Psychological Development and Education ›› 2017, Vol. 33 ›› Issue (6): 666-674.doi: 10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2017.06.04

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The Clean and Dirty Metaphors of Moral Concepts and Its Influence on Moral Judgments

DING Fengqin1, WANG Ximei1, LIU Zhao1,2   

  1. 1. School of Education, Ningxia University, Yinchuan 750021;
    2. Ankang Vocational and Technical College, Ankang 725000
  • Online:2017-11-15 Published:2017-11-15

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Abstract: We adopted three experiments to explore the psychological reality of the clean and dirty metaphors of moral concepts and its influence and differences of the environment and self clean-dirty metaphors of moral concepts on moral judgments. The results showed that:(1) The clean and dirty metaphors of moral concepts had the psychological reality, specifically, participants' RTs of judging moral words were significantly faster than the RTs of judging immoral words on the clean background, and their RTs of judging immoral words were significantly faster than the RTs of judging moral words on the dirty background. (2) In comparison to the moral dilemma stories presented on the clean background, it was easier for participants to judge more immoral for the leading roles' behavior of the stories in the moral judgment tasks on the dirty background, which revealed the metaphor consistency effects. (3) Compared with the self dirtiness prime condition, participants judged more immoral for the leading roles' behavior of the stories in the moral judgment tasks in the self cleanliness prime condition, which displayed the metaphor compensation effects. (4)Compared with the environment cleanliness prime condition, participants' judgments were more severe for the moral dilemma stories in the self cleanliness prime condition; compared with the environment dirtiness prime condition, participants' judgments were looser in the self dirtiness prime condition. Generally, the results suggest that the clean and dirty metaphors of moral concepts have the psychological reality. The environment and self clean-dirty metaphors influence participants' moral judgments, but have different effects on the moral judgments.

Key words: conceptual metaphor, clean and dirty, moral judgments, metaphor consistency effects, metaphor compensation effects

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