Harmless bodily pleasures are moralized because they are perceived as reducing self-control and cooperativeness

Why do many people moralize harmless bodily pleasures, such as gluttony, masturbation, and drinking alcohol? In three pre-registered experiments (N > 1,600), we investigated whether this is because they perceive bodily pleasures as indirectly facilitating antisocial behaviors by altering self-control. In Study 1 and 2, participants judged that targets who increased (vs. decreased) their indulgence harmless sex, food, alcohol, and laziness had become less cooperative, an effect mediated by the perception that they had become less self-controlled. In Study 3, participants judged that relaxing regulations over sex, food, and alcohol in a village would decrease self-control and cooperation in the village, although they judged enforcing puritanical prohibitions even more negatively. In all studies, the perception that indulgence reduces self-control and cooperativeness predicted the moral condemnation of harmless bodily pleasures. This supports the idea that some purity violations, although apparently harmless, are moralized because they are perceived as indirectly affecting cooperation.