The Vertical Spatial Metaphor Of Moral Concepts And Its Influence On Cognition

The vertical spatial metaphor of moral concepts and its influence on cognition isexamined in three studies.Study1is a paper-pencil test. In the experiment, it shows a graph firstly, which consistsof a cartoon character and two squares. The two squares are separately above and below thecartoon character. In a forced-choice task, participants were asked to place the moral andimmoral words into the box above and below according to their will. The moral terms and the"up" appears matching effect, and the immoral words and "down" appears matching effect.Study2was completed using computers with the Windows XP operating system andE-Prime software (Version2.0). In a task of unrelated category, participants were instructed tocategorize words as to whether they were positive or negative meaning as quickly andaccurately as possible. Participants were faster to evaluate moral words when presented in theupper (vs. lower) half of the computer screen, whereas they were faster to evaluate immoralwords when presented in the lower (vs. upper) of the computer screen.Study3, first, participants were primed the moral concepts (or immoral concepts) in aremember task, following which participants were instructed to estimate the height and lengthof the objects. As a result, the height and length of the objects was overestimated (orunderestimated) by the moral (or immoral) priming.The results suggest that moral concepts are represented metaphorically in Chinese. InChinese, Moral is up, immoral is down. The spatial representation of Chinese moral conceptsexists in both the level of consciousness and unconsciousness. Human cognition can beinfluenced by the spatial metaphor of moral concepts subtly.