Psychology Data from an Exploration of the Effect of Anticipatory Stress on Disgust vs. Non-Disgust Related Moral Judgments

Abstract

In this lab-based experiment (N = 185) we tested the effect of anticipatory stress on moral condemnation. The data covers severity ratings for vignettes of two content types: vignettes with an inherent disgust-eliciting element (e.g., eating human flesh) and without (e.g., lying on a resume). Participants in the anticipatory stress condition rated the vignettes as more morally wrong, and disgust-eliciting vignettes were rated as more morally wrong. No moderation by disgust content was found. Private Body Consciousness (PBC) was positively associated with condemnation for disgust- eliciting vignettes (but not with non-disgust-eliciting vignettes). The data can be used, for example, in research on incidental vs. inherent emotions, to identify the strength of induced emotions on judgments, and to identify moderators (e.g., PBC).