Chinese morality: When propriety is part of the picture, what does morality mean? Testing and extending moral theory to fit lay concepts of a Confucian moral system

I give an overview of our published and unpublished research on everyday morality concepts in China, inviting the reader to explore a question: What is the meaning of morality in Chinese culture—and what can it tell us about human morality? I’ll begin with Buchtel et al. (2015), which found that Chinese immoral behaviors are best described as uncultured, while Western ones are centered on avoiding harm. However, because of Western assumptions that morality is about moral principles, the studies have been misinterpreted as showing that incivility (more than harming people) is the “worst” violation of Chinese social values. I argue that Chinese morality emphasizes virtue cultivation more than absolutist judgments of right and wrong. Virtues and moral judgment could both be common human ways of thinking morally, and both serve a meaning-making purpose

Abstract: How does facial muscle activity relate to moral judgments across cultures? To explore this question, we used facial electromyography (EMG) among residents of New Zealand (N = 30) and Hong Kong (N = 40), comparing findings to prior data from England. We recorded EMG involved in expressions of disgust (m.levator labii), anger (m.corrugator supercilii), amusement (m.zygomaticus major), and surprise (m.medial frontalis), while participants thought about 90 scenarios that varied in valence and relevance to the Harm, Fairness, Ingroup, Authority and Purity moral dimensions. Overall, levator and corrugator activity were associated with more negative judgments in all samples, while only in Hong Kong a decrease in medial frontalis activity was associated with negativity. Both levator and corrugator were cross-culturally associated with negative judgments in Purity scenarios. In contrast to prior findings, Harm and Fairness violations were associated with different levator and/or corrugator activity across samples. We discuss implications for the relationship between spontaneous facial muscle activity and moral vs. negativity judgments across cultures. (Accepted manuscript version)

What makes some acts immoral? Although Western theories of morality often define harmful behaviors as centrally immoral, whether this is applicable to other cultures is still under debate. In particular, Confucianism emphasizes civility as fundamental to moral excellence. We describe three studies examining how the word immoral is used by Chinese and Westerners. Layperson-generated examples were used to examine cultural differences in which behaviors are called "immoral" (Study 1, n = 609; Study 2, n = 480), and whether "immoral" behaviors were best characterized as particularly harmful versus uncivilized (Study 3, N = 443). Results suggest that Chinese were more likely to use the word immoral for behaviors that were uncivilized, rather than exceptionally harmful, whereas Westerners were more likely to link immorality tightly to harm. More research into lay concepts of morality is needed to inform theories of moral cognition and improve understanding of human conceptualizations of social norms. © 2015 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

How does facial muscle activity relate to moral judgments across cultures? To explore this question, we used facial electromyography (EMG) among residents of New Zealand (N = 30) and Hong Kong (N = 40), comparing findings to prior data from the United Kingdom. We recorded EMG involved in expressions of disgust (m.levator labii), anger (m.corrugator supercilii), amusement (m.zygomaticus major), and surprise (m.medial frontalis) while participants thought about 90 scenarios that varied in valence and relevance to the harm, fairness, ingroup, authority, and purity moral dimensions. Overall, levator and corrugator activity were associated with more negative judgments in all samples, while only in Hong Kong a decrease in medial frontalis activity was associated with negativity. Both levator and corrugator were cross-culturally associated with negative judgments in purity scenarios. In contrast to prior findings, harm and fairness violations were associated with different levator and/or corrugator activity across samples. We discuss implications for the relationship between spontaneous facial muscle activity and moral versus negativity judgments across cultures. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).