Poster 2

Why do some people and not others change their diet, clothing, and even their friends out of concern for the wellbeing of animals? For centuries philosophers have debated whether human morality is based in emotion or reason. For most of the last 30 years, the field of moral psychology has been dominated by Lawrence Kohlberg's view that moral judgment is a rational process.

Jonathan Haidt has proposed that moral decisions involve two components. His Social Intuitionist Model proposes the moral judgment involves two steps. The first and most important is intuition -- a process that is unconscious, instantaneous, and based on emotion. This is followed by a slower logical process that provide post-hoc justifications for our initial gut-level decisions.

Research on the affective components of decisions about the use of animals has concentrated on a positive emotion -- empathy. Here we examine the role of individual differences in a negative emotion -- visceral disgust -- in animal activism, attitudes toward animal welfare, and diet.