Effects of finitude salience and value orientation on the feeling of being moved

Abstract

Stories sometimes move us; this study examined the factors that strengthen the perception of core values based on the core value goodness hypothesis of being moved. Focusing on the infinity of core values, we hypothesised that the reaffirmation of the finite nature of human beings would emphasise core values. This study examined the factors that promote being moved: finitude salience and value orientation. The participants responded to a family value scale. Subsequently, a descrambling task to manipulate finitude salience was used. The participants composed sentences such as “Everything that exists in this world is finite” and primed finitude. Subsequently, they watched a video on the theme of family love and rated their feelings. From the results, we found that (a) the participants oriented towards the value themed in the video (i.e., love) were more strongly moved by it; and (b) when finitude was salient, people oriented towards the themed value in the video were moved more strongly by it than those who were not. This suggests that the feeling of being moved occurs when we recognise an infinite core value, in contrast to our finite existence.