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(https://www.psypost.org/socially-anxious-individuals-show-weaker-adaptation-to-angry-faces-study-finds/) Socially anxious individuals show weaker adaptation to angry faces, study finds
Sep 7th 2024, 10:00

A recent study published in the journal (https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2024.2314987) Cognition and Emotion has uncovered new insights into how individuals with high social anxiety process emotional information. The research reveals that people who experience high levels of social anxiety adapt less to angry faces compared to happy faces, a mechanism that may contribute to maintaining negative biases in their perception of social cues. In contrast, individuals with low social anxiety show no significant difference in how they adapt to angry and happy faces.
Social anxiety is a common form of anxiety that involves a persistent fear of being negatively judged or evaluated by others. This condition can have a significant impact on an individual’s social interactions and quality of life. Although much is known about the symptoms of social anxiety, less is understood about the cognitive processes that help maintain it. One such process, according to some researchers, could be how people adapt to emotional stimuli—particularly emotional faces, which are key in social interactions.
“I have a long-standing interest in how we process information conveyed by our different senses and how our perception of the world develops. Our ability to perceive and interpret the emotion conveyed by a face is particularly important for social interaction,” said study author Vivian Ciaramitaro, an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston and a principal investigator at the (https://umassbostonbabylab.weebly.com/) Early Minds Lab.
“I was intrigued by how a clinical condition, such as social anxiety, could bias how emotional information is processed and was fortunate to have a colleague in my department working on social anxiety, Dr. Sarah Hayes-Skelton, who was interested in collaborating on translational work, bridging the gap between basic science and clinical applications.”
“Individuals who are socially anxious have been shown to perceive faces more negatively,” Ciaramitaro explained. “Yet, what mechanism can explain such a negative bias? The mechanism we considered was altered adaptation to emotional information. Adaptation is a basic process that allows our sensory system to recalibrate and stop responding to repeated old information and focus on processing new information.”
“Adaptation has been shown to be altered in another clinical condition which affects interpreting social cues, autism spectrum disorder, resulting in weakened adaptation to face identity, for example. Here we considered if adaptation to emotional faces was altered as a function of social anxiety.”
The researchers conducted two experiments to investigated whether individuals with high social anxiety have a selective bias in how they adapt to emotional faces, particularly those that signal social threat.
In their first experiment, they recruited 85 participants from the University of Massachusetts Boston, ages ranging from 18 to 61, and divided them into two groups based on their level of social anxiety: high social anxiety and low social anxiety. To determine group placement, they used a self-report measure called the Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation (BFNE), which assesses participants’ fear of negative judgment in social situations. Of the original 85 participants, 76 remained after excluding those with comorbidities, insufficient valid trials, or response bias.
During the experiment, participants were shown emotional faces with varying degrees of happiness or anger. The researchers used an “adaptation” technique, which involves showing participants a series of emotional faces (either happy or angry) for a short period. Following this exposure, the participants were presented with neutral faces to see if their perception of these neutral faces had shifted based on the prior emotional exposure.
The participants were then asked to judge whether the neutral faces they saw were happy or angry. This method allowed the researchers to measure the strength of the adaptation effect—the degree to which repeated exposure to emotional faces altered the participants’ perceptions of subsequent neutral faces.
The results from Experiment 1 revealed that individuals with high social anxiety showed weaker adaptation to angry faces compared to happy faces. In other words, socially anxious participants were less likely to shift their perception of neutral faces after seeing a series of angry faces. This suggests that individuals with social anxiety remain more sensitive to negative, threatening social cues, such as anger, even after being repeatedly exposed to them.
On the other hand, the participants with low social anxiety showed no significant difference in adaptation to happy versus angry faces. This indicates that the altered adaptation seen in socially anxious individuals is specific to social anxiety and is not a general feature of emotional processing.
In Experiment 2, the researchers extended their investigation by examining how individuals with high social anxiety adapted to sad faces, a non-threatening negative emotion, compared to happy faces, with a new sample of 40 participants. The procedure was similar to that used in Experiment 1, except that the emotional stimuli included sad faces instead of angry ones. As in the first experiment, the participants were exposed to either happy or sad faces, followed by neutral faces, and were then asked to judge whether these neutral faces appeared happy or sad.
The findings from Experiment 2 showed no significant difference in how individuals with high social anxiety adapted to sad versus happy faces. This suggests that the weakened adaptation observed in Experiment 1 is specific to anger, a socially threatening emotion, rather than to negative emotions in general. This supports the idea that individuals with social anxiety are particularly sensitive to emotions that convey social threat, such as anger, but not to other negative emotions like sadness, which do not carry the same level of perceived hostility or rejection.
“We found that socially anxious individuals adapted less to negative i.e., angry faces, relative to adapting more to positive social information, i.e., happy faces,” Ciaramitaro told PsyPost. “Initially we were only thinking of the one side of this effect – if you don’t adapt and don’t weaken responsiveness to negative stimuli, you’d be over-sensitive and over-responsive to negative information.”
“But, the flip side can also create a negative bias. If you adapt more and weaken responsiveness to positive stimuli too much, you’d be less sensitive and under-respond to positive information. This is similar to flip sides of attentional effects where attention can enhance responsiveness to the target of interest or decrease responsiveness to distracting information, with either effect yielding enhanced performance.”
Together, the results of the two experiments demonstrate that “social anxiety can result in a bias to view social stimuli, such as faces, more negatively,” Ciaramitaro explained. “One mechanism that can create and perpetuate a negative bias in how faces are perceived is adapting too little to negative faces or adapting too much to positive faces, either will enhance responsiveness to negative relative to positive information.”
“Importantly, you’d expect such negative biases to matter for some negative faces and not others. We expected changes in adaptation to faces perceived as threatening, angry faces, but not for other negative emotions, such as sad faces, since socially anxious individuals are more sensitive to threatening, but not non-threatening, emotions. This is exactly what we found: individuals high in social anxiety showed altered adaptation for angry compared to happy faces but not to sad compared to happy faces.”
As with any research, this study has some limitations. One key limitation is that the sample was drawn from a college student population, which may not fully represent the broader range of individuals who experience social anxiety. While the findings are valuable in understanding how adaptation might work in socially anxious individuals, future studies should include clinical populations—those diagnosed with social anxiety disorder—rather than just students with varying levels of social anxiety.
“Ideally, you’d want to consider clinical populations rather than the sample of college age students considered here,” Ciaramitaro noted. “Furthermore, it would be important to quantify effects before and after treatment to determine a more causal role for this mechanism, i.e., if changes in adaptation occur as social anxiety improves. It would also be important to consider adaptation to other types of emotional information, such as voices.”
Additionally, the study did not examine whether the observed effects are specific to social anxiety or whether they are also present in other conditions, such as depression, which often co-occurs with social anxiety.
“I would say that one major caveat that needs to be teased apart better is the influence of social anxiety versus depression in creating negative biases, since depression, in and of itself, can result in a negative bias and depression is often co-morbid with social anxiety,” Ciaramitaro said. “We might have found even stronger effects in our study if we had included individuals with higher scores on measures of depression in our sample of individuals high in social anxiety.”
Nevertheless, the results of the study provide important new insights into the cognitive mechanisms that may help maintain social anxiety.
“I think it was an important element of our experimental design that we used faces that varied along an emotional continuum, with varying degrees of positive as well as negative emotion,” Ciaramitaro added. “Perceptual biases are most prevalent when stimuli are most ambiguous. Presenting fully affective faces would minimize any bias and only presenting ambiguous faces would increase the likelihood that participants would only make one type of response. Presenting a range of faces ensures that participants are engaged and paying attention as they must judge happy as well as angry faces, requiring different responses.”
The study, “(https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02699931.2024.2314987) Altered mechanisms of adaptation in social anxiety: differences in adapting to positive versus negative emotional faces,” was authored by Erinda Morina, Daniel A. Harris, Sarah A. Hayes-Skelton, and Vivian M. Ciaramitaro.

(https://www.psypost.org/women-tend-to-give-more-money-to-attractive-men-study-finds/) Women tend to give more money to attractive men, study finds
Sep 7th 2024, 08:00

A recent study investigated how male facial attractiveness, vocal attractiveness, and expressions of social interest influence women’s decisions regarding fairness in economic games. The findings revealed that women were more generous toward men who had attractive faces, appealing voices, and expressed interest in them. The research was published in (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-67841-w) Scientific Reports.
Everyone likes beautiful things. People also prefer to interact with people who they find attractive. This creates the phenomenon called “beauty premium”. The beauty premium is the phenomenon where individuals who are perceived as physically attractive tend to receive advantages in various aspects of life, such as higher salaries, better job prospects, and more positive social interactions.
Research shows that others tend to see attractive people as more competent, intelligent, and trustworthy. In the workplace, the beauty premium leads to higher earnings and faster promotions for attractive employees compared to their less attractive peers. It also affects social dynamics, where attractive individuals experience more favorable treatment and social opportunities.
In research, scientists use two games to study the effects of beauty premium – the Dictator and the Ultimatum game. In the Dictator game, one player (the “dictator”) is given a sum of money and must decide how to split it between themselves and another player, who has no say in the decision. The Ultimatum game is more interactive: one player proposes a division of money, and the second player can either accept or reject it. If rejected, both players receive nothing.
Study authors Junchen Shang and Yizhuo Zhang wanted to explore the effects of attractiveness and social interest on decisions players make in the Dictator and the Ultimatum games. More specifically they were interested in how these would affect the decisions of female participants playing against males. These researchers hypothesized that attractive male voices and faces would activate the beauty premium making female players give them more money. They expected the same effect to appear if the male showed social interest in the female player.
The researchers recruited 70 female students from Southeast University in China, with an average age of 21 years. To ensure the participants were responding to realistic stimuli, the researchers carefully selected 32 attractive and 32 unattractive male faces from a larger database. They enlisted another group of student raters (who did not participate in the main experiment) to evaluate and categorize the attractiveness of these faces.
Additionally, 60 male native speakers of Mandarin Chinese were recorded reading two sentences: “I like you” and “I don’t like you.” From these recordings, the researchers selected 107 male voices and asked another group of raters to assess their attractiveness and trustworthiness, ultimately narrowing the selection to 32 attractive and 32 unattractive voices.
In the main experiment, the female participants played the Dictator and Ultimatum games as proposers, meaning they were the ones deciding how to divide the money. They were tasked with splitting 10 yuan (approximately $1.40) between themselves and a male partner, represented by a combination of a male face and a voice. The face and voice were shown for two seconds, after which the female player decided how much money to allocate to the male. Each participant played a total of 192 trials, with a random sequence of male face-voice combinations.
In the Dictator game, the results confirmed the researchers’ hypothesis. The women gave more money to male players with attractive faces, attractive voices, and those who expressed liking them. On average, they gave 3.35 yuan to men with attractive faces, compared to 2.68 yuan to those with unattractive faces—around 25% more. They also offered 3.10 yuan to men with attractive voices, versus 2.93 yuan to men with less appealing voices. The largest difference occurred when the men expressed liking the female player: they received 3.62 yuan on average, compared to just 2.42 yuan for those who expressed dislike, a difference of about 50%.
These results were mirrored in the Ultimatum game, where the female participants made similar judgments. They offered 4.52 yuan to male players with attractive faces, compared to 3.94 yuan to those with less attractive faces. Similarly, they gave 4.30 yuan to players with appealing voices, compared to 4.16 yuan to those with less attractive voices. Once again, social interest played a significant role, with participants offering 4.68 yuan to male players who liked them, compared to 3.76 yuan to those who didn’t. Even among men who expressed liking the participants, those with attractive voices received slightly more—4.80 yuan compared to 4.57 yuan.
When the roles were reversed in the Ultimatum game, and the female participants were in the position of recipients, social interest was the only factor that influenced their expectations. They anticipated receiving higher offers from men who expressed liking them, regardless of the men’s facial or vocal attractiveness.
“The present research confirmed beauty premium by showing that attractiveness effects from audiovisual channels are associated with decision outcomes. Female proposers offered more money to attractive-face males than unattractive-face males. Female proposers also allocated more money to males expressing positive social interest than males expressing negative social interest, whereas female recipients expected males expressing positive social interest to offer them more money than males expressing negative social interest. Under the condition of positive social interest, female proposers allocated more money to attractive-voice males than unattractive-voice males, while this effect was absent under the condition of negative social interest,” the study authors concluded.
The study confirmed the existence of the beauty premium and showed that a fictional face is sufficient to invoke it. However, it should be noted that the game involved a decision about a very small amount of money and participants were exclusively young, female students. Results with larger sums of money and on other demographic groups might not be identical.
The paper, “(https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-67841-w) Influence of male’s facial attractiveness, vocal attractiveness and social interest on female’s decisions of fairness,” was authored by Junchen Shang and Yizhuo Zhang.

(https://www.psypost.org/hemp-derived-cannabigerol-shows-promise-in-reducing-anxiety-and-maybe-even-improving-memory/) Hemp-derived cannabigerol shows promise in reducing anxiety — and maybe even improving memory
Sep 7th 2024, 06:00

In a recent study, researchers found that a lesser-known compound from the cannabis plant, cannabigerol (CBG), can reduce anxiety without the intoxication commonly linked to cannabis. The study, published in Scientific Reports, found that participants who took CBG reported feeling less anxious and stressed compared to those who received a placebo. Interestingly, the study also hinted that CBG may even improve memory. These results are significant as CBG is emerging as a potential therapeutic option for people seeking relief from anxiety without the side effects typically associated with cannabis.
Cannabigerol, or CBG, has recently garnered attention due to its potential therapeutic benefits, but research on its effects in humans has been sparse. Unlike its more famous cousin, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which produces the “high” associated with cannabis, CBG is non-intoxicating. Producers of cannabis-based products have increasingly turned to CBG, touting it as a remedy for anxiety, pain, depression, and other ailments. However, despite these claims, there was little scientific evidence to support CBG’s effects in humans.
Previous studies had mainly been conducted in animals, where CBG showed promise in reducing anxiety and pain, as well as in treating conditions like glaucoma and inflammatory bowel disease. Still, the lack of human clinical trials meant that the actual impact of CBG on people was unknown. To bridge this gap, researchers launched a rigorous study to determine whether CBG could truly deliver the therapeutic effects users claimed.
“Cannabigerol (CBG) is a minor cannabinoid found in cannabis and hemp plants that is often referred to as ‘the mother of all cannabinoids’ as it is the precursor to numerous other cannabinoids including THC, CBD, and CBC,” explained study author (http://carriecuttler.com/) Carrie Cuttler, an associate professor of psychology at Washington State University. “CBG has been increasing in availability and popularity with some producers marketing it as being relaxing and calming. However there have been very few studies of the effects of CBG on humans.
To explore the effects of CBG, the researchers designed a double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over field trial. This type of trial is considered the gold standard in clinical research because it minimizes bias and ensures that neither the participants nor the researchers know who is receiving the active compound or the placebo. The study took place remotely via Zoom, allowing for a broader range of participants across various locations.
The trial included 34 healthy adults, all of whom had experience using cannabis but had never used CBG. The participants were required to abstain from using cannabis for at least 24 hours before each session to ensure the effects of CBG could be isolated. Each person participated in two sessions: one in which they took 20 mg of CBG and one in which they received a placebo. The two sessions were spaced one week apart to prevent any carryover effects from the first dose.
Participants consumed a tincture containing CBG derived from hemp plants, and the placebo was a similar-looking herbal solution without any active ingredients. After ingesting either the CBG or the placebo, participants completed a series of tasks designed to measure anxiety, stress, mood, memory, and potential side effects. These tasks included the Trier Social Stress Test, a widely used method to induce stress by having participants give a speech and perform mental arithmetic in front of an audience.
The researchers used questionnaires to assess subjective feelings of anxiety, stress, and mood before and after the test. In addition, participants completed cognitive tests to assess memory and used an app to measure motor coordination and cognitive impairment, which helped determine whether CBG had any effect on their ability to function.
Participants who received CBG reported a significant reduction in anxiety compared to those who took the placebo. On average, participants’ anxiety levels decreased by 26.5% after taking CBG, while those who took the placebo experienced a 22.5% reduction. The researchers also found that CBG reduced feelings of stress before participants underwent the stress test, although these effects diminished after the stressful task.
“Results of our double-blind placebo-controlled cross-over trial indicate that CBG reduces subjective feelings of anxiety and stress,” Cuttler told PsyPost.
In addition to reducing anxiety and stress, CBG appeared to have a positive effect on memory. In one memory test, participants who had taken CBG recalled more words than those who took the placebo, suggesting that the compound might enhance learning and memory. This finding was unexpected, as cannabis products containing THC are known to impair memory.
“I included this verbal memory test as a measure of cognitive impairment since THC reliably reduces verbal memory test performance and was rather surprised to detect these memory enhancing effects,” Cuttler explained. “Since this was unexpected, it will be important to replicate this effect before putting too much faith or emphasis on it.”
Another key finding was that CBG did not produce the intoxicating effects typically associated with cannabis. Participants reported no feelings of being “high,” and their scores on cognitive and motor impairment tests were similar to those in the placebo group. This lack of intoxication is an important feature, as it suggests CBG could be used therapeutically without interfering with daily activities.
Moreover, the study found no significant side effects. Participants did not experience common cannabis-related issues like dry mouth, increased appetite, or heart palpitations. The only noticeable effect was a slight increase in appetite over time, but this was observed in both the CBG and placebo groups.
While the findings are promising, the study does have limitations. One major limitation is the small sample size—only 34 participants were included in the trial. A larger sample could provide more robust data and help confirm whether the effects of CBG hold true across a broader population. Additionally, the study was conducted with people who were already familiar with cannabis, which means the results might not apply to people who have never used cannabis products before. Future research will need to include non-users to see if they respond differently to CBG.
Another limitation is that the study only looked at the short-term effects of CBG. Participants were monitored for about an hour after taking the compound, so it is unclear how long the effects of CBG last. Further research will be necessary to determine whether repeated or long-term use of CBG might produce different effects.
The researchers also did not measure physiological responses, which could provide more objective data on how CBG affects the body. Although the participants reported feeling less anxious, it is possible that these self-reported feelings do not fully capture the compound’s impact on the body’s stress response. Future studies should incorporate these physiological measures to gain a clearer picture of CBG’s effects.
Lastly, the dosage used in this study—20 mg of CBG—was relatively low. Other recent studies have used higher doses, and it is possible that a higher dose of CBG might produce stronger effects on anxiety, stress, and memory. Future trials should explore a range of doses to determine the optimal amount for therapeutic use.
“Since this is the first study of its kind it will be very important to try to replicate these effects,” Cuttler said. “Also, the study was conducted remotely over Zoom so we were not able to include objective physiological measures of things like blood pressure, heart rate, electrodermal activity, and cortisol. Similarly, we only measured a small number of potential side effects (dry eyes, dry mouth, appetite, sleepiness, heart palpitations) so it’s possible that CBG has other negative side effects that we simply didn’t measure.”
“We are currently working on launching a new clinical trial to not only replicate these effects but also to extend them to a sample that includes non-cannabis users and that includes various physiological outcomes (objective measures of heart rate, electrodermal activity, cortisol) so that we can try to objectively corroborate some of the subjective reports of reduced anxiety and stress. We are also currently designing a new study to examine the effects of a CBG formulation on menopause and perimenopause symptoms that we will conduct remotely using ecological momentary assessments and Zoom.”
The study, “(https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-66879-0) Acute effects of cannabigerol on anxiety, stress, and mood: a double‑blind, placebo‑controlled, crossover, field trial,” was authored by Carrie Cuttler, Amanda Stueber, Ziva D. Cooper, and Ethan Russo.

(https://www.psypost.org/republicans-slower-to-adopt-solar-panels-but-respond-more-strongly-to-financial-benefits/) Republicans slower to adopt solar panels, but respond more strongly to financial benefits
Sep 6th 2024, 14:00

A new study has revealed that homeowners’ political affiliations are associated with their decision to install solar panels, but this effect tends to weaken when solar energy becomes more cost-effective. Published in the (https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2303519121) Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the research found that Democratic homeowners are about 1.45 times more likely to adopt solar energy than Republicans. However, Republicans appeared more sensitive to the financial benefits of solar energy as its economics improved.
Climate risk mitigation relies heavily on transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, such as solar power. Yet political divisions in the country, particularly regarding environmental issues, have raised questions about whether political affiliations affect household energy choices. While surveys show that people across the political spectrum support clean energy, research suggests differences in how conservatives and liberals prioritize the economic versus environmental benefits of renewable energy.
This study set out to directly examine the connection between homeowners’ political affiliations and their decisions to install residential solar panels, addressing the need for more comprehensive data on how political identity influences real-world energy choices.
To conduct the study, researchers analyzed a decade’s worth of data on solar panel installations in New York State, from 2010 to 2020. They linked three large datasets: records of solar incentive program participation, county property assessment data, and the New York State voter registration file. This allowed them to track solar installations at the household level while also considering the political affiliations of homeowners. The final dataset included information on 62,972 solar installations out of more than 5.5 million households.
The researchers compared households that adopted solar panels with neighboring homes that did not, creating a control group. This approach allowed them to examine the role of political affiliation in solar adoption while controlling for variables like property size, market value, and other household characteristics. They also analyzed how economic factors, such as electricity rates and the availability of financing options like solar leases, influenced adoption decisions.
The study found a clear partisan gap in solar adoption. Democratic homeowners were the most likely to install solar panels, followed by independents and unaffiliated voters. Republican homeowners had the lowest rate of solar adoption. Despite this, Republicans showed a greater responsiveness to economic factors, such as rising electricity costs and the availability of financing options. When electricity rates increased, Republicans were more likely than Democrats to adopt solar panels, suggesting that the financial appeal of solar can reduce the partisan gap.
The research also revealed that while Democrats were more likely to install solar panels overall, Republicans tended to adopt more cost-effective systems. Republican homeowners were more likely to take advantage of third-party ownership models, such as leases or power purchase agreements, which require less upfront investment. These financing options seemed particularly attractive to Republicans when solar system costs were high.
Interestingly, while Democrats appeared motivated by the environmental benefits of solar energy, Republicans seemed to prioritize its financial advantages. This was reflected in the fact that solar installations by Republican homeowners tended to have higher long-term economic value, or net present value (NPV), compared to those installed by Democrats.
While the study offers insights into how political identity influences solar adoption, it has some limitations. The research was conducted in a single state, New York, which may not represent the national context. New York has relatively high electricity rates and generous solar incentives, factors that may not apply equally across other states. The study also relied on observational data, meaning that the researchers could not definitively establish causal relationships between political affiliation and solar adoption.
Despite these limitations, the study provides a strong foundation for understanding how political identity interacts with economic factors to shape energy behavior. It also underscores the importance of making solar energy more financially accessible, as improving the economics of solar could help close the partisan gap and increase overall adoption.
“The study carries important implications for strategies aimed at accelerating residential [solar] deployment. Bridging the partisan gap in [solar power] adoption is important for at least two reasons. First, underadoption by Republican homeowners would significantly limit residential [solar]’s potential to mitigate [greenhouse gas] emissions. Republicans own homes at higher rates than Democrats,” the researchers wrote. “In New York, despite being outnumbered by Democrats in the voter file by a factor of 2.1 to 1, Republicans own nearly as many homes (0.9 for constitute a potentially important political constituency that has an interest in policies and regulations that favor distributed solar and electrification and could therefore help to ‘lock-in’ a decarbonization policy trajectory.”
The study, “(https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2303519121) Party affiliation predicts homeowners’ decisions to install solar PV, but partisan gap wanes with improved economics of solar,” was authored by Fedor A. Dokshin and Mircea Gherghina.

(https://www.psypost.org/what-traits-make-someone-morally-exceptional-new-study-has-answers/) What traits make someone morally exceptional? New study has answers
Sep 6th 2024, 12:00

A recent study published in the (https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12867) Journal of Personality revealed a surprising level of agreement on the traits that define morally exceptional individuals, such as empathy, guilt-proneness, and moral identity.
Researchers William Fleeson and colleagues set out to explore the characteristics that distinguish morally exceptional individuals from those considered morally average or immoral. There are ongoing debates about what constitutes moral exceptionality, especially in a society where moral actions are often judged inconsistently. Previous research has highlighted various traits, such as empathy, integrity, and a sense of universal moral values, as common among morally exceptional individuals. However, there remains considerable controversy regarding the specific attributes that define these individuals.
Study 1 involved 259 participants recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk), all of whom were U.S. residents aged 18 or older. Participants first completed questionnaires on demographics, political attitudes, moral judgment, and religiosity. They were then asked to nominate three individuals they knew who fit into the categories of immoral, morally average, and morally exceptional.
Next, participants evaluated these individuals using a series of assessments designed to measure various moral and personality traits, such as moral attentiveness, guilt-proneness, self-importance of moral identity, self-control, and moral behaviors. These measures were randomized to prevent any order effects.
Study 1 found a strong consensus among participants on characteristics that distinguish morally exceptional individuals from those who are morally average or immoral, with traits like guilt-proneness, reflective moral attentiveness, moral identity internalization, and self-control being more pronounced in those perceived as morally exceptional.
However, there were notable disagreements in how participants rated traits such as religiosity and perceptual moral attentiveness. These differences were influenced by individual beliefs, such as political orientation and levels of moral relativism. For example, conservative participants tended to rate morally exceptional individuals as more religious and higher in self-control, whereas liberal participants emphasized traits like empathy and fairness. Participants with higher moral relativism showed less agreement on traits associated with moral exceptionality, suggesting a more individualized interpretation of morality.
Study 2 sought to replicate and extend the findings of Study 1 by refining the methodology and exploring additional characteristics. The study again involved 259 MTurk participants, who followed a similar nomination process but completed all assessments for one target before moving to the next to reduce potential biases from direct comparisons. The measures included those from Study 1, such as assessments of moral identity, attentiveness, and political and moral attitudes.
New measures, like empathy and moral foundations, were introduced to capture a broader range of moral characteristics, while utilitarianism and guilt-proneness were omitted to focus on traits more directly related to moral perception. This change aimed to deepen the understanding of how different moral traits are prioritized in moral judgment.
The findings of Study 2 largely confirmed those from Study 1, with empathy, moral identity, and moral attentiveness being consistently rated higher in individuals perceived as morally exceptional. Empathy emerged as a particularly strong marker of moral exceptionality. There was also a strong consensus on moral concerns related to harm and fairness, highlighting their importance in moral judgment.
However, there was lower agreement on traits related to authority, loyalty, purity, and religiosity, with significant variability in ratings across different moral categories. These differences were again influenced by political orientation; conservatives were more likely to associate moral exceptionality with authority, loyalty, and purity, while liberals prioritized empathy, harm, and fairness.
Additionally, individual differences in religiosity and social dominance orientation (SDO) affected perceptions, with more religious participants emphasizing religious traits and those with higher SDO placing less emphasis on empathy and more on authority and loyalty.
Study 3 further explored moral exceptionality by addressing potential biases in participant selection and expanding the range of moral categories. Participants were asked to select acquaintances from their daily lives for an unrelated purpose before later categorizing them based on moral qualities. This approach aimed to reduce potential bias by ensuring participants did not initially think of moral qualities when selecting individuals, thereby minimizing preconceived notions about moral exceptionality.
Study 3 also introduced a fourth category, “morally above average,” to refine the spectrum of moral judgment and capture more subtle differences in perceptions. The measures included similar assessments of moral identity, attentiveness, and personality traits, with a greater emphasis on understanding the processes that enable moral actions and actual enactment of moral behaviors.
The results of Study 3 reaffirmed the strong consensus on core traits such as empathy, moral attentiveness, and moral identity associated with moral exceptionality. The introduction of the “morally above average” category revealed nuanced differences, showing that this group shared some, but not all, traits with the morally exceptional, suggesting a gradient in moral perception. There were disagreements around moral principles like authority and purity, with conservatives more likely to view these traits as characteristic of moral exceptionality. Beyond political orientation, beliefs such as right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and SDO also influenced judgments.
For example, participants high in RWA emphasized authority and loyalty, viewing these as critical to moral exceptionality, while those high in SDO placed less emphasis on empathy and moral identity, reflecting a preference for social hierarchy over egalitarian principles. Personal religiosity also continued to influence perceptions, with more religious participants associating moral exceptionality with traditional and religious values.
Overall, the studies highlight that while there is general agreement on core traits of moral exceptionality, individual beliefs—such as political orientation, religiosity, moral relativism, right-wing authoritarianism, and social dominance orientation—significantly shape how people perceive and prioritize different moral qualities.
One limitation is the study’s reliance on self-reported data, which may introduce biases, particularly in how participants select and rate their nominees.
The research “(https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12867) Consensus, Controversy, and Chaos in the Attribution of Characteristics to the Morally Exceptional”, was authored by William Fleeson, R. Michael Furr, Eranda Jayawickreme, Dillon Luke, Mike Prentice, Caleb J. Reynolds, and Ashley Hawkins Parham.

Forwarded by:
Michael Reeder LCPC
Baltimore, MD

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