Moral Disagreements: Unearthing the Psychological and Physiological Pathways to Distinct Behavioural Responses

Moral disagreements on issues such as abortion and transgender rights often trigger strong emotional reactions that can lead to hostility. Prior research in moral psychology has predominantly focused on destructive responses. Yet constructive engagement is also possible, raising the question of what psychological processes explain why people respond so differently when confronted with opposing moral views. Existing work has largely examined emotions in isolation, often in hypothetical scenarios, overlooking the roles of appraisals, coping resources, and individual differences within realistic interactions. This thesis addresses these limitations by investigating how emotions, appraisals, and individual characteristics shape constructive versus destructive behaviour in moral disagreements on abortion and transgender rights, using a mixed-methods approach. The introduction reviews current research in moral psychology and polarisation, highlighting the need to move beyond emotion-centred explanations toward more integrated accounts that consider motivation, appraisal processes, and dynamic interpersonal contexts. Chapter 2 presents a qualitative study simulating online disagreements. Reflexive thematic analysis showed how affective experiences, self-appraisals, and competing motivations for self-expression or persuasion shaped (dis)engagement. Chapter 3 reports a cross-national (India, Serbia, UK and USA) online study testing how emotions (anger, disgust, empathy), appraisals (of the situation and one’s coping ability), and individual differences (implicit person theory, general self-efficacy, open-minded cognition) predict behavioural responses. Findings demonstrated that appraisals and individual differences, alongside emotion, play a crucial role in explaining constructive and destructive behavioural tendencies. Chapter 4 examines these processes in a laboratory study incorporating cardiovascular markers of challenge and threat. While descriptive patterns suggested a general tendency toward physiological challenge, there was largely no statistical support for its influence on behaviour. The general discussion integrates these findings, arguing that emotional, cognitive, and individual-difference processes together shape constructive and destructive behavioural responses in moral disagreements. The thesis offers valuable insights for strengthening social cohesion and supporting meaningful progress on issues such as abortion and transgender rights that directly affect marginalised communities.