CAD or MAD? Anger (not disgust) as the predominant response to pathogen-free violations of the

Divinity code

Edward Royzman

Pavel Atanasov

Justin Landy

Amanda Parks

Andrew Gepty

University of Pennsylvania

Supplementary Materials

Divinity-pure vignettes used in Studies 1 and 2.

Marion is a devout Christian. One day she visits one of her old friends from college. She finds out that

her friend has since given up the faith and become a militant atheist. As Marion is exiting her friend’s

living room, she notices something: her friend had been using a large silver crucifix he inherited from

his devout Protestant father as a doorstop… (Marion/Crucifix).

Bilal is a devout Muslim living in the Netherlands. One day, while on his way to work, he passes by a

local feminist rally. As he comes closer, he hears the protesters shouting “No to Mohamed! Yes to

Freedom!” while stepping on and kicking the Quran, the holy book of the Islamic faith, believed to be

the word of God…(Bilal/Koran).

Gupka is a resident of Moldova and is a devout follower of the Hurdu faith. The Hurdus worship

DavlataZuba (The Great Spirit of Everything). By its nature, the Great Spirit is as invisible to the human

eye as He is incomprehensible to the human mind. Thus any pictorial representation of the Great Spirit

is regarded as a sacrilege… One day Gupka picks up a newspaper from the local stand. While looking

through it, she comes across a cartoon depicting the Great Spirit as a mere mortal…(Gupka/Cartoon).

Mike is a US marine. He recently returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan where he saw many

friends and colleagues die in combat. Mike is not very religious, but there is one thing that is sacred to

him above all and that’s the American flag. It is as sacred to him as the crucifix is to a Christian or the

Quran is to a Muslim…One day, as Mike is walking through the college plaza of his home town, he

hears some loud chanting and cheering just ahead of him. As he comes closer, he sees a group of student

protesters kicking and stepping on the American flag before setting it on fire…(Mike/Flag).

Peter is a born-again Christian. One day he is watching a late afternoon talk show. Featured on the

show is an interview with an author of the runaway bestseller “Jesus, Mary, and other imaginary friends

you can do without.”The book argues, based on the latest work in neuroscience and theoretical physics,

that God does not exist, that men have no souls, and that life is devoid of any spiritual meaning or larger

purpose…(Peter/Bestseller).

Divinity-pure vignettes used in Study 5.

Bilal is a devout Khurramite living in central Azerbaijan. Like all Khurramites, Bilal is an avid reader of Oxalla,

the holy text of the Khurramite tradition and one of the most revered possessions of a Khurramite household.

Among other things, an Oxalla must never be tossed, burnt, stepped upon, or allowed to touch the ground. One

day, while on his way to work, Bilal stops by a large cider tree to take in the natural beauty all around him. It is

a bitter cold Spring morning and the streets are deserted. The tree’s ancient trunk makes Bilal completely

invisible to anyone on the opposite end of the street, including, Nazim, a fellow Khurramite and a local street

merchant just laying out his wares. Suddenly, Bilal sees something: unable to find anything suitable to stand on

to reach for the roof of his kiosk, Nazim casts a furtive glance around, then quickly tosses on the ground and

steps with both of his feet on a thick leather-bound book that Bilal recognizes to be an old Oxalla, the holy book

of the Khurramite faith, believed to be the word of God…(Bilal/Holy book).

Gupka is a resident of Moldova and is a lifelong follower of the Hurdu faith. Like all Hurdus, Gupka is a

devout worshiper of  Davla ta Zuba (the Great Spirit of Everything and the master of the Great Beyond).

According to the Hurdu teachings, it was the Great Spirit and his wife Onaku who breathed the world into being

in mere six days, punctuated by a day of "spiritual repose". Accordingly, the Hurdu religious calendar

mandates Thursday of every secular week as Lashe Ki Ru (the Holy  Day of Spiritual Repose), when all work

and worldly pursuits (especially, those related to money and finance) must cease, all electronic devices are to be

set aside, and it is every Hurdu’s foremost duty to sleep late, idle around, and fill one’s waking hours

with adoration of the Great Spirit, Onaku, and the wonders of the Great Beyond.  

One particularly hot morning on the Day of Spiritual Repose, Gupka wakes up late and decides to take a

leisurely stroll around his neighborhood. As he passes by the house of his Hurdu neighbor Azul, a successful

financial consultant, Gupka notices something: the curtains on the window of Azul’s ground-floor  study are

half-drawn and Gupka can clearly see Azul’s tall figure slouching over his desk, typing away energetically on

his laptop, with stacks of folders all around him.  Gupka remembers Azul telling him last night, just as they were

leaving the house of worship, that his new client was “lots and lots of work” and that he, Azul, has already fallen

a little behind....After the initial shock of disbelief wears off, Gupka realizes what he is witnessing: his Hurdu

neighbor Azul is using the Day of Spiritual Repose to catch up on his work as a financial

consultant. (Gupka/Holy Day).

Marion is a member of a conservative Christian sect. Among her many strongly held beliefs is the view that a

crucifix is the supreme symbol of Christ’s suffering and devotion to humanity and must be treated with the

reverence and respect accorded to the Lord himself. One day Marion is visiting with her in-laws, Rachel and

Jacob, who are members of the sect as well. While hosting their guest, Jacob tells her excitedly that they are

about to get a delivery of a large plasma screen TV for their living room. When the delivery arrives, Jacob is

unable to find a regular doorstop and casually props the door open with a large silver crucifix that he inherited

from his devout minister father. (Marion/Crucifix II).

Oscar is a lifelong practitioner of Umbanda, a Brazil-based  religion that blends African traditions

with Spiritualism and Roman Catholicism. Like Catholicism, Umbanda mandates a belief in the One and

Only   Supreme Creator, “immutable, sovereign, and infinitely good”; worshiping any entity other than Him is

strictly forbidden and is regarded as an affront to God. Oscar considers himself devout, but, to hedge his bets

just a tiny bit, he also has Igor, a golden idol in the shape of a small man that he keeps hidden under the sofa in

his living room. Whenever stressed out or having romantic problems, Oscar makes the idol an offering of beads

and incense, asking him for good fortune and spiritual guidance. One day Oscar’s devout Umbanda

neighbor, Peter, walks in on Oscar worshiping the idol and, thus, discovers that Oscar has been idol-

worshipping on the side all along. (Peter/Idol) (loosely based on a scenario by Morewedge and Clear [2008]).

Sofia is a member of The Church of the Revelation of Saint Theodoros, a branch of the Greek Orthodox Church.

The distinct feature of the sect is their veneration of Saint Theodoros, whom they believe to be one of the holiest

figures in history, second only to Christ himself.  The sect is a minority in most of Greece, but is the dominant

religion in Sofia's village, which is located near a large open field where Saint Theodoros is believed to have

been martyred and taken up to heaven right after delivering his final sermon: Sermon Agri (“The Sermon of the

Open Field”).  This field is the holiest site in the world to members of this faith: setting foot on it for any

purpose other than a religious rite of solemn commemoration or silent prayer is strictly forbidden and is

regarded as an affront to God.   One day, Sofia is walking past the field and sees her neighbor Eugenia allowing

her four adolescent sons to frolic and play kickball on the holy site, while Eugenia is looking on with a smile.

Eugenia, like Sofia, is a member of The Church of the Revelation of Saint Theodoros. (Sofia/Sacred field).

Supplementary Materials for Study 1

Table 1.1 below reports the proportion of participants assigning a particular item to one of the four

available response categories—Autonomy (AUT), Community (COM), Divinity (DIV), None (NONE)

—followed by each item’s empirically derived category based on one of the two classification criteria:

the “CAD Original Classification” rule and the stricter “Current [more than 50 %] Classification” rule

(see the table note for details).

Table 1.1. Proportion of participants assigning an item to one of the four response categories.

Scenario Name

Presumptive Category Autonomy Community Divinity None Total

CAD Original Classification

Current(>50 % rule) Classification

Alex/School Autonomy 52% 3% 0% 45% 100% AUT AUTChloe/Fraud Autonomy 23% 73% 3% 0% 100% COM COMJayden/Line Autonomy 68% 32% 0% 0% 100% AUT AUTJohn/Resume Autonomy 43% 57% 0% 0% 100% COM COMOlivia/Abuse Autonomy 94% 6% 0% 0% 100% AUT AUT

Ann/IncestDivinity-Original 0% 13% 61% 26% 100% DIV DIV

Emma/CorpseDivinity-Original 6% 13% 10% 71% 100% NONE NONE

Ethan/WormDivinity-Original 10% 6% 3% 81% 100% NONE NONE

Isabel/SexDivinity-Original 16% 35% 29% 19% 100% NONE NONE

Jennifer/MeatDivinity-Original 6% 6% 19% 68% 100% DIV NONE

Bilal/Koran Divinity-Pure 0% 3% 97% 0% 100% DIV DIVGupka/Cartoon Divinity-Pure 0% 3% 97% 0% 100% DIV DIVMarion/Crucifix Divinity-Pure 0% 3% 97% 0% 100% DIV DIVMike/Flag Divinity-Pure 3% 29% 68% 0% 100% DIV DIVPeter/Bestseller Divinity-Pure 3% 3% 90% 3% 100% DIV DIVChris/Recovery None 0% 0% 0% 100% 100% NONE NONESarah/Painting None 6% 3% 0% 90% 100% NONE NONE

Supplementary Materials for Study 1 contd.

Table 1.2. General Estimating Equation model for Study 1.

Solution for Fixed EffectsEffect Estimate SE DF t Value p

Intercept 0.897 0.038 30 23.77 <.0001Original -0.651 0.039 278 -16.55 <.0001

Supplementary Materials for Study 2

Table 2.1. Retaliation Triad (RT) and Oral Inhibition (OI) descriptive statistics for Study 2.

Scenario Presumed category

Strict criterion (50%)-based

category

RT OI

Mean SD Mean SD

Pam Autonomy AUT 0.67 0.62 0.12 0.33Jayden Autonomy AUT 1.24 0.52 0.00 0.00Olivia Autonomy AUT 1.12 0.87 0.19 0.49Autonomy 1.01 0.51 0.1 0.21

Alice Divinity-Original DIV 0.18 0.46 0.73 0.80Ann Divinity-Original DIV 0.13 0.37 0.49 0.63Divinity-original 0.16 0.37 0.61 0.63

Bilal Divinity-Pure DIV 1.49 0.84 0.07 0.26Gupka Divinity-Pure DIV 1.03 0.67 0.22 0.50Marion Divinity-Pure DIV 1.14 0.77 0.05 0.22Mike Divinity-Pure DIV 1.69 0.91 0.11 0.37Peter Divinity-Pure DIV 0.86 0.76 0.13 0.46Divinity-pure 1.24 0.55 0.12 0.24

Chris None NONE 0.00 0.00 0.09 0.29Sarah None NONE 0.34 0.57 0.38 0.53None 0.17 0.29 0.24 0.31

Chloe Autonomy COM 0.54 0.63 0.06 0.24John Autonomy COM 1.23 0.80 0.03 0.17Ethan Divinity-Original NONE 0.01 0.10 1.52 0.86Isabel Divinity-Original NONE 0.03 0.17 1.04 0.71Jennifer Divinity-Original NONE 0.20 0.45 1.73 0.90

Note: Shaded cells represent five scenarios whose empirically derived category assignments do not match their presumptive category (based on the 50 % rule). Category means (e.g., Autonomy) are based on the remaining scenarios that have been validated using the 50 % rule.

Table 2.2. Retaliation Triad (RT) and Oral Inhibition (OI) indices as a function of transgression type (with non-transgressions as a reference group) for 12 core scenarios. Hierarchical Linear Model (robust standard error in parentheses).

Dependent Variable RT OI RT-OIb SE b SE b SE

Non-Transgression (reference) 0.34 (0.07) 0.38 (0.05) -0.04 (0.09)Autonomy 0.67 (0.07) *** -0.28 (0.05) *** 0.95 (0.09) ***Divinity-original -0.19 (0.08) * 0.23 (0.05) *** -0.42 (0.10) ***Divinity-pure 0.90 (0.07) *** -0.26 (0.05) *** 1.17 (0.09) ***N (participants) 100 100 100AIC 2313.5 1433.3 2751.6* p<0.05; ** p<0.01; ***p<.001.

Table 2.3. Retaliation Triad (RT) and Oral Inhibition (OI) indices as a function of transgression type (with non-transgressions a reference group) for the full 17-item set. Hierarchical Linear Model (robust standard error in parentheses).

Dependent Variable RT OI RT-OIb SE b SE b SE

Non-Transgression (reference) 0.17 (0.05) 0.24(0.04

)-0.07

(0.06)

Autonomy 0.84 (0.06) *** -0.13(0.05

)*

0.97(0.08) ***

Community 0.72 (0.06) *** -0.19(0.06

)***

0.91(0.09)

Divinity-original -0.06 (0.05) 0.86(0.05

)***

-0.93(0.08) ***

Divinity-pure 1.07 (0.05) *** -0.12(0.05

)*

1.19(0.08) ***

N (participants) 100 100 100AIC 3279 2953 4344.2

* p<0.05; ** p<0.01; ***p<.001.

Table 2.4. Proportion of participants selecting at least one Retaliation Triad (RT) or Oral

Inhibition (OI) item for each scenario; all differences in proportion (within each scenario) are

significantly different at p<.01 based on McNemar’s test. Proportion of move-away reactions is

shown separately.

Scenarios OI RT Move away

DIVINITY-ORIGINAL

Alice/Incest* 54% 16% 69%

Ann/Incest* 43% 12% 45%

Ethan/Apple None ^ 95% 1% 10%

Jennifer/Meat None 97% 18% 13%

Isabel/Sex None 83% 3% 1%

DIVINITY-PURE

Bilal/Koran* 7% 93% 23%

Gupka/Spirit* 18% 80% 9%

Marion/Crucifix* 5% 84% 18%

Mike/Flag* 9% 96% 3%

Peter/Bestseller * 9% 69% 24%

AUTONOMY

Chloe/Embezzle Community 6% 100% 3%

Jayden/Line* 0% 99% 0%

John/Resume Community 3% 89% 7%

Olivia/Abuse* 16% 75% 22%

Pam/Assault* 12% 58% 34%

* indicates scenarios used in the primary analyses. ^superscript letters indicate the code violation type for the scenarios that were

identified by the majority of participants to belong to a code violation category other than their presumptive category.

Supplementary Materials for Study 3

Figure 1.1. One of the 16 stimulus arrays used in Study 3. In this display, Face B represents disgust in the closed-mouth form, Face O represents disgust in the open-mouth form, Face Z represents anger in the closed-mouth form, and Face G represents anger in the open-mouth form.

Note: Ethnically, the four NimStim models used were a Latino female (NimStim model 03, above), an East-Asian female (NimStim model 17), a Caucasian male with North-European features (NimStim model 34), and a Caucasian male with Mediterranean features (NimStim model 36).

Supplementary Materials for Study 4

Detailed search protocol for the incidence of disgust-based vs. anger-based lexicon related to

Bagram Air Base Koran burning (February 20, 2012).

The data search process was initiated by the first author logging on to the "LexisNexis

Academic (NYT & much more)” under the University of Pennsylvania user license, with the

"Advanced Search" option being selected as the “general searching” strategy. The subsequent

search/verification process proceeded in three steps.

Primary search. For our primary search, the following sequence of terms and

connectors was entered into the “Advanced” search box (in this format): Afghanistan AND

(Koran OR Quran OR Qur'an) AND burn! (italics not present in the original search entry). This

effectively “instructed” the search engine to look for any combination of the name of the

country within which the incident took place, the name of the religious text in question (under

any of its three alternate spellings), and any form of the verb “burn”. We selected "All news

(English)" as our search type, and February 21, 2012 (the first day of international news

coverage, when reports of emotions would be expected to be at their most immediate and raw) as

our target date. ("All news (English)" is a comprehensive news pool comprised of full-text

transcripts of both major news publications and small neighborhood newspapers, as well as full

texts of various newswire services, TV and radio broadcast transcripts, and text and video blogs.

It is the most comprehensive compendium of newsworthy information available through Lexis

Nexis and one of the most comprehensive on the web, drawing on both domestic and

international news sources, including AlArabiya.net, Pajhwok Afghan News English, Trend

Daily News (Azerbaijan), Iranian Government News, and Agence France Presse).

Secondary search. Once the results of the primary search results were displayed

(yielding 181 full-text entries for February 21 from a variety of world publications, including

newspaper stories, TV and radio broadcast announcements, blog posts, and reports of on-the-

ground interviews), a secondary search was conducted, with all subsequent search iterations

taking place within the aforementioned pool of 181 citations identified by the primary search.

Each secondary search iteration originally focused on one of 12 emotion terms, resulting in a

total of 12 search iterations. The following twelve search terms were used (in this order): gross,

grossed out, grossing out, revulsion, revolted, revolting; anger, angry, angering, rage, enraged,

enraging. The first six search terms, from gross to revolting, were variations on (and included)

two words, grossed out and revulsion, identified by Nabi as coming closest and second closest,

respectively, to capturing the theoretical meaning of disgust (Nabi, 2002; Royzman et al., 2008)

Symmetrically, six emotion terms, from anger to enraging, were selected to capture the

theoretical meaning of anger (J. A. Russell & Fehr, 1994).

For the sake of completeness, another series of searches was conducted based on three

additional emotion terms --- disgust, disgusted, and disgusting, even though any positive result

stemming from the use of these terms would have to be interpreted with much caution, given the

preponderance of evidence (Nabi’s, 2002; Royzman et al., 2008; Simpson et al., 2006) that the

lay meaning of “disgust”, “disgusted”, and, presumably, “disgusting” is semantically closer to

the theoretical meaning of anger, involving a constituent desire to approach and retaliate against

the offending party (Aristotle, trans.1991; Harmon-Jones & Allen, 1998; Lazarus, 1991; Nabi,

2002; Roseman et al., 1994), than it is to the theoretical meaning of disgust as an oral inhibition

response.

Tertiary search (item-by-item verification). The tertiary search consisted in the item-by-

item review of the full texts of all the citations identified during the secondary search to verify

that the target words were, indeed, featured in the relevant context (a number of texts identified

by the secondary search, especially those representing broadcast transcripts, included multiple

news items with no relevance to the Koran burning episode), carried the relevant emotive

denotations (e.g., “gross” referring to a disgust-inducing stimulus rather than a magnitude [as in

“gross error of judgment”]). The tertiary search was also used to filter out possible duplicate

content. The initial citations for each of the 15 emotion search terms (see above) that passed all

of the aforementioned “filters” were considered “verified”.

Both original (unfiltered) and “verified” citation counts (along with duplicate content

counts) for February 21, 2012 are listed in Table 5. The total number of verified disgust-themed

and anger-themed counts for February 21, 2012 were 0 and 83, respectively. We subsequently

repeated the entire three-step search process for February 28, 2012 (see Table 6). In this case, the

secondary search produced 297 unfiltered citations, with total number of verified disgust-themed

and anger-themed counts being 0 and 49, respectively. Aggregate counts are listed in Table 7.

(Instances of duplicate content aside, the discrepancies between verified and unfiltered count

types were due to emotion terms being used in relation to a different news item covered in the

same broadcast or newswire release).

Table 4.1. Counts of unfiltered, verified, and duplicate content citations for each emotion term search as well as disgust-themed and anger-themed citation totals for February 21, 2012.

N of unfiltered citations

N of verified

citations

Number of citations with

duplicate content

Total number of verified disgust-themed citations

Total number of verified

anger-themed citations

Gross 1 0 0 0 83

Grossed out 0 0 0

Grossing out 0 0 0

Revulsion 1 0 0

Revolted 0 0 0

Revolting 1 0 0

Disgust 0 0 0

Disgusted 0 0 0

Disgusting 0 0 0

Anger 32 30 5

Angry 57 46 0

Angering 0 0 0

Rage 0 0 0

Enraged 8 7 1

Enraging 0 0 0

Table 4.2. Counts of unfiltered, verified, and duplicate content citations for each emotion term search as well as disgust-themed and anger-themed citation totals for February 28, 2012.

N of unfiltered citations

N of verified

citations

Number of citations with

duplicate content

Total number of verified disgust-themed citations

Total number of verified

anger-themed citations

Gross 9 0 2 0 49

Grossed out 0 0 0

Grossing out

0 0 0

Revulsion 0 0 0

Revolted 0 0 0

Revolting 0 0 0

Disgust 2 0 0

Disgusted 1 0 0

Disgusting 4 0 1

Anger 43 24 15

Angry 32 19 5

Angering 0 0 0

Rage 7 4 0

Enraged 5 2 2

Enraging 0 0 0

Table 4.3. Aggregate counts of unfiltered, verified, and duplicate content citations for each emotion term search as well as disgust-themed and anger-themed citation totals for February 21 and February 28, 2012.

N of unfiltered citations

N of verified

citations

Number of citations with

duplicate content

Total number of verified disgust-themed citations

Total number of verified

anger-themed citations

Gross 10 0 2 0 132

Grossed out 0 0 0

Grossing out

0 0 0

Revulsion 1 0 0

Revolted 0 0 0

Revolting 1 0 0

Disgust 2 0 0

Disgusted 1 0 0

Disgusting 4 0 1

Anger 75 54 20

Angry 89 65 5

Angering 0 0 0

Rage 7 4 0

Enraged 13 9 3

Enraging 0 0 0

Supplemental Study 1 (overview)

Complete list of “scenarios” generated by undergraduates (N = 14) in response to a request to give an example of an act that violates the Divinity code (as defined by Rozin et al., 1999, p.578), followed (after the first task was complete) by an instruction to indicate if any person was harmed by the act.

Disrespecting other people (H)Harming another person (H)Stealing from a [indecipherable] neighbor (H)“You should not kill” (H)Stealing (H)Stealing from the elderly (H)

Peeing in the holy water (N) (the participant added that “urine is sterile”)Uses a rosary as a headband (N)Using God’s name in vain (N)Driving your car through a cemetery and hitting gravestones (no harm but emotionally yes) (A)Burning a Bible (N)Skateboarding on church grounds (N)Cursing in a church (N)[someone saying] “Crazy Christian Psychobabble” (N)

Note: All items are based on hand-written statements transcribed verbatim (with minor corrections for spelling and grammar); (H) = the respondent judged that some person was harmed by the act, (N) = the respondent judged that no person was harmed by the act, (A) = ambiguous with respect to the harm status, with the respondent’s verbatim response provided for further disambiguation.

Supplemental Study 2

The results of Studies 1-5 lend clear support to the anger-based account, while providing further

evidence against CAD. Supplemental Study 2 was designed to examine if this pattern would hold under

yet another data collection procedure while enabling us to resolve one lingering question that Studies 1-5

failed to address, i.e., whether anger will continue to be the dominant perceived response to divinity

violations when the impious act being judged was one’s own. To explore this question, we employed a

subject recruitment process common in cultural anthropological research (e.g. Jensen, 1997; Shweder et

al., 1997) where individuals known to an investigator – in this case, members of a small seminar-style

Social Psychology course – draw on their social network of friends and acquaintances to “acquire” or

recruit potential “informants.” In this case, each individual was asked to think of and administer a survey

to one person known to be a practicing member of their religious community. All surveys had to be

administered in the face-to-face manner, had to include complete demographic information, and had to be

submitted to the instructor (E.R.) for further verification. The conclusions of the study were discussed

with the students and were used to illustrate general properties of hypothesis-testing. Students

participating in the exercise could earn extra credit and those who did not or could not participate were

given the opportunity to earn the equivalent amount of extra credit in alternate ways.

Method

Participants

The recruitment process generated 25 usable surveys. The resultant sample was 64% female, with

the average age of 25.5 (SD = 10.1), age range: 18 - 63. The sample was largely “White” ( 68% ) and

“Asian” (16%). By design, the sample was comprised of predominantly religiously affiliated individuals

(56% Christian [Catholic, Protestant, Lutheran], 28% Jewish, with the three remaining individuals

identifying themselves as “Hindu”, “New Age”, and “Unitarian”). The only exception was a female

participant who very recently renounced her Catholic faith and no longer considered herself religious.

However, given this individual’s religious background and upbringing, her responses we retained in the

sample.

Materials and Procedure

Each potential student recruiter (N = 32) received one-page survey containing a paragraph of

instructions, two scenarios (Peter/Crucifix-Self and Gupka/Holy day-Self, see below for complete texts),

and a brief demographic questionnaire (age, sex, ethnicity/race, and religious affiliation)1. Each student

also received a high-quality color printout of a stimulus array (Face Panel), on 8.5 X 11-in. (21.59 X

27.94-cm) white paper, of three facial displays, representing peak (“apex”) forms of anger, disgust, and

joy, derived from the Amsterdam Dynamic Facial Expression Set (ADFES), a standardized database of

FACS-pre-coded facial expressions that received excellent recognition scores (van der Schalk, Hawk,

Fischer, & Doosje, 2011) and is available upon request to the scientific community at

http://psyres.uva.nl/research/content/programme-group-social-psychology/adfes-stimulus-set/request-

for-use/request-for-use.html). All facial displays were of the same randomly selected male Caucasian

model (see Figure 1.2 below for an example).

In each case, the instruction given to the participant was to identify a facial expression that best

represents “how the story’s character (e.g., Gupka) is likely to be feeling about something he did as the

story ends.” As in previous studies, participants were encouraged to use their own feelings about the

situation as a guide to what the character is likely to be feeling. Participants further instructed to write or

state “None” if none of the faces applied and to list more than one face if two or more applied. The

scenarios were counterbalanced for order and the ordering of the faces within each stimulus array was

1 Twenty seven (out of potential thirty two) students opted to participate, generating 27 candidate surveys in the process. One additional survey was administered by the instructor (E.R.) in accordance with the conditions of the exercise. Since the peak joy expression was intended as a manipulation check on the integrity of participants’ responses, it was decided a priori that surveys where a participant selected the peak joy expression as the best representation of either characters’ emotional state would be excluded from further analysis. One survey was disqualified on that basis. One additional survey was disqualified due to a procedural error (the face panel used were not that originally provided, but a poor-quality reproduction). Finally, one student failed to provide the required written documentation of his participant’s responses (i.e., did not turn in a completed survey), but communicated the data electronically. These data were not counted as well, leaving us with 25 analyzable surveys in the end. If retained, the excluded surveys would have further strengthened support for the anger-based hypothesis.

determined by one of four different random assignments, yielding a total of 8 (4 versions of the Face

Panel x 2 versions of the survey) configurations, which were distributed at random among 32 potential

student recruiters.

Results

A total of 25 completed surveys were analyzed. Preliminary analyses revealed no effect of sex,

age, or survey order. Given that the two scenarios were intended as thematically matched instantiations of

the same emotion-eliciting event, we integrated participants’ responses across the two vignettes (anger

face = 1, disgust face = -1, the “NONE” response or “equally good” response = 0) to form a 5-point

ordinal anger dominance scale. The resultant scale had a score range between -2 (indicating that the

disgust face was selected for both scenarios) and +2 (indicating that anger face was selected for both

scenarios). The mean anger dominance score was 1.08 (SD = 0.99), with the median and modal anger

dominance score of 2, indicating that participants’ overall response pattern was strongly biased towards

anger. This bias was significantly above 0 by the one-sample t-test: t (24) = 5.41, p < 0.001, as well as its

non-parametric counterpart, the Wilcoxon signed-rank test (p < 0.001).

Divinity-pure vignettes used in Supplemental Study 2

Peter is a member of a conservative Christian sect. Among his many strongly held beliefs is the view that

a crucifix is the supreme symbol of Christ’s suffering and devotion to humanity and must be treated with

the reverence and respect accorded to the Lord himself. One afternoon Peter is home all by himself and is

feeling rather excited about the forthcoming delivery of a large plasma screen TV for his living room.

When the delivery arrives, Peter is unable to find a regular doorstop. So, when one of the handymen

anxiously calls out to him to prop the door open with something “Right away!”, Peter hurriedly props the

door open with a large silver crucifix that he inherited from his religiously devout father.

After the delivery crew is gone and Peter has a few moments to himself, he realizes with unflinching

clarity the great impiety of what he had done: he just used the holy crucifix inherited from his religiously

devout father as a doorstop. (Peter/Crucifix-Self)

Gupka is a junior financial consultant residing in Chisinau, Moldova. He is also a lifelong follower of the

Hurdu faith, a religious minority in Chisinau. Like all Hurdus, Gupka is a devout worshiper of Davla ta

Zuba (the Great Spirit of Everything and the master of the Great Beyond). According to the Hurdu

teachings, it was the Great Spirit and his wife Onaku who breathed the world into being in mere six days,

punctuated by a day of "spiritual repose." Accordingly, the Hurdu religious calendar

mandates Thursday of every secular week as the Holy Day of Spiritual Repose, when all work and

worldly pursuits (especially those related to money and finance) must cease, all electronic devices are to

be shut off, and it is every Hurdu’s foremost duty to sleep late, idle around, and fill one’s waking hours

with adoration of the Great Spirit, Onaku, and the wonders of the Great Beyond.

One sunny morning on the Day of Spiritual Repose, Gupka wakes up late to the buzzing of a cell phone.

He quickly realizes that this is one of his work phones that he apparently forgot to shut off the night

before. One look at the screen tells him that the incoming call is from an important new client, a well-

meaning fellow unfamiliar with the Hurdu ways. Gupka knows that the right thing to do is to turn the

thing off and go back to sleep, but, almost in spite of himself, he presses “Receive”, intent on uttering but

a few curt formalities, then calling it quits…Yet, 10 minutes into the conversation, Gupka still finds

unable to extricate himself, listening patiently to the client’s excited chatter, and even dispensing some

solid professional advice along the way…

After he finally hangs up some 40 minutes later, Gupka realizes with unflinching clarity the great impiety

of what he had done: he just transacted business over the phone on the Day of Spiritual Repose, when no

business transactions, phones, or mention of money are allowed. (Gupka/Holy day-Self)

Figure 1.2. One of the 4 stimulus arrays used in Supplemental Study 2. In this display, Face B represents disgust, Face G represents anger, and Face R represents joy (see van der Schalk et al., 2011, Table 1 for FACS-coding and further information).