Moral Emotions

Recent researches have been done to examine the influence of moral emotions on individuals’ moral judgement and behavioral intent (Kim et al., 2009; Kim and Johnson,2014). Moral emotions are “those emotions that are linked to the interests or welfare either of society as a whole or at least of persons other than the judge or agent”. In other words, emotions are responses to perceived changes, threats, or opportunities, but in most cases, it is the self whose interests are directly affected by these events. To further distinct that moral emotions as a subset of the emotions, one may first define morality which may be done by specifying the conditions that make up a moral statement or moral issue. Moral emotions are the emotions that respond

Thus, they motivate people to focus on others and see how one’s own actions influence the welfare of others (De Hooge et al., 2007). Researchers have highlighted moral emotions as an important element of moral decision-making (Haidt, 2001; Monin et al., 2007; Greene and Haidt, 2002). In previous decades, researches done were mainly focused on only two emotions: guilt and sympathy. However, starting from the 1980’s, the concept of moral emotion has been evolved and expanded to include several positive emotions such as elevation, gratitude and pride. For better understanding, the moral emotions are further classified into four different families which consists of other-condemning family, the self-conscious family, the other-suffering family, and the other-praising family. According to Haidt (2003), he has identified 4 different categories of moral emotions which namely as shame, guilt, embarrassment and pride. All of these emotions are belonging to the category of “self-conscious” family (Tangney et

It was further defined as “an emotional response that stems from another’s emotional state or condition and is congruent with the other's emotional state or condition” (Eisenberg, Shea, Carlo, & Knight, 1991, p. 65). While all the emotions discussed above response to the bad deeds done by others or the reaction to the bad things experience by others, “other-praising” emotions which comprises of emotions like gratitude, awe, and elevation tend to be a motivating factor which encourages people to engage in ethical decision making and socially respectful behavior (Haidt, 2003; Tangney et al., 2007). It is kind of positive emotions that motivates people to act more prosocially and behave more