Air Pollution Predicts Harsh Moral Judgment

Hongxia Li, Xue Wang, Yafei Guo, Zhansheng Chen and Fei Teng
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Hongxia Li: School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Xue Wang: Department of Marketing, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Yafei Guo: School of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Zhansheng Chen: Department of Psychology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Fei Teng: Center for Studies of Psychological Application, Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, The Base of Psychological Services and Counseling for “Happiness” in Guangzhou, School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 13, 1-14

Abstract: The present research recruited participants from China, which is suffering from serious air pollution, and examined whether air pollution would be associated with moral judgment and immoral behavioral intention. Study 1 ( n = 145) used the objective Air Quality Index to indicate the level of air pollution and found that it predicted harsh judgment on others’ moral violations but did not predict judgment on others’ non-moral negative behaviors or their own immoral behavioral intentions. Study 2 ( n = 90) asked participants either to recall a past experience of being exposed to air pollution or to recall a neutral experience and consistently found that air pollution only influenced judgment on moral violations. The findings also ruled out the feeling of threat or the trust of government as possible mediators in the relationship between air pollution and harsh moral judgment.

Keywords: air pollution; morality; moral judgment; moral behavioral intention (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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