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2011 6: 428Perspectives on Psychological ScienceMark J. Brandt and Christine Reyna

The Chain of Being : A Hierarchy of Morality

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Perspectives on Psychological Science6(5) 428 –446© The Author(s) 2011Reprints and permission: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navDOI: 10.1177/1745691611414587http://pps.sagepub.com

In 1936, Arthur Lovejoy published his seminal book on the history of the Great Chain of Being, an idea that had its root in Plato and Aristotle and continued to influence theologians, philosophers, and natural scientists until its eventual fall from academic favor during the industrial revolution. The original chain of being, or scala naturae as conceived of by Aristotle, was used to represent all things, whether they were living and breathing animals, photosynthesizing plants, or lifeless rocks and minerals. Everything had a place on the chain and every link of the chain was occupied. As the idea of the chain of being progressed, it became less a dimension of existence in general and became a dimension of morality (Russell, 1988). The top of the chain expanded from humans (presumably the most complex and “perfect” animal) to saints, angels, and supernatural deities. Humans were repositioned toward the middle of the chain, with animals slightly lower. The bottom half of the chain included a hierarchy of increasingly evil demons and ending with Satan himself. The present analysis uses this version of the chain of being to represent a theoretical framework we call the social cognitive chain of being (SCCB). This framework describes the processes and perceptions that help humans organize their moral universe. We argue that the vertical moral continuum of the chain of being persists in peo-ple’s conception and perception of their social world, allowing people to perceive others and themselves along the continuum from devilish to divine.

From the basic description of the chain of being as a verti-cal moral hierarchy it becomes possible to sketch the outlines

of a perceptual moral hierarchy. Jonathan Haidt and his col-leagues (Haidt, 2003a, 2006; Haidt & Algoe, 2004) were the first to explore these ideas from a social psychological per-spective. Building on cross-cultural research connecting immorality with “down,” pollution, and animality and con-necting morality with “up,” purity, and divinity, Haidt pro-posed that people perceive others along a vertical sacred dimension anchored by the animal and the divine.1 The pur-pose of this article is to build on the work by Haidt and his colleagues in order to more fully develop the SCCB as a theo-retical framework used to organize and elaborate research on the perception of the morality of social targets.

The SCCB allows us to capture a diverse range of theory and research under the same conceptual umbrella and helps to develop theoretical connections between otherwise indepen-dent lines of inquiry. Haidt and his colleagues primarily focused on the vertical nature of purity/divinity and its asso-ciation with the moral emotions (Haidt, 2003a, 2006; Haidt & Algoe, 2004). We include an expanded review of these two areas, but also broaden the scope of the SCCB by describing perceptions of morality more broadly (not just in the domain of purity/divinity) and by integrating a wider range of research on dehumanization, anthropomorphism, and sanctification

Corresponding Author:Mark J. Brandt, DePaul University, 2219 North Kenmore Avenue, Chicago, IL 60614, USA Email: [email protected]

The Chain of Being: A Hierarchy of Morality

Mark J. Brandt and Christine ReynaDePaul University, Chicago, IL

Abstract

For centuries, philosophers, theologians, and scientists have used the idea of the Great Chain of Being to rank all beings, from demons to animals, humans, and gods, along a vertical dimension of morality. Although the idea of a chain of being has largely fallen out of academic favor, we propose that people still use an embodied vertical moral hierarchy to understand their moral world. This social cognitive chain of being (SCCB) encapsulates a range of research on moral perception including dehumanization (the perception of people as lower on the SCCB), anthropomorphism (the perception of animals as higher and the perceptions of gods as lower on the SCCB), and sanctification (the perception of people as higher on the SCCB). Moral emotions provide affective evidence that guide the perception of social targets as moral (e.g., elevation) or immoral (e.g., disgust). Perceptions of social targets along the SCCB enable people to fulfill group and self-serving, effectance, and existential motivations. The SCCB serves as a unifying theoretical framework that organizes research on moral perception, highlights unique interconnections, and provides a roadmap for future research.

Keywords

emotion/affect, social cognition, morality



A Hierarchy of Morality 429

that highlights changes in perceived moral standing along the SCCB. We propose that morality is the common underlying dimension connecting these diverse domains of research.

Predictions of the SCCBThere are three fundamental predictions of the SCCB that per-tain to the verticality of moral perceptions, the importance of location along the chain of being in determining how people perceive and treat social targets, and the role of emotions in signaling one’s position along the chain of being.

Perceptions of morality are on a vertical continuumAkin to the original conceptualization of the chain of being (Bynum, 1975; Lovejoy, 1936/1964; Russell, 1988), the SCCB represents a vertical moral continuum that ranges from the most immoral and evil of social targets to the most virtuous and good. We predict that this vertical moral hierarchy is used to rank all of the social targets we perceive throughout our

lives (including ourselves) in an effort to understand our socio-moral universe and to guide our moral responses to its occu-pants. The metaphor that “up” is associated with the divine and “down” is associated with evil is ancient and has persisted across time and cultures (Haidt, 2003a; Haidt & Algoe, 2004; Russell, 1988). This metaphor may help map the abstract con-cept of morality onto the concrete representation of vertical space (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, 1999). As a result, morality can become socially situated and embodied via visual and spa-tial experience. Although other social dimensions (e.g., power and authority) can also be associated with verticality (e.g., Schubert, 2005), the SCCB specifically focuses on the vertical nature of morality.

On the left of Figure 1 is a potential conceptualization of several targets along a vertical continuum ranging from the ultimate good down to the ultimate evil. The highest target on this SCCB is God. Although theoretically any entity that rep-resented the ultimate good could occupy the top of the chain of being based upon a person’s own idiosyncratic beliefs, for much of the world some sort of moral supernatural deity likely occupies this post. For example, recent polls find that 92% of

Governing Processes

AnimalisticAnthropomorphism

Dehumanization

Sanctification

Ultimate Good

Ultimate Evil

Affective Cues

• Awe• Elevation• Pride• Self-Satisfaction

• Contempt• Disgust• Shame• Guilt

Social CognitiveChain of Being

DeityAnthropomorphism

Moral Cues

Immoral Cues

Figure 1. An illustration of the social cognitive chain of being (SCCB) and its associated governing processes and affective cues



430 Brandt and Reyna

Americans believe in God or another type of “universal spirit” and 75% believe in angels (Gallup, 2011; see also Sedikides, 2010). Similarly, at the bottom of the chain of being is a repre-sentation of the Devil—a supernatural agent that 70% of Americans believe in (Gallup, 2011)—however, once again whoever or whatever represents the ultimate evil will vary across people and cultures. Between humans and the ultimate good likely resides humans that people perceive to be particu-larly virtuous (e.g., saints) and perhaps angels or other moral supernatural agents (e.g., lesser Gods that are perceived to have some imperfections). Between humans and the ultimate evil likely reside humans that people perceive to be immoral (e.g., terrorists, Nazis), as well as animals. We do not take a position on the objective morality of any particular attitude, behavior, or social agent. Instead, we assume that people are relatively idiosyncratic in their perceptions of virtue and vice (cf. Skitka, Bauman, & Sargis, 2005), though there may be some things that most people in a given culture find to be moral (Haidt & Joseph, 2004; Shweder, Much, Mahapatra, & Park, 1997). Nonetheless, it is this perception of morality that is important to our work here.

Location on the SCCB is consequential and dynamicOur second prediction is that the positioning of a social target on the SCCB has profound consequences for both the per-ceiver and the social target. To the extent that the SCCB repre-sents a moral hierarchy, one would expect that social targets that are considered less moral (on the bottom half of the SCCB) would be perceived as more animal-like and, in extreme cases, even akin to demons and devils. Conversely, social targets that are considered especially moral (on the top half of the SCCB) would be perceived as more saintlike and, in some extreme cases, even akin to God. Similarly, if people are portrayed as animal-like, they will be perceived as less moral and lower on the chain of being, whereas if people are portrayed as more godlike, they will be perceived as more moral and higher on the chain of being. Thus, we are propos-ing that the perception of humanity, animality, and divinity have a bidirectional and mutually reinforcing relationship with the moral hierarchy of the SCCB. The perception of social tar-gets as more or less human will have implications for the treat-ment of those targets, such that those lower on the chain will be excluded and punished for their moral violations and those higher on the chain will be promoted for their moral virtues and protected from the undesirable influences and effects of the more secular world.

It is important to note that the perceived location of a social target along the chain of being is not necessarily fixed—it can be changed depending on a perceiver’s current motivational state or a person’s perception of the morality of a target’s behaviors across time. Thus, entities can acquire or fall from grace depending on the morality of their actions. The middle portion of Figure 1 represents the potential movements of

social targets up or down the SCCB. As illustrated with the four arrows, several mostly independent literatures have developed in social psychology that describe the processes of perceiving a social target as it falls down the chain of being (deity anthropomorphism and dehumanization; e.g., Haslam, 2006; Morewedge & Clear, 2008) and as it rises up the chain of being (animalistic anthropomorphism and sanctification; e.g., Epley, Waytz, & Cacioppo, 2007; Pargament & Mahoney, 2005). Past work has outlined how dehumanization and ani-malistic anthropomorphism represent corresponding inverse processes governing the perception of humans as animal-like and the perception of animals as humanlike (Waytz, Epley, & Cacioppo, 2010); however, our SCCB theoretical framework lets us postulate that deity anthropomorphism and human (or animal) sanctification are also corresponding inverse pro-cesses that track the perception of the divine as more human and humans as more divine.

Emotions cue locations on the SCCB and coordinate social actionOur third prediction, consistent with Haidt’s conceptualization of the chain of being, is that the emotions associated with moral judgments can serve as affective cues to the location of social targets along the chain of being (Haidt & Algoe, 2004; Rozin, Haidt, & McCauley, 2008; cf. Schwarz & Clore, 1983). For example, a target that elicits disgust or contempt by violat-ing moral values will be perceived as less than human (e.g., Rozin et al., 2008) and thus lower down the moral hierarchy, whereas a target that upholds sacred values elicits awe and elevation and will be perceived as more saint-like (e.g., Haidt, 2003a) and thus higher on the hierarchy (see right column of Figure 1). Moreover, because emotions can provide strong affective evidence for the morality of a particular social target, priming a moral emotion prior to the evaluation of a target should also influence moral judgments of the target. These moral emotions provide people with information about the appropriate response to the social target (e.g., avoid or reject vs. approach or accept).

The goal of the SCCBThe goal of this article, and the conceptualization of the SCCB, is to provide a broad, inclusive framework for thinking and theorizing about morality. We examine the three predictions of the SCCB and reconceptualize various literatures and research traditions that can be understood in new ways through their shared connections with the SCCB.

The SCCB as a Vertical Moral HierarchyThroughout history, the chain of being was thought to be a vertical continuum—an idea that was captured not only in how people spoke about the chain (e.g., humans are above animals, Gods in heavens on high) but also in artistic representations of




the chain. Following this historical precedent, the SCCB also proposes that perceptions of morality fall along a vertical con-tinuum in which the moral, the righteous, and the divine are perceived as “up” and the immoral, the evil, and the animals are perceived as “down” (Haidt, 2003a; Haidt & Algoe, 2004). Indeed, cross-culturally moral thinking is often associated with vertical metaphors. For example, a moral member of society is “an upstanding citizen” who is “on the up and up,” whereas an immoral person is “down and dirty.” God is said to reside “up in the heavens,” whereas Satan was sent “down to hell.” Animals are often thought to be beneath humans.

This view proposes that the vertical metaphors we use to describe the relationship between gods, humans, animals, and the Devil, as well as people who are more or less moral, are not coincidental, but instead reflect the influence of visual and spatial bodily experiences in situating the abstract concept of morality. Our position is consistent with theory and research in cognition, and social cognition in particular, that suggests mental processes are situated and embodied in our physical experiences (e.g., Barsalou, 2008; Gibbs, 2006; Niedenthal, 2007; Niedenthal, Barsalou, Winkielman, Krauth-Gruber, & Ric, 2005; Smith & Semin, 2004; M. Wilson, 2002). That is, the body, its sensory-motor systems, and its physical and per-ceptual experiences are implicated in both online cognition and the reliving of an event, providing concrete feelings that enhance cognition.

The metaphor of the moral and sacred as “up” and the immoral and evil as “down” provides a mediating link between the abstract concept of morality and its association with visual space (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, 1999; see also Gibbs & Matlock, 2008; Johnson, 2007; Landau, Meier, & Keefer, 2010). This link allows people to think about the abstract con-cept of morality and divinity with the help of physical experi-ences and reference points, thereby enabling one to enrich and more fully understand the abstract concept. Metaphors may be particularly apt at explaining and structuring abstract thought with physical experiences because they are ubiquitous (Gibbs, 1994), easy to comprehended (Glucksberg & Keysar, 1990), readily represented in physical experiences (Gibbs & Matlock, 2008; N. Wilson & Gibbs, 2007), and by definition are con-nected with abstract ideas.

There are developmental, socio-emotional, and cultural reasons for the association between verticality and morality. Our experiences as infants may be an early contributor to the development of a vertical hierarchy of morality (Meier, Sellbom, & Wygant, 2007). As infants, rewards in the form of food, and moral behavior in the form of love and helping, often literally come “from above” (i.e., from adults; Tolaas, 1991), providing an initial link between higher vertical loca-tions and morality. Perhaps more concretely, people respond to moral emotions by directing their gaze and posture either upward or downward, depending on whether the emotion sig-nals a violation or virtue. Shame and embarrassment, emo-tions that indicate a person (often the self) has violated a personal or social norm, are cross-culturally characterized by

positioning the head and eye gaze downward (e.g., Keltner, 1995; Tracy & Matsumoto, 2008). Conversely, emotions that are indicative of virtue and success, such as pride, are charac-terized by a more open and upward posture (e.g., Tracy & Matsumoto, 2008; Tracy & Robins, 2007). The early experi-ence with moral good coming from above and the upward and downward bodily orientations of some of the moral emotions may provide common physical experiences necessary to “scaf-fold” the more complex, higher mental processes of the per-ception of morality (see Williams, Huang, & Bargh, 2009). In addition, art often represents ideas akin to the chain of being, depicting morality up high and evil down low, which poten-tially allows moral cognition to build on this cultural represen-tation (cf. Garcia-Marques & Ferreira, 2009). The verticality of morality may continue to persist because it provides a meta-phor with which to concretely think about morality based on people’s cross-culturally shared experiences across the life span and social contexts.

Empirical evidence for the association and embodiment of verticality and moralityThe proposition that there exists a perceived vertical moral hierarchy that is situated in visual space via metaphors is sup-ported by several recent studies that are part of a larger trend to incorporate metaphor into models of social cognition (see Landau et al., 2010). This research has found, in general, that concepts associated with morality and righteousness are asso-ciated with higher visual space, and concepts associated with immorality and evil are associated with lower visual space, providing a match between the concepts, the metaphors, and spatial cognition. For example, studies using the Implicit Association Test have found that the concepts of moral and immoral and God and Satan are more quickly associated with concepts of up and down, respectively (Meier, Hauser, et al., 2007; Meier, Sellbom, & Wygant, 2007). Others have demon-strated that priming the concept of up increases prosocial behavior more than does priming the concept down (Sanna, Chang, Miceli, & Lundberg, 2011).

Beyond these conceptual associations, research has demon-strated that perceptions of morality are situated within our experience of visual space. Positive words (e.g., gracious, heaven) are evaluated more quickly when the word appears higher, and negative words (e.g., devil, nasty) are evaluated more quickly when they appear lower (Meier & Robinson, 2004). Moreover, the mere act of evaluating a word as positive or negative is enough to activate upward-directed or downward- directed spatial attention, respectively. Additional studies have found that positivity biases spatial memory upward, and nega-tivity biases spatial memory downward (Crawford, Margolies, Drake, & Murphy, 2006). Neurologically, the classification of words as positive or negative uses the same neural networks used to categorize the vertical location of geometric shapes on a computer screen (Quadflieg et al., 2011). Meier, Sellbom, & Wygant (2007) found that “moral” words (e.g., caring, charity,




nurture) were evaluated more quickly when they were pre-sented in a higher position but that “immoral” words (e.g., cor-rupt, dishonest, evil) were evaluated more quickly when they were lower. Two other sets of studies revealed that concepts related specifically to God and to the Devil were associated with vertical locations, consistent with the SCCB (Chasteen, Burdzy, & Pratt, 2010; Meier, Hauser, et al., 2007). It is impor-tant to note that Meier and colleagues (Meier, Hauser, et al., 2007) expanded the study beyond the use of words and con-cepts. Images representing God and the Devil were remem-bered more accurately when they appeared in metaphorically consistent vertical locations, and these effects could not be explained by differences in power.

The association of morality with vertical space does not just remain cognitive, but is affected by the body’s position in vertical space and manifested in moral or immoral behaviors. In a recent set of studies, Sanna and colleagues (2011) found that people were more charitable after riding up an escalator than after riding down an escalator. Moreover, people were more helpful and less aggressive if they walked up onto a stage to complete a study rather than if they walked down into an orchestra pit. Thus, the movement and positioning of the body up or down leads people to act in more moral or immoral ways.

Taken together, these results provide evidence that moral concepts (including positive and negative evaluations and rep-resentations of God and Satan) and behaviors are intimately tied to vertical spatial cognition and movement, facilitating metaphor-consistent processing and behavior. The SCCB takes the consistent research mapping vertical metaphors to morality and the empirical results connecting morality with vertical space as evidence that the SCCB is grounded in our bodily experiences associated with verticality.

Alternative metaphors for moralityThere are other possible metaphors of morality that situate and embody moral cognition in physical experiences. For exam-ple, the metaphors of morality and immorality as clean and dirty (Liljenquist, Zhong, & Galinsky, 2010; Zhong & Liljenquist, 2006) or light and dark (Meier, Robinson, & Clore, 2004) situate moral cognition in experiences with cleanliness and colors. These multiple metaphors associated with morality are an example of metaphorical pluralism (Lakoff & Johnson, 1999) that serves to enrich, rather than detract from, our conceptual understanding of morality. Although these metaphors may represent completely indepen-dent conceptualizations of morality, it may also be the case that these other metaphors are associated with the vertical metaphors already discussed. For example, Haidt (2003a) pointed out that purity and pollution are also related to a meta-phoric vertical continuum, which indicates that vertical and cleanliness metaphors may be related. Similarly, to the extent light colors serve as a proxy for cleanliness and dark colors are a proxy for dirtiness, this metaphor too may be associated with verticality.

Summary

Morality appears to be widely represented as a vertical hierar-chy, perhaps as a result of early life experiences that link posi-tive and moral outcomes to experiences associated with higher visual space and the immoral or repugnant with things often found in lower visual space. As a result, the SCCB is situated in visual and physical space as a vertical experience that can facilitate metaphorically consistent cognition and behavior, indicating that the SCCB is an integral part of human’s social cognition that is deeply intertwined with our experiences.

Movement Up and Down the Chain of Being: Dehumanization, Anthropomorphism, and Sanctification

The next step in outlining the SCCB is to describe the processes and consequences of perceiving social agents—whether humans, supernatural agents (both evil and divine), or animals—along this moral hierarchy. The framework of the SCCB, as we have conceived it, predicts that as the per-ception of social targets moves down the chain of being from divine to devilish, the social target will be perceived as more immoral and deserving of blame, exclusion, and discrimina-tion, thus indicating that the perceiver no longer believes the target is worthy of care and concern. Conversely, as the per-ception of social targets moves up the chain of being, from devilish to divine, the social target will be perceived as more moral, deserving of support, protection from secular encroach-ments, and worthy of care and concern. Therefore, where an entity is perceived along this chain will have profound conse-quences for how it is treated by those making the moral judgment.

Dehumanization (e.g., Haslam, 2006), anthropomorphism (e.g., Epley et al., 2007), and sanctification (Pargament & Mahoney, 2005) represent powerful examples of this subjective placement of entities along the chain of being and provide a bulk of the evidence in support of these predictions (see also Figure 1). Dehumanization represents the perception of humans as less than human (Haslam, 2006; Leyens et al., 2000) and con-stitutes a move downward on the chain of being.2 The anthropo-morphism of gods (i.e., deity anthropomorphism), represents the perception of moral supernatural agents as closer to humans (Epley, Converse, Delbosc, Monteleone, & Cacioppo, 2009; Morewedge & Clear, 2008) and also constitutes movement down the chain of being. Sanctification, the attribution of divine and sacred characteristics to a social target (Pargament & Mahoney, 2005), and the anthropomorphism of animals and objects, the attribution of human traits to nonhuman animals (Waytz, Cacioppo, & Epley, 2010), represent movement up the chain of being.

The specific location of a given entity along the SCCB can vary across individuals. For example, people whose moral identity is important to the self are more likely to treat all people as a part of their moral community, showing more




compassion and less aggression toward innocent members of threatening outgroups (e.g., children from Afghanistan shortly after the attacks on the World Trade Center; Reed & Aquino, 2003). Others may not value humanity (i.e., have low “humanity-esteem”) and may not consider human beings any more moral than dogs or cats, leading them to denigrate other people and groups (Luke & Maio, 2009). Regardless of indi-vidual and group variations, we expect that when an agent is perceived higher or lower on the SCCB, the agent will be met with either moral praise or condemnation and will be deemed worthy of protection or punishment, respectively.

Moving down the chain of being: from divine to devilishOur theoretical framework of the SCCB predicts that the lower a social target is perceived on the chain of being, the worse treatment they will receive. These perceptions increase the like-lihood that the social targets would face derision, exclusion, and discrimination, culminating in hate crimes, torture, and even genocide (Kelman, 1976; Opotow, 1990, 2001; for a review see Haslam, 2006). We propose then that perception of social tar-gets as less moral will be associated with perceptions of that target as lower on the chain of being (e.g., as less than human) and greater instances of discrimination and exclusion.

In support of our first proposition, the processes and conse-quences of dehumanization appear to be rooted in moral judg-ments and the protection of values. As Struch and Schwartz (1989, p. 366) asserted, “The greater the perceived dissimilar-ity between in-group and out-group in their hierarchies of basic values . . . the more inhuman the outgroup is perceived to be.” Preliminary evidence (Reyna, Brandt, Viki, Hughes, & Benson, 2010) demonstrates that the violation of cultural and moral values can lead to dehumanization, even the dehuman-ization of value-violating ingroup members—a group whose humanity is typically protected (cf. Leyens et al., 2001). More-over, when people and groups are perceived as less than human they are often excluded from one’s moral universe (Opotow, 2001) and receive less compassion and empathy (Bandura, 2002). Some researchers have even found that the perception of a group as violating important values is related to the per-ception of that group as demonic (Pargament, Trevino, Mahoney, & Silberman, 2007; Raiya, Pargament, Mahoney, & Trevino, 2008). Perhaps the most compelling evidence for the connection between immorality and dehumanization, how-ever, is the extreme dehumanization of the Devil (Demoulin, Saroglou, & Van Pachterbeke, 2008). Overall, this research supports the idea that an entity’s perceived position along the SCCB is rooted in moral judgments.

The perception of a person or group as lower on the chain of being also has punitive consequences, such that dehuman-ized groups face greater blame and punishment following undesirable outcomes (Bandura, 1999; Goff, Eberhardt, Williams, & Jackson, 2008). Even more subtle forms of dehu-manization—often called infra-humanization (Leyens et al.,

2000, 2001)—can result in greater discrimination (Pereira, Vala, & Leyens, 2009), as evidenced by less group-based guilt for past atrocities (Zebel, Zimmermann, Viki, & Doosje, 2008), less intergroup forgiveness (Tam et al., 2007, 2008), and fewer helping behaviors (Cuddy, Rock, & Norton, 2007; Zebel et al., 2008) toward the infra-humanized group. People and groups who are perceived to violate values are denied assistance and resources (e.g., Henry & Reyna, 2007; Henry, Reyna, & Weiner, 2004; Reyna, Henry, Korfmacher, & Tucker, 2006; Sears & Henry, 2005; Skitka & Tetlock, 1993), face greater punishment following negative outcomes (e.g., Reyna, Brandt, & Viki, 2009), and are more likely to be kept at a greater physical and psychological distance (Skitka et al., 2005). Even infants as young as 6 months old preferred a pup-pet who demonstrated moral behavior (by helping another puppet climb a hill) rather than a puppet that violated moral standards (by pushing another puppet down a hill; Hamlin, Wynn, & Bloom, 2007), and 3-year-olds use similar kinds of information to determine whether they should provide help to a person who violated moral norms (Vaish, Carpenter, & Tomasello, 2010). Similar consequences emerge following deity anthropomorphism. God, typically perceived as a moral supernatural agent, is attributed more blame when perceived as sharing characteristics with humans (e.g., communication, thought, self-control) and thus has the potential to fall lower on the chain of being (H. M. Gray, Gray, & Wegner, 2007). In sum, social targets lower on the chain of being are not per-ceived as deserving the same moral consideration as those who are higher up.

Moving up the chain of being: from devilish to divineAccording to the SCCB theoretical framework, when social targets are perceived as higher up the chain of being, they will be treated more positively, receiving protection and beneficial treatment. Unfortunately, psychology—especially social psy-chology—has focused less on the perception of social targets as morally worthy, perhaps because the negative social conse-quences of dehumanization, negative evaluations, and value violations demands more immediate attention (e.g., Cuddy et al., 2007; Henry & Reyna, 2007; Opotow, 1990, 2001). Nonetheless, there is some evidence for our predictions.

Anthropomorphizing nonhumans. The research that does exist shows that people who chronically anthropomorphize nonhu-mans are more likely to think it is morally wrong to destroy a super-computer, a bed of flowers, and a motorcycle (Waytz, Cacioppo, & Epley, 2010), granting these inanimate objects a sense of moral concern when they were infused with human qualities. When people were primed with the idea that humans and animals are similar, they were more likely to humanize immigrants—a group that is typically dehumanized (Hodson & Costello, 2007)—and have more empathy for immigrant groups than were people primed with the idea that humans and animals are not at all similar (Costello & Hodson, 2010).




Similarly, as others have argued (Waytz, Cacioppo, & Epley, 2010), perceiving animals as more human and higher on the chain of being is a key component in the debate over whether or not animals can be treated as property or can be killed for food (e.g., Morton, Burghardt, & Smith, 1990). Presumably, if animals have minds similar to humans, then they are worthy of moral care, empathic concern, and mercy from extreme servi-tude or the butcher’s block. Where animals fall on this vertical continuum would likely vary across culture, individuals, and types of animals depending on how moral the animals are per-ceived to be. For example, house pets (who may be seen as loyal) may be placed higher than vermin and perhaps some morally questionable humans.

Sanctification. Other research has examined sanctification, or the infusion of social targets with sacred characteristics (Pargament & Mahoney, 2005)—a movement up the chain of being. The idea that people can become saints, popular in the Roman Catholic Church, may be a concrete manifestation of this process. Saints are typically human beings who are seen as morally righteous and are thereby granted some divine status. One recent study (Brandt & Reyna, 2010a) found that saints are perceived as more sacred than the self and human groups, but as less sacred than God—an idea that is consistent with the chain of being. As particularly moral targets, those who are sanctified (and the values they embody) will likely be pro-moted, protected, and treated with more care and concern.

Other programs of research provide indirect support for our hypothesis. For example, social identity theory is predicated on the notion that people will perceive even the most minimal ingroup as favorable (e.g., Tajfel & Turner, 1986). This identi-fication with a group leads to actions and behaviors that sup-port the values and interests of the groups, including collective action for low-status groups (e.g., Derks, van Laar, & Ellemers, 2009) or support for the current status-hierarchy for high-status groups (e.g., Sidanius & Pratto, 1999), suggesting at the very least that people favor members of their groups and attempt to protect and promote those groups. Other research finds that people have more positive attitudes towards groups who uphold their moral values (Graham et al., 2011).

Other research on sanctification that has not examined the perception of social targets is also largely supportive of our predictions. For example, people who sanctify their marriages are more likely to have stable marriages (Mahoney, Parga-ment, Murray-Swank, & Murray-Swank, 2003), people who sanctify the environment are more likely to make donations to environmental causes (Tarakeshwar, Swank, Pargament, & Mahoney, 2001), parents who sanctify parenting are more committed to parenting values that they deem to be important (A. Murray-Swank, Mahoney, & Pargament, 2006), college students who sanctify sex are more likely to have sex and feel more satisfied with sex (N. A. Murray-Swank, Pargament, & Mahoney, 2005), college students who sanctify their body are more likely to take care of their body (Mahoney, Carels, et al., 2005), and people who sanctify their goals are more likely to spend time on those goals (Mahoney, Pargament, et al., 2005).

Furthermore, people attempt to protect sacred values from secular encroachments (e.g., monetizing values; Tetlock, Kris-tel, Elson, Green, & Lerner, 2000) and use sacred values to determine perceptions of justice (Skitka, 2002; Skitka & Mul-len, 2002). In general, the sanctification of values, goals, and behaviors promotes them and keeps them separate from the contamination of secular, “earthly” concerns. Similarly, it would be expected that people who uphold a perceiver’s val-ues and morals would be sanctified; thus, the sanctified person or group would be more likely to receive support for these values and relationships.

Theoretical inversionsThe perceptions of social targets as being up or down the chain of being are considered inverse processes in the frame-work of the SCCB, such that both processes share inverse underlying components. Research on both dehumanization and the anthropomorphism of animals supports this conceptu-alization (Waytz, Epley, & Cacioppo, 2010). For example, studies examining anthropomorphism and dehumanization often borrow each other’s measures of humanity (cf. Leyens et al., 2001; Waytz, Cacioppo, & Epley, 2010), interpreting the attribution of human traits to animals as anthropomorphism or the denial of human traits to humans as dehumanization. Beyond methodological interpretations, this inverse relation-ship between anthropomorphism and dehumanization exists at a neural level. Anthropomorphism activates the medial pre-frontal cortex (Waytz, Morewedge, et al., 2010)—the same brain area implicated in social cognition more generally (Amodio & Frith, 2006). Inversely, the medial prefrontal cor-tex is activated less for dehumanized targets than it is for other human targets (Harris & Fiske, 2006), suggesting that dehu-manization and anthropomorphism may manifest as inverse neurological processes.

According to the SCCB, the sanctification of humans and the anthropomorphism of moral supernatural agents may be inverse processes of one another, a possibility that heretofore has not been considered. As researchers continue to study the attribution of human and sacred traits to social targets, tests of this hypothesis may be especially fruitful in understanding the commonalities in how we perceive and attribute morality.

SummaryThe idea of the chain of being as a moral hierarchy provides a unique way to understand the processes and consequences of organizing our worlds along this moral hierarchy, whereby the placement of entities up and down this chain results in distinct and often profound consequences for both the target and the perceiver. The SCCB also allows us to conceptualize and integrate sanctification with the heretofore distinct anthropomorphism and dehumanization literatures and pro-poses that all of these processes share common underlying features.




The Moral Emotions as Markers of Morality Along the Chain of Being That Guide Social Judgments and Decision Making

Emotional reactions to social targets shape our perceptions of the location of social targets on the chain of being, such that positive moral emotions indicate that the social target is more human or closer to the divine and negative moral emotions indicate that the social target is less human and closer to ani-mals (or worse; Haidt, 2003a; Rozin et al., 2008). Past work has argued that emotion and intuition play an important role in judgments of morality (Damasio, 2003, 1994/2005; Haidt, 2001) by allowing us to make quick intuitive judgments about the morality of an attitude or behavior (Haidt & Hersh, 2001; Haidt, Koller, & Dias, 1993; Wisneski, Lytle, & Skitka, 2009). Research across several fields using diverse methods has found that moral judgments are tightly bound to emotional reactions (e.g., see Anderson, Bechara, Damasio, Tranel, & Damasio, 1999; Greene, Sommerville, Nystrom, Darley, & Cohen, 2001; Haidt, 2001; Koenigs et al., 2007; Mullen & Skitka, 2006; Skitka & Wisneski, 2011).3

The SCCB borrows from work on the social functions of emotions (e.g., Keltner & Haidt, 1999; Schwartz & Clore, 2007; Van Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead, 2010) to propose that these gut level emotional reactions serve as information regarding a target’s location along the chain of being (Haidt, 2003a; Haidt & Algoe, 2004; cf. Schwarz & Clore, 1983). The emotions people experience in relation to social targets (e.g., disgust) provide affective cues to the moral standing of those targets along the chain of being (e.g., immoral). These emotions provide quick information about the perceived morality of a target so that a person can make appropriate decisions and take appropriate action regarding the target (e.g., avoid or reject). These emo-tional reactions can be self- or other-referential, which is impor-tant to note because it makes clear the SCCB can be applied to both the perception of others as well as the self.

A variety of emotions could potentially serve as affective cues to one’s position along the SCCB, though it is likely that these emotions are consistent with past lists of moral emotions (Haidt, 2003b; see also Figure 1). These include negative emo-tions directed toward others like anger, contempt, and disgust; negative emotions directed toward the self like shame and guilt; positive emotions directed toward others like awe and elevation; and positive emotions directed toward the self like pride and self-satisfaction.4 Although the specific eliciting conditions of the various moral emotions may differ, we argue that they all serve the similar purpose of cueing people to the location of social targets along the SCCB. In the following section, we highlight research on several of the moral emo-tions that can serve as affective markers on the chain of being: disgust, elevation, guilt, and shame.

Disgust and elevationDisgust and elevation have been previously connected to the chain of being (Haidt & Algoe, 2004). These emotions are

often associated with perceptions of immorality and dehuman-ization or sacredness and the divine, respectively, indicating that these diverse research areas are intimately connected.

Disgust. Disgust serves a variety of functions and is elicited by many kinds of stimuli. For example, the initial function of disgust was likely to motivate people to avoid disease-causing agents and materials, such as rotten food, sick people, and body products (Oaten, Stevenson, & Case, 2009; Rozin et al., 2008; Tybur, Lieberman, & Griskevicius, 2009). Co-opted from its original function, disgust also helps regulate sexual behavior, discouraging people from engaging in sexual acts with certain people (e.g., close relatives) who would be less likely to produce genetically healthy offspring (Tybur et al., 2009). Disgust can promote and perpetuate moral standards and norms by discouraging moral transgressions (Jones & Fitness, 2008; Rozin et al., 2008; Tybur et al., 2009) in terms of both violations of divinity and purity (Horberg, Oveis, Keltner, & Cohen, 2009; Rozin, Lowery, Imada, & Haidt, 1999) and justice and fairness (Chapman, Kim, Susskind, & Anderson, 2009; Danovitch & Bloom, 2009; Moretti & di Pellegrino, 2010).5 Finally, feelings of disgust help us avoid that which reminds us of our animal nature, including particular behaviors (e.g., some sex acts) or groups of people (Goldenberg et al., 2001; Rozin et al., 2008).

According to the SCCB, disgust, as an emotion that signals moral violations or animalistic behavior, is elicited when a person or other entity is perceived as lower on the chain of being (e.g., is dehumanized) or otherwise engages in a behav-ior that lowers their position along the chain via his or her violation of moral values (e.g., Esses, Veenvliet, Hodson, & Mihic, 2008). People often feel disgust when confronted with a violation of a moral virtue (Chapman et al., 2009; Horberg et al., 2009; Jones & Fitness, 2008; Rozin et al., 1999). For example, when people are given unfair offers in the Ultimatum Game, their disgust facial motor action program is activated, and they are more likely to report greater disgust (Chapman et al., 2009). Moreover, dehumanized social targets activate areas of the brain consistent with feelings of disgust, providing some evidence that it can serve as an affective cue felt in reac-tion to perceptions of people being lower than other humans on the SCCB (Harris & Fiske, 2006; see also Sherman & Haidt, 2011).

A corollary of the SCCB’s perspective on disgust is that activating disgust will make moral judgments harsher because the activated disgust indicates to the person that the target should be perceived as lower on the SCCB. Several studies have attempted to either prime or induce disgust. Wheatley and Haidt (2005) hypnotized people to associate an innocuous word (e.g., “often”) with disgust. When the participants subse-quently read paragraphs about moral violations, paragraphs containing the hypnotized word were perceived as more mor-ally wrong than paragraphs that did not contain the hypnotized word. Similar results were found when disgust was manipu-lated using a bitter tasting liquid (Eskine, Kacinik, & Prinz, 2011). Activated disgust also increases perceptions of unfair-ness and the rejection of unfair offers in the Ultimatum Game




(Moretti & di Pellegrino, 2010). Taking an individual differ-ence approach, people who were chronically perceptive of dis-gust were more punitive mock jurors and more likely to view (mock) defendants as evil (Jones & Fitness, 2008). In sum, disgust can serve as an indicator of a target’s immorality, cuing the observer to perceive the target as lower on the chain of being. Targets who commit moral violations elicit disgust, and disgust elicits harsher judgments of moral violators—effects consistent with the perspective presented here.

Elevation. Just as people who trigger disgust are perceived as immoral and less than human, people who trigger positive moral emotions, such as elevation, will be perceived as par-ticularly virtuous and more than human. Elevation is the “emotional response to witnessing acts of virtue or moral beauty” (Algoe & Haidt, 2009, p. 106; see also Haidt, 2003a). Although virtuous acts may not be as salient as acts of evil, people can often witness virtue in action (e.g., acts of altru-ism). Rather than being an emotionally neutral experience, witnessing virtue and moral excellence is a positive experi-ence that may make a person feel more open or warm in his or her chest (Algoe & Haidt, 2009; Vianello, Galliani, & Haidt, 2010) and release oxytocin (Silvers & Haidt, 2008). Witnessing moral virtue, and the associated appraisal of vir-tue, can help motivate the person experiencing the emotion to engage in prosocial behavior. These effects are largely dis-tinct from other positive emotions (e.g., joy, amusement; Algoe & Haidt, 2009; Schnall, Roper, & Fessler, 2010; Vianello et al., 2010).

Elevation, especially, is connected with the perception of a target as more than human and closer to the divine (Haidt, 2003a; Haidt & Algoe, 2004). The primary elicitors of eleva-tion are the blurring of the “human–god divide” (Haidt & Algoe, 2004, p. 285) and the perception of righteous virtuous behaviors—conceptually, the opposite of the elicitors of dis-gust (Rozin et al., 2008). Elevation is also similar to the per-ceptions of sanctification described previously. Just as elevation is a reaction to righteousness, sanctification occurs when people perceive other humans as sacred and closer to the divine and is often measured by the attribution of traits such as righteous, holy, inspiring, heavenly, and blessed (Mahoney et al., 2003). Feelings of elevation then provide an affective cue that a virtuous other is indeed closer to the divine and higher up the SCCB.

Guilt and shameGuilt and shame are perhaps the traditional moral emotions. These are self-referential emotions that are thought to be caused by moral violations or the transgression of social expectations and norms (Sheikh & Janoff-Bulman, 2010; Tangney, Miller, Flicker, & Barlow, 1996). When a person feels guilty, they feel regret or remorse for the specific trans-gression and believe their behavior is potentially changeable (Niedenthal, Tangney, & Gavanski, 1994; Tangney, 1992; Tangney et al., 1996; Tracy & Robins, 2006; Weiner, 2006;

Weiner, Graham, & Chandler, 1982). Feelings of shame go a step further, such that people see the transgression as having negative implications for the self and, thus, the behavior as more stable (Niedenthal et al., 1994; Sabini, Garvey, & Hall, 2001; Tangney, 1992; Tangney et al., 1996; Tracy & Robins, 2006, Weiner, 2006).

In the context of the SCCB, self-referential moral emotions like guilt and shame serve as a cue that one has violated social norms and values in some way and has moved down the chain of being. For a person who has committed a moral violation, the experience of guilt serves as a reminder of the immorality of the behavior, perhaps motivating the person to make up for their misdeed and regain their moral status (Regan, 1971). People who are unable to regain their moral status may turn to self-punishment (Bastian, Jetten, & Fasoli, 2011; Nelissen & Zeelenberg, 2009) and exhibit depressive symptoms (Kim, Thibodeau, & Jorgensen, 2011), suggesting they still perceive themselves as lower in status on the SCCB and in need of correcting.

The intrapersonal function of guilt and shame is augmented by an interpersonal function that motivates people to make up for their misdeeds and regain moral status on the SCCB by repairing damaged social relationships. In some cases, this could mean that an individual confesses and apologizes for his or her transgression or that he or she will strive to behave more morally toward the victim in the future (Baumeister, Stillwell, & Heatherton, 1994; de Hooge, Breugelmans, & Zeelenberg, 2008; Ketelaar & Tung, 2003; Nelissen, Dijker, & De Vries, 2007). People also use displays of guilt and shame to demon-strate their knowledge of their moral failing to others around them. Such displays may help repair an individual’s position along the SCCB by convincing others that the individual knows he or she has violated social mores and will attempt to avoid similar transgressions in the future (e.g., Davis & Gold, 2011; Gold & Weiner, 2000).

SummaryEmotions and intuitions provide people with compelling evi-dence of the morality of a behavior and can cue the location of a target as above or below human along the SCCB. More than just serving as cues to the location of others along the SCCB, moral emotions—such as guilt—can be used to cue people to their own location along the SCCB and motivate action to repair lowered status on the SCCB.

Perception Along the Chain of Being is Influenced by Self- and Group-Serving, Effectance, and Existential Motivations

So far, we have discussed how judgments of morality along a vertical chain of being can be used to organize our social world. Although there is ample evidence that we use moral hierarchies, it is equally important to establish why we are




motivated to make such judgments and why we might be com-pelled to place certain entities or groups in certain positions along this chain. Along with its organizing and simplifying function, the use of a hierarchical moral framework helps us fulfill important motives and goals that not only allow us to achieve personal stability and fulfillment, but allow better coordination and stability within our social groups. Although these goals can have many day-to-day manifestations, prior research has established that self- and group-serving, effectance, and existential motives likely influence percep-tions along the SCCB.

Self and group enhancementPerhaps the most basic motivations associated with the SCCB are those related to the enhancement of the self and one’s group. People across the world like to perceive themselves and their groups in a positive light, allowing them to feel that they are of value and worth (e.g., Alicke & Sedikides, 2009; Steele, 1988; Yamaguchi et al., 2007). People perceive themselves as especially virtuous and moral, predicting that they would be more likely to act in a more virtuous way than the average person (Balcetis, Dunning, & Miller, 2008; Epley & Dunning, 2000). Similarly, morality is the characteristic most important to positive group evaluation (Leach, Ellemers, & Barreto, 2007), and people are prone to view their own groups more positively (Tajfel & Turner, 1986), more valuable (Cikara, Farnsworth, Harris, & Fiske, 2010; Pratto & Glasford, 2008), and more human (Cortes, Demoulin, Rodriguez, Rodriguez, & Leyens, 2005; Leyens et al., 2000, 2001; Viki et al., 2006) than outgroups. Moreover, people more strongly link outgroups (in comparison with ingroups) with animal images (Boccato, Capozza, Falvo, & Durante, 2008) and more quickly discrimi-nate between ambiguous ingroup and animal images than ambiguous outgroup and animal images (Capozza, Boccato, Andrighetto, & Falvo, 2009). By perceiving one’s self or one’s groups as higher up the SCCB, a person can see himself or herself and those they associate with as especially moral—or at least not as immoral as others.

Other research speaks more directly to the motivational aspect of perceiving one’s self or group higher up the SCCB. People elevate their moral standing after threats to the self (Jordan & Monin, 2008) and reject others who threaten their moral self (Monin, Sawyer, & Marquez, 2008). If people are motivated to see their own groups as more human than other groups, then information that threatens this standing should cause people to differentiate their own group from other groups. This differentiation should serve to bolster their group’s standing on the moral hierarchy of the chain of being. For example, Castano and Giner-Sorolla (2006) reminded par-ticipants of their groups’ responsibility in past atrocities com-mitted against an outgroup (e.g., White Americans’ historical treatment of Native Americans). They found that after remind-ers of their group’s moral lapse, participants were more likely to dehumanize the outgroup harmed by their ingroup—thereby

justifying their group’s actions and maintaining their group’s perch on the chain of being. This strategy seems to be espe-cially prevalent for people who see their ingroup as particu-larly moral and worthy (Leidner, Castano, Zaiser, & Giner-Sorolla, 2010).

Protection of the ingroup’s moral standing does not only take place in intergroup contexts. Building on the black sheep effect (e.g., Marques & Paez, 1994), which asserts that violators of ingroup norms are derogated in an attempt to maintain group cohesiveness, Reyna and colleagues (Reyna et al., 2010) found that ingroup value violators are dehumanized more than both ingroup and outgroup value upholders as well as outgroup value violators, perhaps in an effort to exclude the source of moral threat and preserve the moral standing of the ingroup.

Effectance motivationsPeople are motivated to accurately understand their world in order to effectively and competently function within it (White, 1959). These effectance motivations include the desire for control, predictability, and understanding of one’s environ-ment. In line with recent theorizing (Waytz, Morewedge, et al., 2010), this broader conceptualization of effectance motivation serves to unite a variety of motivations often considered sepa-rately, including, for example, the need for closure (Kruglan-ski & Webster, 1996), need for control (Burger & Cooper, 1979), intolerance of inconsistency (Feather, 1964), and intol-erance of ambiguity (Budner, 1962). We propose that effectance motivations also play a role in the perception of social targets along the SCCB, because the SCCB helps peo-ple to organize and understand their moral worlds.

Knowing the moral standing of people, animals, and super-natural agents allows a person to interact more effectively with these entities and correctly anticipate their future behaviors (Oosterhof & Todorov, 2008; Waytz, Morewedge, et al., 2010). Although these perceptions are not necessarily accurate, they are likely accurate enough to provide a useful heuristic in most social interactions. According to this perspective, most people would utilize the SCCB, as most people would benefit from the ability to understand and predict the behaviors of other people. Studies that have examined the vertical metaphor associated with the perception of God and Satan have rarely found interactions with participants’ self-reported religiosity (Chasteen et al., 2010; Meier, Hauser, et al., 2007; with the exception of Meier, Hauser, et al., 2007, Study 1), suggesting that even the nonreligious utilize a vertical moral hierarchy to organize and understand their moral world.

Moreover, this perspective predicts that people who are not motivated to understand morality will not use the SCCB. Meier and colleagues (Meier, Sellbom, & Wygant, 2007) found that people who score high on a scale of psychopathy do not use a vertical dimension to understand moral and immoral concepts. Psychopaths are generally less concerned with behaving morally (e.g., Hare, 1996), and measures of psy-chopathy are inversely associated with the perception of




unscrupulous behaviors (e.g., “selling illegal drugs,” “stealing from a neighbor,” “a student cheating to get good grades”) as immoral or disgusting (Tybur et al., 2009). Thus, psychopaths, who are less morally motivated, are less likely to organize their moral universe along a vertical dimension (or any dimen-sion at all).

The link between the SCCB and motivations for people to interact effectively with their environment has been more exten-sively studied in the realm of anthropomorphism (Epley, Waytz, Akalis, & Cacioppo, 2008; Waytz, Morewedge, et al., 2010). Because people are quite familiar with fellow humans, perceiv-ing animals as more humanlike (and thus higher along the SCCB) enhances their predictability. Thus, when people are motivated to make accurate predictions about their environ-ment, they will be more likely to anthropomorphize animals when around animals. For example, people are more likely to attribute human qualities and compare animals directly with humans when animals behave in unpredictable ways than they are when animals are already behaving predictably (Epley et al., 2007). This effect was exacerbated for participants who more chronically need to control and understand their environment (Burger & Cooper, 1979). In another study, participants asked to write in anthropomorphic terms about a nonhuman target (e.g., a puppy shown in a video) reported a greater understanding of the stimulus and expressed a greater ability to predict its future actions than did participants asked to describe the puppy “like a behaviorist would,” using only the objective behaviors of the puppy (Waytz, Morewedge, et al., 2010).

Deity anthropomorphism may also be due, in part, to an effort to satisfy an effectance motivation. Unfortunately, human beings often face negative and unpredictable events, such as natural disasters or accidents that threaten people’s feelings of certainty, control, and predictability. Rather than blaming these events on chance, randomness, and the general chaos of life, people turn to commonly humanized supernatural agents (K. Gray & Wegner, 2010; Kay, Gaucher, Napier, Callan, & Laurin, 2008; Kay, Shepherd, Blatz, Chua, & Galinsky, 2010). Other research finds that religious beliefs and individual differ-ences in effectance motivation are often correlated, including the need for closure (Brandt & Reyna, 2010b; Saroglou, 2002), intolerance of ambiguity (Budner, 1962), and intolerance of inconsistency (Feather, 1964). This research has not specifically examined the anthropomorphism of divine agents in the face of threats to effectance motivation. However, to the extent that belief in divine agents and anthropomorphism of the same divine agents are correlated (cf. Guthrie, 1993; Waytz, Cacioppo, & Epley, 2010, Study 1), we can suggest, preliminarily, that the anthropomorphism of the supernatural—perceiving divine supernatural agents as lower on the SCCB—would help to ful-fill effectance needs.

Just as the motivation to understand and interact effectively with the environment may lead to humanizing animals, objects, and gods, the inverse of effectance motivation—a decrease in the need to interact effectively and an increase in independence—should predict dehumanization (Waytz, Epley, & Cacioppo, 2010). People who are in positions of power are

more likely to act independently and are less likely to rely on interacting effectively with others (e.g., Galinsky, Magee, Gruenfeld, Whitson, & Liljenquist, 2008). Thus, powerful individuals should be less likely to consider the humanness of other people. For example, people in high-power positions were more likely to dehumanize other people than were people in low-power positions (Lammers & Stapel, 2010). These results further suggest that a similar, but inverse, motivation underlies both anthropomorphism and dehumanization (see also Waytz, Epley, & Cacioppo, 2010).

Existential motivationsThe SCCB is also affected by existential motivations—that is, motivations involving the pursuit of ultimate personal mean-ing and purpose in life. By perceiving one’s self or group as higher on the chain of being than other people, groups, or ani-mals, a person may be able to view their life as having more moral meaning and purpose. Terror management theory (TMT; Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 1991, 2004) most clearly encapsulates this existential motivation. Following the writings of Ernest Becker (1973) and other existential philoso-phers, TMT asserts that people, as rather advanced animals, know they will eventually die. Rather than directly coping with the anxiety associated with their ultimate demise, people associate with cultural institutions, norms, and beliefs in an effort to demonstrate to themselves and (presumably) oth-ers that they are worthy members of society who live mean-ingful and purposeful lives. The threat of death, for example, increases religious beliefs and belief in commonly anthropo-morphized supernatural agents (e.g., Norenzayan & Hansen, 2006; Vail et al., 2010).

One line of research from TMT finds that people can defend against the threat of death by seeing themselves as distinct from their animal counterparts (Goldenberg, 2005; Goldenberg, Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 2000). The chain of being, religious texts, and scientific writings all portray humans as somehow special, whether it is because they are on top of the hierarchy of being, are made in God’s image, or are more evolved. Despite these beliefs, humans are actually quite similar to animals, and animals are known to die, making animals an uncomfortable reminder that we too will one day die. However, if people are able to see humans as further from animals on the SCCB, they may be more likely to see existence as more meaningful and enduring. Another example of this is Goldenberg and colleagues’ (2001) study showing that reminders of death increase liking of an essay describing the dissimilarities of humans and animals. Death related primes also increased feelings of disgust, especially disgust related to animals (e.g., cockroaches) and the body (an intimate reminder of our similarity to animals). Additional studies have found that people reminded of death and mortal-ity often shy away from behaviors that humans share with animals (e.g., breastfeeding; Cox, Goldenberg, Arndt, & Pyszczynski, 2007) or inhibit uncivilized behaviors (e.g., pel-vic thrusts; Goldenberg; Heflick, & Cooper, 2008). In sum,




these studies show that by separating the self from animals, people are better able to cope with the threat of death.

In addition to managing the fear of death by humanizing the self, people can also defend against death by humanizing important ingroups. Building on research showing that people identify with ingroups to manage death related thoughts (Cas-tano, Yzerbyt, Paladino, & Sacchi, 2002), Vaes, Heflick, and Goldenberg (2010) theorized that people may also view the ingroup as especially human compared with an outgroup when mortality concerns are made salient. In three studies across two cultures, these researchers found that people attributed more uniquely human traits to their ingroup following mortal-ity salience than did those in a control condition, and they found that attributing humanness to an ingroup actively buf-fers against death-thought accessibility. Finally, although not measuring dehumanization directly, TMT has demonstrated that violence and extreme derogation toward members of worldview-violating groups helps people cope with the threat of death (McGregor et al., 1998; Pyszczynski et al., 2006). Overall, these studies demonstrate that perceiving people who violate one’s cultural worldview as lower on the SCCB and thus unworthy of moral care and concern can provide people with a sense of meaning and purpose that buffers the anxiety of eventual death.

SummaryMotivations to see one’s self and one’s group as moral and deserving of value; to understand, predict, and control one’s environment; and to have a sense of existential meaning all contribute to the perceptions of social targets up and down the chain of being. This review of the motivations that shape per-ceptions along the SCCB highlight the similarities between the diverse research programs encapsulated by the SCCB and provides evidence that the SCCB can serve as a unifying theo-retical perspective for these varying domains.

Concluding Remarks and Future DirectionPerceptions of morality and their associated emotions are impli-cated in a wide range of psychological and behavioral conse-quences that can be either prosocial, such as charity and altruism, or destructively antisocial, such as torture and geno-cide. The SCCB is a broad framework for understanding the diverse range of processes and consequences associated with the perception of morality and can include, as targets of judg-ment, the full range of entities from animals to people and from demons to gods. According to the SCCB, the rich and varied body of work on dehumanization, anthropomorphism, sanctifi-cation, and moral emotions can be encapsulated under a com-mon conceptual umbrella. Moreover, the SCCB predicts that all of these processes are similarly embodied via a vertical meta-phor that associates the ultimate good, righteousness, and the sacred as “high” and the ultimate evil and pollution as “low.”

Recent treatments of the psychological processes of dehu-manization and anthropomorphism have focused on the attri-bution of personality traits and emotions that are more or less uniquely associated with humanity (e.g., Haslam, 2006; Ley-ens et al., 2001; Waytz, Cacioppo, & Epley, 2010; for some exceptions, see, e.g., Boccato et al., 2008; Capozza et al., 2009; Goff et al., 2008). The SCCB considers these traits and other uniquely human qualities as proxies for the underlying dimension of morality. As people perceive human social tar-gets as less moral, more animal-like, and thus lower on the chain of being, people will attribute fewer uniquely human traits and emotions to these targets (e.g., Reyna et al., 2010). If people are portrayed as lacking uniquely human qualities, they will be perceived as less moral, more animal-like, and lower on the chain of being. Similarly, the attribution of sacred traits to social targets influences the perceptions of the target as more moral and closer to God, and the perception of moral virtue influences the attribution of sacred traits. Thus, we are asserting that the uniquely human and sacred traits identified by past researchers (e.g., Haslam, 2006; Mahoney et al., 2003) have a bidirectional, mutually reinforcing relationship with the SCCB. Morality, then, is the common dimension connect-ing research on anthropomorphism, animalistic dehumaniza-tion, and sanctification.

In the course of this treatment of the chain of being, we built on the important work of others who have started to explore some of these processes (Haidt, 2003a, 2006; Haidt & Algoe, 2004). For example, others have theorized that anthro-pomorphism and dehumanization may be related (Waytz, Epley, & Cacioppo, 2010) or that the moral emotions can serve to alert us to the morality or immorality of social targets (Haidt & Algoe, 2004). We have incorporated these interrelation-ships, but we have also gone beyond them to include addi-tional processes and literatures such as human sanctification and the likely embodiment of morality along a vertical continuum.

We also described several underlying motivations for when people are more or less likely to alter their perception of a target as more than human and closer to the divine or less than human and more akin to animals or worse. The motivations to view ourselves and our groups as moral, to understand and predict our social worlds, and to feel a sense of meaning and purpose situate perceptions along the chain of being such that moral per-ceptions can be altered depending on a person’s current motiva-tional state. The positioning or repositioning up and down the chain of being can have consequences for how groups are treated following the gain or loss of moral standing. Overall, our theoretical framework of moral perception is largely consistent with Smith and Semin’s (2004) situated approach to cognition, which suggests (among other things) that cognition is embod-ied, is used for action, and is situated in interactions between the agent and the situation.

Despite the vast amount of research on moral perception, the many unique predictions and connections between




literatures predicted by the SCCB framework have not all received empirical attention. For example, research has not examined the proposition that the anthropomorphism of gods and the sanctification of humans are inversely related. Like-wise, moral emotions, dehumanization, anthropomorphism, and sanctification should all be associated with vertical embodiment. More direct testing of these predictions is nec-essary. Although the SCCB focuses on a vertical metaphor of morality that facilitates the situation and embodiment of morality in vertical space, other metaphors have been used to describe morality, including light and dark (Meier et al., 2004), clean and dirty (Zhong & Liljenquist, 2006), and a moral circle (Singer, 1981). The extent these different meta-phors are interrelated or distinct in their effects on the embodi-ment of morality and moral judgments are important avenues for future research.

Another key concept associated with the SCCB that has not been fully tested in terms of its situation and embodiment in vertical space is the perception of animals. We suspect that animals (in general) are likely to fall below humans in the SCCB, given that animals are generally not considered capa-ble of moral reasoning. However, this specific hypothesis has received scant attention. As an initial piece of evidence, ani-mals and dehumanization are often associated with vertical figures of speech, such as “animals are beneath humans” (Haslam, 2006). This hierarchical placement of humans above animals is prevalent, even among biologists and other scien-tists (e.g., Mogie, 2007; Nee, 2005).

In addition, the research presented on dehumanization, sanctification, and anthropomorphism relied on a variety of measures of humanness and sacredness. In order to more directly compare the effects of the perception of social targets up and down the chain of being, researchers should develop a measure that can effectively capture the perception of a variety of targets along the chain of being. One such possibility is the measure of sanctification that consists of the attribution of sacred-related traits to a particular social target (e.g., Mahoney et al., 2003). From the perspective of the chain of being, we would expect that human groups would be attributed moderate levels, moral supernatural agents would be attributed high lev-els, and immoral agents would be attributed low levels of sacred traits (e.g., Brandt & Reyna, 2010a).

Across time and culture, people have been motivated to conceptualize their world in moral terms. The chain of being provides a moral barometer for evaluating the self and others on this important social dimension, indicating where a par-ticular person, animal, or supernatural being is positioned within their moral universe. These classifications provide guidance for how entities should be perceived and treated, and the resulting emotions and behaviors that help to keep the moral order intact. The SCCB serves as a unifying theoretical framework that organizes research on moral perception, high-lights unique interconnections, and provides a roadmap for future research.

Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge Ralph Erber, the Laboratory of Social Science Research at DePaul University, and the editor and reviewers from the journal for their helpful comments on this manuscript.

Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, author-ship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

1. In addition to a vertical dimension of morality, Haidt and col-leagues’ model also posited a horizontal dimension of closeness and liking and a second vertical dimension of power and authority that will not be discussed here because they are not necessarily perceived as moral dimensions.2. Haslam (2006) distinguishes between two types of dehumaniza-tion. The first is the denial of traits that make humans unique from animals. The second is the denial of traits that define human nature. The denial of uniquely human traits (i.e., animalistic dehumaniza-tion) is associated with morality and most closely maps onto the conception of the SCCB. Thus, this article focuses on this type of dehumanization.3. This is not to claim that morality and the experience of emotions and other affective states are the same thing, nor that one is necessary for the other. Other psychological and neurological processes influ-ence moral judgments as well as emotions (see, e.g., Greene, Sommerville, Nystrom, Darley, & Cohen, 2001; Huebner, Dwyer, & Hauser, 2009; Moll, Zahn, de Oliveira-Souza, Krueger, & Grafman, 2005). The important point is that moral decision making appears to be guided by emotions to a significant degree.4. These latter emotions are not always considered moral emotions (for a discussion see Haidt, 2003b). However, to the extent these emotions indicate to the individual that they are engaging in virtuous behavior, they can serve a moral function within the framework of the SCCB (see Weiner, 2006).5. There is some controversy over whether disgust reactions in response to violations of justice and fairness are in fact disgust (Rozin, Haidt, & Fincher, 2009). The critiques argue that disgust is primarily a reaction to violations of sacredness and purity, whereas anger is likely the prototypical emotional response to violations of justice and fairness. Thus, disgust may be serving as a proxy for an emotion such as anger. Even so, this kind of result would still be consistent with the SCCB, which predicts that a variety of negative moral emotions, including anger, can cue people to the location of the social target along the SCCB. Recent research has demonstrated that tasting a disgusting liquid increases moral condemnation toward violators of both the moral domains of purity (e.g., second cousins engaging in consensual incest) and fairness (e.g., a student stealing library books) (Eskine, Kacinik, & Prinz, 2011), which indicates that




disgust, even when elicited in a fashion unlikely to produce anger (i.e., consuming a distasteful substance), results in moral condemna-tion across moral domains.

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