Emotional reactions to scandals: When does moral character make ...

JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 5 SESS: 12 OUTPUT: Wed May 4 18:23:16 2011 SUM: 82979859
/v2501/blackwell/A_journals/ajsp_v0_i0/ajsp_1344
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Emotional responses to scandals 5
h 2 p = 0.106 in the humble person condition. In all impression
conditions, participants reported more positive and
fewer negative emotions towards Ge You when they
regarded him as more representative of Chinese culture (r
between 0.27 and 0.34, p < 0.001). The main effect of circulation
was not significant in any of the three impression
conditions: F 1.90, p 0.17. More importantly, the
circulation ¥ perceived cultural representativeness interaction
was significant in the moral character condition only:
F(1, 172) = 5.65, p = 0.02, h 2 p = 0.032 in the moral character
condition; F(1, 172) = 0.07, p = 0.80 in the misunderstood
condition; and F(1, 172) = 0.05, p = 0.82 in the
humble person condition. 3
In Figure 1, we plot the predicted value of positive (vs
negative) emotional responses when cultural representativeness
was one standard deviation above (below) the mean and
when the scandal was widely circulated or not in the moral
character condition. As predicted, when the impression that
Ge You valued morality was highlighted, the participants’
emotional responses were most positive when the scandal
was widely circulated and when Ge You was seen as a
representative of Chinese culture. When the scandal was
widely circulated, emotional responses to GeYou were more
positive when he was seen as more representative of Chinese
culture (r = 0.47, p < 0.001). In addition, when the perceived
cultural representativeness of Ge You was relatively high
(one standard deviation above the mean), emotional
responses towards Ge You were more positive when the
scandal was widely circulated than when it was not, although
the difference was not significant [F(1, 172) = 2.94,
p = 0.09]. In summary, consistent with our hypothesis,
reminding the participants of Ge You’s moral character was
Figure 1 Affect balance towards Ge You in the moral
value condition when the scandal was widely circulated
or not, and when Ge You was perceived to be relatively
representative of Chinese culture (one standard deviation
above the mean) or not (one standard deviation
below the mean). Higher scores on the measure indicate
stronger positive and weaker negative emotions
towards Ge You. ( .... ) low circulation; (—) high
circulation.
more effective in alleviating negative emotions towards him
when he was seen as a cultural symbol and when the scandal
was widely known than when either condition was not met.
Discussion
In the present study, we found support for the idea that
reminding people of a scandalous individual’s moral character
is a particularly effective strategy for reducing negative
emotions towards the scandalous individual when the
scandalous individual is seen as a cultural symbol and
when the scandal has spread widely. Specifically, when
the participants were reminded of Ge You’s previous
public statement about his benevolent values, the participants’
emotional responses were most positive when the
scandal was widely circulated and when he was seen as a
symbol of Chinese culture. This pattern of result is consistent
with the idea that a widely-circulated scandal that
involves a cultural representative can evoke negative emotional
reactions towards the cultural representative.
However, these emotional reactions can be alleviated if
the public still has confidence in the cultural representative’s
moral character.
The believability manipulation did not moderate the predicted
three-way interaction. In fact, this manipulation did
not have any effect on the emotional responses towards Ge
You. This finding suggests that emotional responses
towards a scandalous cultural representative are driven
more by whether the scandal has become public knowledge
than by its perceived truth value. This interpretation is
consistent with the shared reality theory (Echterhoff,
Higgins, & Groll, 2005), which posits that people: (i) construe
an intersubjective reality based on shared knowledge
that might or might not correspond to the actual reality; and
(ii) allow the shared knowledge to predicate their own judgments
and actions. The shared reality theory has shed light
on the social influence process in interpersonal and small
group contexts (Hausmann, Levine, & Higgins, 2008). The
present study extends its relevance to understanding cultural
processes.
Because we used a real scandal in the present investigation,
our results can be generalized to emotional reactions
to real (vs hypothetical) scandals. However, this research
strategy has a drawback: because some participants had
prior knowledge of the scandal, they might also possess
strong prior attitudes towards Ge You’s involvement in the
scandal. This is not a serious concern, because such prior
knowledge works against our hypothesis; it should wash
out the effects of our subtle experimental manipulations.
Moreover, our results show that prior knowledge of the
scandal did not alter our results. 3 To rule out prior knowledge
of a scandal as a confounding factor, we sought to
replicate our major findings with a sample that had no prior
knowledge of the scandal in the next study.
© 2011 The Authors
Asian Journal of Social Psychology © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd with the Asian Association of Social Psychology and
the Japanese Group Dynamics Association
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