DOCTORAL DISSERTATION RESEARCH IN DRMS: Disgust-Driven Prosocial Behavior: Message Processing and Persuasive Effects Over Time

本研究旨在了解令人厌恶的意象对亲社会决策和行为的影响。怪诞的视觉效果经常用于有说服力的信息，以描绘迫切的需要和影响对他人福利的关注。然而，人们对厌恶激发亲社会行为的潜力知之甚少。越来越多地依赖于个人的善意来减轻社会弊病，以及说服性信息在激励这种行为方面所起的重要作用，加强了对利用内心情感的说服性策略的效果和潜在后果的调查的需要。除了让我们了解厌恶的说服潜力之外，这项研究还通过探索情感和认知因素的相互作用，有助于我们了解道德行为是如何在个体内部被激发的。情绪研究经常将厌恶与反社会判断和拒绝行为联系起来。然而，在这些研究中，厌恶诱导通常是偶然的或与决策任务无关的。相反，整体情感感应，如在有说服力的呼吁中对疾病的描述，是由决策情境触发的，与决策任务相关。因此，整体厌恶可能对信息加工和行为结果有不同的影响。这项研究探讨了厌恶可能引发亲社会反应的过程。这些对照实验的一个关键特征包括使用经典的“独裁者游戏”来衡量行为和社会判断任务，以探索在亲社会说服背景下厌恶的潜在意外后果。第一个实验通过检验在亲社会的说服性信息中使用厌恶线索（整体情绪）和在决策情境中不使用厌恶线索（附带情绪）时的信息处理效果，来验证厌恶对情境不敏感的假设。随后的实验比较了怪诞和干净的需求描述的不同效果，并测试了厌恶对睡眠者的影响。然而，研究1解决了有说服力的论点是否会改变情感评价的问题，研究2考察了这些反应是否会随着时间的推移而改变。

This dissertation research aims to understand the influence of disgust-evoking imagery on prosocial decision making and behavior. Grotesque visuals are frequently used in persuasive messages to depict dire need and influence concern for the welfare of others. Yet, little is known about the potential for disgust to motivate prosocial behavior. Increasing reliance on the goodwill of private citizens to mitigate social ills, and the important role persuasive messages play in motivating such behavior, heightens the need for inquiries into the effects and potential consequences of persuasive strategies employing visceral emotion. In addition to informing our understanding of the persuasive potential of disgust, this research contributes to basic knowledge about how moral action is motivated within individuals by exploring the interaction of emotive and cognitive factors.Emotion research has often connected disgust to anti-social judgments and rejection behavior. Disgust inductions in these studies are, however, usually incidental or irrelevant to the decision task. In contrast, integral emotion inductions, such as the depiction of disease in a persuasive appeal, are triggered by the decision situation and are relevant to the decision task. Therefore, integral disgust may have different effects on message processing and behavioral outcomes. This research explores processes by which disgust may trigger prosocial responses. A key features of these controlled experiments include the use of the classic "dictator game" to measure behavior and social judgment tasks to explore potential unintended consequences of disgust in the context of prosocial persuasion. A first experiment tests the assumption that disgust is insensitive to context by examining information processing effects when disgust cues are used in a prosocial persuasive message (integral emotion) compared to when disgust cues are not connected to the decision-making context (incidental emotion). A subsequent experiment compares the differential effects of grotesque versus clean portrayals of need and tests for a sleeper effect of disgust. Whereas, study 1 addresses the question of whether persuasive arguments may alter emotional appraisals, study 2 examines whether these responses change over time.