Recalling Moral Or Immoral Behavior Changes Perception Of Brightness And Its Mental Mechanism

Light and darkness always respectively symbolize goodness and evil. The concepts of light and darkness have been used to convey the same information in the fields ranging from films, literature to the world of religion. Some recent empirical studies have attested to such metaphorical associations (Banerjee, Chatterjee,&Sinha,2012; Meier, Robinson,&Clore,2004; Sherman&Clore,2009). Moreover, brightness perception also has an impact on people’s moral behavior. Compared with participants in the dark environments, fewer unethical deeds are performed in brighter surroundings (Chiou&Cheng,2013; Zhong, Bohns,&Gino,2010). It suggests that there is such metaphorical mapping from brightness perception to moral/immoral concept processing, and vice versa (Banerjee, Chatterjee&Sinha,2012). It is a two-way process.Murray has suggested that it is one of human beings’basic psychological needs to avoid harm. In order to do it, people prefer to focus on the sources that influence the harm (Xu, C.,2012; Hill&Lapsley,2009; Wojciszke,1994). Perception of the sources leads to the needs for harm avoidance, which will affect the processing of people’s moral concept (Mo, D.,2013). There is a significant correlation between ambient lighting, security perception and fear of crime (Hanyu,2010; Johansson, Rosen,&Kuller,2011; Pain, MacFarlane, Turner,&Gill,2006). The level of need for harm avoidance becomes stronger and more stable in the darkness than in the brightness. Need for harm avoidance, therefore, may be a mediation variable that lightness perception affects ethical/unethical concept processing.The subjects of the research are college students, and three experiments are designed. Behavioral recalling paradigm was used to explore the influence and the intermediary effect of ethical/unethical behavior recall towards brightness perception. All of the three experiments were operated in the evening, and each experiment was completed in the same classroom. In experiment1,78subjects were randomly assigned to ethical/unethical behavior recalling group. They were firstly asked to recall a most moral or immoral event that others had done to them, and then they needed to evaluate the brightness of the room. Later after that, they had to decide their preference for the six following items:water glass, lamp, biscuits, candle, apple and flashlight. The results showed that the participants of immoral behavior recalling group judged higher degree of darkness in the classroom than those of moral behavioral recalling group, and they had higher preference for bright objects such as the lamp, candle and flashlight.82subjects participated in experiment2, with the main purpose of testing the intermediary effect of ethical/unethical behavior recall towards brightness perception. It adopted the same paradigm as that in experiment1, but three variables namely need for harm avoidance, moral self and emotion were firstly examined after the ethical/unethical behavior recall. It showed the same results as those in the experiment1:ethical/unethical behavior recall has influences on brightness perception, and preference for bright items. By testing the regression coefficient respectively, we checked whether the need for harm avoidance, moral self, and emotion are intermediaries of ethical/unethical behavioral recall affecting on brightness perception. The results showed that the need for harm avoidance is entire mediation effect of ethical/unethical behavior recall affecting brightness perception, while no similar effect was found in moral self and emotions. There were62participants in experiment3. Firstly the ethical/unethical behavior was called, and then the brightness perception and need for harm avoidance were further examined after the demand of the light had been met. It showed that the differences of needs for harm avoidance were eliminated when the demand of light had been met, which suggested that need for harm avoidance, being an intermediary variable of ethical/unethical behavioral recall affecting the brightness perception, is stable.Based on these three experiments, the research findings of this dissertation can be listed from the following three aspects:Firstly, moral or immoral behavioral recall affects participants’brightness perception;Secondly, moral or immoral behavior recall influences participants’preference for bright objects;Thirdly, need for harm avoidance is an entire mediation variable of ethical/unethical behavior recall affecting brightness perception.