How Moral Disgust Affects Aggression: The Mediating Roles of Benign and Malicious Envy

Aggression has been receiving much attention always as it has serious negative effects. Moral disgust may be a protective factor against aggression. This study explores the mediating role of malicious envy and benign envy in the relationship between moral disgust and aggression from the perspective of integrative functional theory of moral disgust. The present study recruited 1052 participants and asked them to complete Three Domains of Disgust Scale (including Moral Disgust Subscale), Benign and Malicious Envy Scale, and Aggression Scale. The results showed that: (1) benign envy acted as a mediating variable between moral disgust and aggression, and played a partial mediating role. Malicious envy acted as a mediating variable between moral disgust and aggression, and played a full mediator role. In other words, both benign envy and malicious envy played an independent mediating role between moral disgust and aggression; (2) Benign envy and malicious envy are the mediator variables at the same time, only malicious envy can play a fully mediating role between moral disgust and aggression. That's to say, moral disgust can stably and significantly affect aggression through malicious envy. This study provided a theoretical reference to inhibit the generation of negative emotions and aggressive behaviors in social practice.