JAPANESE JOURNAL OF RESEARCH ON EMOTIONS
Online ISSN : 1882-8949
Print ISSN : 1882-8817
ISSN-L : 1882-8817
Research Notes
Sensitiveness of gratitude to benefactors’ immorality: Registered conceptual replication on Yu et al. (2022)
Akitomo YamamotoYuki MisawaRen SuzukiMai TomizawaAyana UedaChiharu UesakaMasataka Higuchi
Author information
JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

2024 Volume 31 Issue 2 Pages 50-58

Details
Abstract

According to Yu et al. (2022, Study 2), beneficiaries are less likely to feel grateful toward benefactors who exhibit immoral behavior, indicating that gratitude is morally sensitive. As a preregistered conceptual replication study, the present study aimed to examine which specific immoral attribute of benefactors would weaken beneficiaries’ gratitude. The participants of this study were presented with a vignette, in which the benefactors offered to introduce a doctor to them who could help with their physical problems. Referring to moral foundation theory, we randomly assigned one of six moral traits of benefactors: immoral with respect to care, fairness, loyalty, authority, purity, or morally neutral. Preregistered analyses revealed that beneficiaries felt less grateful toward benefactors who were immoral with respect to loyalty and purity. Furthermore, immorality in those two moral foundations weakened beneficiaries’ other appraisals that were consistent with the findings of the original study, while immoral benefactors with respect to care significantly affected neither these appraisals nor gratitude. Results suggest that one should carefully discern the influence of certain kinds of immorality on gratitude.

Content from these authors
© 2024 Japan Society for Research on Emotions
Previous article Next article
feedback
Top