The Effect Of Construal Levels On Moral Judgment

Moral judgment is the evaluation of a person on the actions of right or wrong， good or bad andgood or evil， and also the central link of the people of moral choice and moral evaluation. Moral judgmenthas mainly focused on the cognitive mechanisms of moral and moral development， and rarely involved inother areas. Standing in construal level theory’s perspective to explore the moral judgment is undoubtedly amajor discovery and pioneering on the field of moral values. Construal level theory has explored the impactof moral judgment mainly through operating psychological distance especially simple dimension， andresearch that the psychological distance affects moral judgments. Psychological distance farther， peoplemore likely judge from the point of view of the moral principles of the actions of others. Far as thepsychological distance， the judgment of the people on moral behavior is more extreme. Overall， there isneed to further research to explain the level of application of the theory in the field of morality. Based onprevious studies， the present studies from the psychological distance and direct manipulation explain thelevel of moral judgment more in-depth.This study surveyed college students， using a questionnaire to collect data， including twostudies. Study1is to examine construal levels on moral judgment by the psychological distance， and toexplore whether there was an interaction between the two through involving time distance and socialdistance， including a pre-study and two secondary studies. The purpose of the pre-study is to verifywhether participants would perceive the distance of an event differently depending on different conditionsinduced by the two distance dimensions. The two secondary studies were to verify the time distance andsocial distance on immoral and virtuous acts. Study2further explained the level of moral judgment bydirectly manipulating the construal level， to explore the impact of the immoral and virtuous behavior，respectively. The study results are as follows:(1) we found that the interaction of temporal distance and social distance， by inspection ofindividual perception of the events under different conditions caused by the two dimensions ofpsychological distance. In the study of immoral acts， the main effect of social distance was significant， and social farther away from the event of the occurrence of immoral behavior was more immoral； Themain effect of time distance was not significant； The interaction between the two was marginallysignificant. Participants in the close social and near temporal distance reported higher moral scores than inother three conditions， and the differences between the latter three conditions were insignificant.(2) In the study of virtuous acts， we found inconsistent effects of time distance and socialdistance on moral behavior research. Main effect of social distance is significant， and people judgevirtuous behavior as more better when object is a good friend； The main effect of time distance wasmarginally significant. moral acts were judged more positively from temporal distance； The interactionbetween the two was marginally significant. When the virtuous acts happened a few days ago， participantsthought a good friend was more positive. However， when the virtuous acts happened three years ago， thedifference was not significant.(3) Participants in different construal levels judged differently both on immoral and virtuous acts.People judged immoral behavior as more offensive and virtuous behavior as more positive in high construallevels than low， which was consistent with psychological distance as before.(4) Gender made certain difference on moral judgment. Especially in immoral behavior， Themoral assessment scores of girls is higher than boys’. Interaction between gender and social distance issignificant， that is no matter a good friend or a stranger， the boys’ moral assessment scores are relativelylow. However， As for girls， when object is to her good friend， the moral score is higher than a stranger.Judgment on the moral behavior did not find gender differences.(5) Main effect of stories is significant.The moral evaluation of different stories is different. Theinteraction of stories and other conditions is substantially not significant.