This study investigates how exposure to CEO-focused memes, which can evoke moral emotions, shape constituents’ social evaluations and intentions to support the CEO and firm. We build on research at the intersection of the moral and emotional dimensions of social evaluations and examine how positive and negative moral emotions—such as anger, contempt, disgust, pride, and gratitude—influence three key social evaluations: reputation, celebrity, and infamy. Using an randomized-controlled online experiment, participants viewed memes designed to elicit either positive or negative moral emotions. Our findings show that negative moral emotions increase infamy, while decreasing reputation and celebrity. Conversely, positive moral emotions strengthen positive evaluations such as reputation and celebrity, while lowering infamy. These differences in social evaluations subsequently influence participants’ intentions to support the firm through purchasing behavior, public promotion, and willingness to forgive the firm during crises. Our results highlight the critical role of moral emotions in shaping social evaluations, going beyond purely rational or general emotional explanations. By showing that moral emotions affect not only emotional-laden evaluations (celebrity or infamy) but also those presumed to be more rational (reputation), we underscore the intertwined nature of moral, rational, and emotional processes. We discuss implications for theory, research on social media, and practical considerations for managing a firm’s social approval assets.
