Transgressions of Harm Only Relate to Anger, Transgressions of Purity Only Relate to Disgust? An Investigation Using the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure

Moral foundation theory remains controversial. Previous studies of this paradigm have typically adopted explicit measures such as questionnaires. These instruments cannot capture the automatic response of emotions; therefore, they create method bias. We used the Implicit Relational Assessment procedure (IRAP) to fix this gap and find the automatic correspondences of transgressions of harm—anger—and transgressions of impurity to disgust. The results showed that no matter type of stimulus is presented (in Study 1, transgressions sentences matched emotional pictures; in Study 2, transgressions sentences matched emotional words), participants’ reactions to the consistent relationships were faster than inconsistent relationships. Thus, the correspondences we proposed were established. In Study 3, we aimed to explore the effect of different types of materials and the extent of the total effect of these correspondences. A single-paper meta-analysis yielded a medium to large effect size. Study materials did not affect the correspondences. The results supported Moral Foundations Theory and provided explanations for the dosage effect. We discuss the results in the context of relational framework theory, social norms, and the theory of evolution of emotion.