Indignation is a complex and discrete emotion that is triggered by social emotions and social environments. Feelings of anger and disgust are some emotions that make up indignation.
The feeling of indignation can occur when one is mistreated by another or negative feelings are sparked when a situation is out of the normal realm of society. When situations or actions that are considered to be unjust behavior occur, the feeling of indignation is experienced. With unjust actions and behaviors comes to blame. Blame also helps to make up the emotion of indignation. When blameworthy actions take place, the emotion of indignation occurs and negative feelings are projected onto the person who is to blame. Which can be brought on by disturbances that go against social normative. According to Claude Miller, “indignation is defined as a non-primary, discrete, social emotion, specifying disapproval of someone else's blameworthy action, as that action is explicitly viewed to be in violation of the objective order, and implicitly perceived as injurious to the perceiver's self-concept” (Miller et al, 2007, pg.1). Indignation is experienced when violations are made to our daily lives. Indignation is an emotion that is considered to be an adaptive behavior. Social environment and social emotions being a stimuli for indignation. Our emotions and behaviors adapt depending on certain situations. Internal and external social norms play a part in experiencing the emotion of indignation. It is expected that everyone coexists and follows the social normative behaviors society has put in place. When something disrupts what is considered to be a social norm, a violation occurs, both internally and externally. A range of feelings are experienced internally, as well as a desire to be removed from the situation externally. When norms are disrupted, offense is taken and the emotion of indignation is ignited.
The attribution process is integral in the development of indignation. It is the split-second assessments a person makes (attributions) about their own behavior or in the behavior of others in order to figure out the reason or cause behind it. Behaviors can be classified as situational (external) or dispositional (internal). Fritz Heider wrote that people tend to view behavior in one of two ways; the cause of situational factors or of dispositional factors. From this, an individual is either an Entity theorist or an Incremental theorist when considering event or categorization but is not exclusive to either group. According to one scholar, ”People's implicit theories create a framework for processing information, forming inferences, determining attributions, shaping predictions, understanding others’ behaviors, and construction representations of social events”. Taking this into account and based on a person's classification of entity or incremental theorist (which delineates how a person views behavior in relation to its driving factors), research demonstrates that said person is inclined to experience indignation with more or less frequency and severity respectively.
Entity theory
Entity theorists believe that judgements of moral character can be made from merely a few or even a single observation(s). They are most often found making stereotypes about people or events, and believe that disposition based attributions are innate, and rarely ever change. ‘You can't teach an old dog new tricks’ explains how entity theorists might explain a situation. Behavior, to them, is caused by the unchanging, internal (character) attributes. Hypothetically, if the two different types of people were sitting on a parole board for a jailed criminal, those who exemplify traits of entity theorists might say ‘once a criminal always a criminal’ and reason that the criminal behavior was driven by the immoral nature of the person and they would do it again, no matter the circumstance, when given the opportunity.
Entity Theory Dispositional traits are used within the entity theory as a basic unit of analysis. Either positive or negative attributes are experienced and possibly expressed. With indignation, the attributes experienced are going to be negative. These tendencies are most likely going to remain the same and be predictable with little to no room for change. An assumption is made and judgments are carried out. Entity theory creates and holds judgements based on a single behavioral observation. Once something is believed to be true, it is almost permanently labeled, and objective situational evidence is neglected to be taken into consideration. Disposition-relevant information is the main focus due to the fact that it feeds the reinforcement of negative information.