63), F(1, 44) = 0.14, p > .70; so was torture
Table 1
Judgment of moral wrong and reported anger in each experimental condition after
reading about a case of torture
Experimental condition Measure
Moral wrong Anger
Identity-relevant (U.S. Marine)
Saved only property 7.83 4.28
Saved lives 7.42 4.06
Identity-irrelevant (Sri Lankan soldier)
Saved only property 6.92 2.68
Saved lives 7.92 2.89
Note: N = 48 (6 men and 6 women in each experimental condition). Moral wrong
was assessed by the question, Do you think this brutality was morally wrong?
(1 = Not at all, 9 = Yes, totally). Anger was assessed by a 6-item anger index (1 = not
at all, 7 = extremely).
to save lives (M = 7.67) as well as to save only property
(M = 7.39), F(1, 44) = 0.28, p > .60.
Anger at the torture
To assess anger felt after reading about the torture, we created
an index by averaging responses to the six anger adjectives on the
emotional reaction questionnaire: angry, offended, outraged, mad,
perturbed, and indignant (Cronbachs a = .90). Mean score on this
anger index in each condition is reported in the second column
of Table 1. As can be seen, participants were far more likely to re-
port anger after reading about torture of a U.S. Marine (M = 4.17 on
the 17 scale) than after reading about torture of a Sri Lankan sol-
dier (M = 2.78). This identity-relevance main effect was highly sig-
nicant, F(1, 44) = 14.46, p < .0005. Neither the consequences main
effect nor the interaction approached signicance, both Fs < 1.0. A
2 (identity-relevance)  2 (consequences)  2 (measure: morally
wrong; angerboth standardized) mixed-model analysis of vari-
ance produced a signicant Identity-Relevance  Measure interac-
tion, F(1, 44) = 6.56, p < .02, reecting the fact that the torture was
judged morally wrong in all conditions, but anger was higher in the
identity-relevant than in the identity-irrelevant conditions.
The identity-relevance main effect on anger, coupled with judg-
ment that the torture was morally wrong in all conditions, sug-
gested that the anger our participants expressed was not moral
outrage at the violation of their moral standards proscribing tor-
ture. Only when the victim of torture was a U.S. Marine did it pro-
voke much anger, suggesting that the reported anger was identity-
relevant personal angeranger evoked by harm done to one of
us.
Correlations of the morally-wrong item with reported anger
Providing additional evidence that our participants anger was
not moral outrage, the correlation between the morally-wrong
item and scores on the anger index was rather weak, r(46) = .24,
p > .05. Further, a covariance analysis in which effects of judged
immorality of the torture were removed did not noticeably reduce
the effect of identity-relevance on anger, F(1, 43) = 14.24, p < .0005.
Discussion
Moral outrage, dened as anger evoked by the violation of a
moral standard or principle, has been assumed to be a prevalent
and powerfuleven prototypicalmoral emotion and, as such, an
important source of moral motivation. However, when the relevant
appraisal conditions were experimentally manipulated, Batson
et al. (2007) found clear evidence of personal and empathic anger,
but not of moral outrage. This nding raised the possibility that
 C.D. Batson et al. / Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 45 (2009) 155160
what are called moral emotions may, at least in some cases, have
been mislabeled. Rather than being evoked by violation of a moral
standard, these emotions may be evoked by the consequences of
the standard-violating behavior for oneself or for those one cares
about.
Perhaps, however, the lack of evidence for moral outrage found
by Batson et al. (2007) was an artifact of the specic moral viola-
tion employed in their experiments: One research participant un-
fairly took advantage of an opportunity for personal gain at the
expense of another. Perhaps the consequences of the moral viola-
tion were not severe enoughor the standards violated not dear
enoughto evoke moral outrage.
A more extreme moral violation: Torture
To explore this possibility, we confronted research participants
with a case of torture, manipulating the appraisal conditions for
moral outrage and identity-relevant personal anger. Paralleling
what Batson et al. (2007) had found in response to unfairness,
we found that torture of a U.S. Marine, with whom our participants
shared national identity, produced considerable anger. The same
torture of a Sri Lankan soldier, with whom our participants had
no identity ties, produced much less anger. Importantly, this differ-
ence in anger occurred even though in both cases the torture was
clearly judged to be morally wrong. We interpret the greater anger
at torture of a U.S. Marine than a Sri Lankan soldier as evidence of
identity-relevant personal angeri.e., anger at harm done to a
group memberrather than moral outrage.
Should we now conclude that moral outrage does not exist?
Such a conclusion would be premature for several reasons. First,
only two moral violations have been examined in the research to
date, ticket taking and torture. Other violations may evoke moral
outrage. Second, we may actually have seen some evidence of mor-
al outrage in our experiment. The anger reported after reading
about torture of a Sri Lankan soldier was comparatively low
(M = 2.78), but it was not at the bottom of the 17 scale. Without
knowing the level of ambient anger reported in a condition with
a parallel story in which no torture or other moral violation oc-
curred (we were unable to think of a plausible way to create such
a condition), we cannot rule out the possibility that some of the
lower level of anger reported in the identity-irrelevant conditions
was moral outrage. Accepting this possibility, it is important to rec-
ognize that moral outrage, if present at all, was comparatively
weak and not reliably related to judgments of how morally wrong
the torture was. It is also important to recognize that without data
from the identity-irrelevant condition, all of the considerable anger
reported after reading about torture of a U.S. Marine might have
been (mis)labeled as moral outrage.
Third, perhaps participants in the identity-irrelevant condition
felt moral outrage at the torture but also felt that because they
had no stake in the Sri Lankan conict, they lacked the psycholog-
ical standing to express this outrage. If so, their inhibition was
quite different from the behavioral inhibition due to lack of stand-
ing studied by Ratner and Miller (2001). Our participants inhibi-
tion would have to be of emotional expression rather than of
behavior. Moreover, it would have to not extend to moral judg-
ment. Participants in the identity-irrelevant condition clearly felt
they had sufcient standing to judge the torture morally wrong,
which should give them a moral stake and, thereby, psychological
standing (Miller, Effron, & Zak, in press). Although possible, a pat-
tern of inhibition that allows one to express moral judgment but
not moral emotion strikes us as implausible.
Fourth, perhaps our expectation that moral outrage should oc-
cur whenever a moral standard is violated is too stringent. Perhaps
people apply their standards broadlyeven universallywhen
making moral judgments, but they experience anger at violations
159
narrowlyonly when the violation affects them or someone they
care about. Such conditional moral outrage would pattern precisely
as a combination of personal (including identity-relevant) anger
and empathic anger. Empirically distinguishing these two patterns
would seem to require examination of the motivation (action ten-
dencies) evoked by the anger: to re-establish the standard or to
protect ones own or the cared-for others interests. Alternatively,
expressions of anger might be compared when ones own or a
cared-for others interests are harmed fairly as opposed to unfairly.
Doubts about the pervasiveness and power of moral emotionand
moral motivation
Rather than offering a rm conclusion about the existence of
moral outrage, we counsel care and caution. Using a clear and se-
vere moral violation, our results lend further support to the claim
of Batson et al. (2007) that this prototypical moral emotion may be
far less prevalent and powerful than recent discussions have as-
sumed. It seems time to become far more careful with claims about
the range and strength of moral outrage.
It also seems time for more careful attention to the appraisal
conditions and motivational consequences of other so-called moral
emotions. Evidence that violations of propriety (natural and social
order) principles evoke disgust seems clear (e.g., Schnall, Haidt,
Clore, & Jordan, 2008); evidence that violations of interpersonal
(conict of interest and desire) principles evoke moral emotions
does not. In addition to our doubts about moral outrage, we sus-
pect that compassion and sympathy felt for victims of injustice
may be evoked not by violation of standards of justice but by con-
cern for the welfare of the victims. Guilt and shame at ones own
violation of moral standards, whether propriety or interpersonal
standards, may be responses to the harm to ones social or self-es-
teem caused by a failure to live up to standards, not to standard
violations per se. It is far from clear that any of these emotions,
all of which have been considered prototypical moral emotions
(Haidt, 2003), really are.
To the degree that these emotions are not moral emotions, any
motivation produced by them is not likely to be moral motiva-
tioni.e., directed toward the ultimate goal of upholding moral
standards. Rather, the motivation is likely to be directed toward
other goalsones own welfare (egoism), the welfare of one or
more other individuals (altruism), or the welfare of one or more
groups (collectivismBatson, 1994). Such motives will produce
moral behavior only to the degree that, given the circumstances,
this behavior is the best way to reach these other goals. The unre-
liable link of these motives to moral behavior may help explain
why what is thought to be moral motivation often appears weak,
inconsistent, and ckle.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Nadia Ahmad, Lowell Gaertner, Jim McNulty, and Eric
Stocks for helpful comments on a draft.
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