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

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Emotional responses to scandals 7
disconfirmation when the participants’ estimations of
perceived circulation differed from the feedback provided
by the experimenter. Because perceived believability did not
have an effect on emotional response to the scandal, we did
not consider this factor in the present study.
Measures. After responding to the perceived circulation
measure, the participants completed the measures of emotional
reactions to the scandal. Given the nature of the
scandal, the participants might find it strange to report how
much the scandal would evoke admiration and envy
towards Jackie Chan. Therefore, we considered negative
emotional responses to the scandal only. Regarding the
negative emotion measure, in addition to the two original
negative emotion items (fear, angry), we added disgust,
which is another major negative emotion towards moral
indignity (Fiske et al., 2002). The reliability of the negative
emotional response measure was 0.81. Finally, to evaluate
the effectiveness of the impression manipulation, we had
the participants respond to the manipulation check items
used in the manipulation check study in Study 1.
Results and discussion
Manipulation check. The impression manipulation was
successful. We performed a one-way ANOVA to evaluate
the effect of the impression manipulation on the perceived
morality of Jackie Chan. The effect of the manipulation was
significant [F(2, 711) = 6.68, p = 0.001, h 2 p = 0.018].
Jackie Chan was perceived to be more moral in the moral
character condition (M = 4.89, SD = 1.30) than he was in
the denial of immorality condition (M = 4.52, SD = 1.29)
[t(460) = 3.14, p = 0.002] or the denial of responsibility
condition (M = 4.53, SD = 1.25) [t(497) = 3.17, p = 0.002].
Furthermore, the perceived morality of Jackie Chan was
significantly above the mid-point (4.50) in the moral character
condition only [t(297) = 4.76, p < 0.001].
Preliminary analyses. The mean level of perceived cultural
representativeness of Jackie Chan was 4.06 (SD = 1.26 on a
scale of 1–7), which was significantly higher than that of
Ge You in Study 1 [t(1239) = 10.66, p < 0.001]. The
impression manipulation, which was introduced after the
perceived cultural representativeness measure, did not have
any impact on perceived cultural representativeness [F(2,
711) = 0.21, p = 0.82].
The mean level of perceived circulation was 29.95%
(SD = 23.61%), which was lower than the actual percentage
of participants who had heard of the scandal (38.7% 4 )
[t(712) = 9.92, p < 0.001]. The impression manipulation
did not have an effect on the perceived circulation of the
scandal [F(2, 711) = 0.17, p = 0.84]. Perceived circulation
of the scandal also did not correlate with the perceived
cultural representativeness of Jackie Chan (r =-0.03).
Taken together, the preliminary analysis results indicated
that the impression manipulation, perceived circulation,
and perceived cultural representativeness were orthogonal
predictors in the current study.
Effects of morality, cultural representativeness, and
circulation. We hypothesize that making salient Jackie
Chan’s concern with morality would be more effective for
reducing negative emotions, only when Jackie Chan was
perceived to be a cultural symbol and when the scandal was
widely circulated. To test this hypothesis, we performed an
impression ¥ perceived circulation ¥ perceived cultural
representativeness GLM on negative emotions and predicted
a significant three-way interaction. We mean-centred
perceived circulation and perceived cultural representativeness
to reduce the impact of multicolinearity.
The predicted that the impression ¥ perceived
circulation ¥ perceived cultural representativeness interaction
was significant [F(2, 698) = 3.01, p < 0.05,
h 2 p = 0.009]. To understand the nature of this interaction,
we performed a separate circulation ¥ perceived cultural
representativeness GLM in each impression condition. As
in Study 1, in all impression conditions, there was a significant
main effect of perceived cultural representativeness:
F(1, 210) = 21.72, p < 0.001, h 2 p = 0.096 in the denial
of immorality condition; F(1, 248) = 4.58, p < 0.001,
h 2 p = 0.173 in the denial of responsibility; and F(1,
240) = 9.06, p = 0.003, h 2 p = 0.036 in the moral character
condition. In all impression conditions, participants
reported fewer negative emotions towards Jackie Chan
when they regarded him as more representative of Chinese
culture (r between -0.15 and -0.31, p < 0.05). The main
effect of circulation was not significant in any of the three
impression conditions: F 1.03, p 0.31. More importantly,
the circulation ¥ perceived cultural representativeness
interaction was significant in the moral character
condition only: f(1, 240) = 6.84, p = 0.009, h 2 p = 0.028, and
was f(1, 210) = 0.63, p = 0.43 in the denial of Immorality
Condition and F(1, 248) = 1.47, p = 0.23 in the denial of
responsibility condition.
In Figure 2, we plot the predicted value of 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 in Study 1, when the impression that Jackie
Chan valued morality was highlighted, the participants’
emotional responses were least negative when the scandal
was widely circulated and when Jackie Chan was seen as a
representative of Chinese culture. When the scandal was
widely circulated, emotional responses to Jackie Chan were
less negative when he was seen as more representative of
Chinese culture (B =-0.30, p < 0.001). In contrast, when
the scandal was perceived to have low circulation, negative
© 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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