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This chapter draws on the theoretical and methodological insights from Affect Control theory (ACT), a theory with decades of research and empirical support, to set up our cross-cultural analyses examing our theory of societal inequality. ACT is a formal mathematical theory used to examine how the various facets of social events (such as the identities and emotions) shape ongoing social action. ACT distills the representation of these various facets to their simplest, most universally recognized dimensions of meaning: evaluation (good vs. bad), potency (powerful vs. weak), and activity (fast vs. slow). ACT then provides a way of understanding and modeling social interactions so that it is possible to empirically compare the likely emotions resulting from the same types of interactions in various cultures. The chapter gives a broad overview of the theory so that the reader understands why it is useful and provides justification for the empirical analysis used in the book.

This chapter provides a primer on ACT data and analysis strategies provided by Interact, the computerized version of ACT. First, it describes the data sources for the Interact simulations before discussing how these categories of moral emotions are differentially felt across our five cultures via EPA dictionaries located in Interact. Next, it walks through an analysis strategy for generating likely moral emotional reactions across these cultures. To do so, it describes how Interact simulates social interaction by using empirically grounded, culture-specific equations.

The book concludes with this chapter summarizing the general argument, hopefully more compelling in light of our empirical support. Ultimately, we call for researchers to adopt alternate empirical approaches to test our argument that societal inequality is linked to culturally shaped moral codes and emotions. Gathering the data within a country to assess these interactional moral processes is almost prohibitively expensive, so it is difficult to replicate our ideas within a wider array of countries and methodological techniques. However, if this theory has merit, we hope others will pick up on the broad links between macro and micro to refine, or argue with, this admittedly ambitious thesis.

Chapter 9 presents our empirical results. The chapter begins with a description of the competing theories’ predictions for how the countries under analysis (the United States, China, Germany, Japan, and Canada) should differ by their moral reactions. We then present results demonstrating that the negative self-sanctioning and other-sanctioning moral emotions are far more common in the United States and China—countries with high levels of inequality. Conversely, the self-transcendent, communal moral emotions, like compassion and praise, are more often experienced in Germany, Japan, and Canada—countries with much lower inequality. This is consistent with our theoretical predictions.