Editorial: Moral emotions scrutinized: developmental, clinical and neuroscientific aspects

Overview

While research into moral emotions spans developmental, clinical, and neuroscientific domains, the empirical literature to date has been predominantly driven by neurophysiological and cognitive perspectives, leaving developmental and clinical trajectories comparatively less explored.

Moral emotions are a class of affective states that play a fundamental role in regulating social behavior and maintaining group cohesion. Unlike basic emotions, which are primarily linked to immediate survival, moral emotions are inherently social and are triggered by the evaluation of actions, intentions, or traits in light of shared norms and values (Haidt, 2003). They provide the motivational force that drives individuals to behave in ways that are adaptive not only at the individual level but also for the long-term stability of social systems (Kroll and Egan, 2004; Saccardo et al., 2026; Sober and Wilson, 1998). A central subset of moral emotions is represented by self-conscious emotions, including shame, guilt, embarrassment, and pride. These emotions require self-reflection and the ability to evaluate oneself against internalized social standards (Saccardo et al., 2026; Tangney et al., 2007). They typically emerge when individuals perceive that they have violated social or moral norms and serve as rapid feedback signals that guide behavioral inhibition or reinforcement (Bastin et al., 2016; Grecucci et al., 2021). From a functional perspective, moral emotions can be conceptualized as internal regulatory mechanisms that align individual behavior with socially shared expectations. Among these emotions, shame assumes a particularly central and complex role. Shame is elicited when individuals perceive that a failure or transgression reflects a global defect of the self rather than a specific behavior. In contrast to guilt—which is typically action-focused (“what I did was wrong”)—shame is self-focused (“I am wrong”) and involves a perceived devaluation of the self in the eyes of others (Lewis, 1971; Tangney et al., 1992). This distinction has important consequences at both the behavioral and interpersonal level. While guilt tends to promote reparative actions and prosocial behavior, shame is associated with withdrawal, avoidance, and defensive responses, often disrupting empathic engagement and interpersonal functioning (Tangney et al., 2007). From a neurocognitive perspective, moral emotions are supported by distributed brain networks integrating cognitive, social, and affective processes. According to the event-feature-emotion complexes (EFEC) model, moral emotion generation depends on the interaction between prefrontal regions, temporal areas, and limbic structures, which together support context-dependent evaluation, social knowledge representation, and affective responses (Moll et al., 2008). Consistent with this framework, neuroimaging studies have identified a network including the medial prefrontal cortex, temporo-parietal junction, anterior temporal lobes, and limbic regions as central to moral cognition (Bzdok et al., 2012; Eres et al., 2017; Saccardo et al., 2026). Crucially, recent meta-analytic evidence provides a more fine-grained characterization of the neural architecture underlying self-conscious moral emotions. A voxel-based meta-analysis by Piretti et al. (2023) shows that both shame/embarrassment and guilt share a common neural substrate centered on the left anterior insula, a region implicated in emotional awareness, interoception, and arousal processing. However, the two emotions diverge in their specific neural signatures.

From a neurocognitive perspective, moral emotions appear to rely on both shared and partially distinct neural systems. While a common core involving interoceptive and evaluative processes—centered on regions such as the anterior insula—supports the subjective awareness of self-conscious emotions, different moral emotions engage specialized networks that reflect their functional roles. For instance, guilt is more strongly associated with regions implicated in perspective-taking and social cognition (e.g., temporo-parietal junction), whereas shame and embarrassment preferentially recruit circuits linked to social pain and behavioral inhibition, including the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, thalamus, and premotor regions. In contrast, positive moral emotions such as pride have been associated with reward-related and self-referential networks, suggesting a role in reinforcing socially valued behaviors. This functional differentiation points to a broader organizational principle: moral emotions implement distinct action tendencies through partially dissociable neural pathways. Guilt tends to promote reparative and prosocial behaviors, shame and embarrassment favor withdrawal and inhibition, and pride supports approach and social reinforcement. In particular, the neural profile of shame—overlapping with circuits involved in social pain—supports the view that it acts as a signal of threatened social belonging, triggering adaptive reductions in social exposure (Eisenberger, 2012; MacDonald and Leary, 2005). Within this framework, shame can be conceptualized as a neurocognitive mechanism that contributes to the regulation of social behavior by constraining norm violations (Grecucci et al., 2021; Piretti et al., 2023). Importantly, these distinctions are not merely descriptive but reflect different computational roles within social cognition. Moral emotions collectively contribute to maintaining social cohesion by balancing complementary functions: promoting repair (guilt), reinforcing valued behavior (pride), and inhibiting socially undesirable actions (shame and embarrassment). Despite growing evidence in affective neuroscience, empirical literature explicitly examining the developmental trajectories and clinical implications of moral emotions remains comparatively sparse relative to the abundance of neurophysiological data. Advancing such integrative models remains a key challenge for understanding the role of moral emotions in both adaptive functioning and psychopathology.

This research topic

This Research Topic aims to promote a multidisciplinary scientific dialogue on the nature and complexity of moral emotions. By bringing together contributions from developmental psychology, clinical science, and neuroscience, the goal is to elucidate how moral emotions develop across the lifespan, how they are instantiated in the brain, and how they interact with broader cognitive and social processes. The contributions included in this issue address a range of key questions, including the developmental trajectories of moral emotions, their role in psychological wellbeing and mental health, and their interaction with other cognitive and social functions.

Zhang and Zhang investigate the interplay between moral reasoning ability and stress regulation in adolescents using immersive virtual reality, highlighting how developmental factors and situational context modulate physiological arousal and decision-making during social-moral conflicts. It also highlights the use of immersive virtual reality in this area of research in particular in the induction of physiological arousal. Sultan and Khan provide a perspective article examining the development of empathy across childhood and adolescence, highlighting the importance of culturally adaptive strategies and providing a framework for integrating empathy-focused initiatives into clinical, educational, and mental health contexts. Gerdemann et al. advance developmental methodology by validating depth sensor tracking of young children's body posture as a non-invasive, objective measure of expressed emotional valence and arousal, offering a novel tool for developmental research. Kang et al. explore early moral development and cognition in 4-to 5-year-old children, examining how mutually beneficial vs. self-beneficial scenarios in a sociocultural context influence children's lying behavior, moral evaluations, and predictions. By integrating these perspectives, methodological techniques and applications, this Research Topic seeks to advance a more comprehensive and unified understanding of moral emotions and their role in human behavior.

Generative AI statement

The author(s) declared that Generative AI was not used in the creation of this manuscript.

Any alternative text (alt text) provided alongside figures in this article has been generated by Frontiers with the support of artificial intelligence and reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, including review by the authors wherever possible. If you identify any issues, please contact us.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Footnotes

Edited and reviewed by: Robert Hepach, University of Oxford, United Kingdom