| Moral judgment is people’s evaluation and decision on moral issues.For a long time,moral judgment has been paid much attention by researchers,especially on its psychological mechanism.Harm has always been an important topic in the study of moral judgment.The theory of dyadic morality even proposed the fundamental role of perceived harm in moral judgment(Schein&Gray,2017).In daily life,people have different moral judgments on physical harm and non-physical harm,and have different moral judgments on fatal physical harm and non-fatal physical harm(Tremoliere&Neys,2013).Temporal orientation plays an important role in our daily decisions and judgments,and people often make more extreme evaluations of future events.For example,people think that future violations are more immoral than past ones(Caruso,2010).The study of violation of relational motives have shown that crimes occurred at close range were rated more negatively than crimes occurred at a distance,that is,if transgressions happens in a closer environment,it is considered a stronger threat(Tepe&Aydinli-Karakulak,2019).When people make moral judgments,for events that occur at different times or places,the degree of attention is different.People have deeper experience and feel about things that are likely to happen in the future or happen nearby,and they will exactly assess the moral level of the actions and make judgments quickly.The purpose of the present study is to explore how the spatio-temporal property affects moral judgment.Consistent with the viewpoints of the theory of dyadic morality,the present study holds that perceived harm plays a role in the influence of spatial and temporal information on moral judgment.When the perceived harm caused by the event is relatively small,the spatial and temporal information has less influence on moral judgments.On the contrary,when the perceived harm caused by the event is large,the spatial and temporal information has a great influence on the moral judgment.Further,According to the study of violation of relational motives:when the harm produced a potential threat to the values and social harmony,people will determine specific events as immoral(Tepe&Aydinli-KarakuaLak,2019),the present study proposes that,in addition to worry about values and social harmony are threatened,people also worry about specific events pose a threat to their personal safety and emotion.In moral judgment,there is a broader influence of the need for harm avoidance.Therefore,this study proposes that when the perceived harm is high,the influence of spatial-temporal information on moral judgment is precisely through the need for harm avoidance,that is,the higher the level of the need for avoid harm,the more severe the moral judgment.The present study bases on the relationship between pure violation and perceived harm proposed by the theory of dyadic morality,defining pure violations and harm violations for different types of harm situation.Through three experiments,we investigated the effects of temporal and spatial information and harm types on moral judgment.Focusing on different levels of perceived harm and need for harm avoidance,this paper changes the research perspective from the content of moral judgment to the function of moral judgment,and investigates the influence of perceived harm and need for harm avoidance on moral judgment,aiming to explore the psychological mechanism of moral judgment.Based on the theory of dyadic morality,experiment 1 investigates the influence of temporal orientation and harm type on moral judgment,as well as the role of perceived harm and the need for harm avoidance in the influence of temporal orientation on moral judgment.Experiment 2investigates the influence of spatial distance and harm type on moral judgment,as well as the role of perceived harm and the need for harm avoidance in the influence of spatial distance on moral judgment.According to Parkinson&Byrne(2017),pure violation is divided into violations to others and violations to oneself situations in the experiment 3,and the influence of spatial distance and harm type on moral judgment is investigated,as well as the role of perceived harm and the need for harm avoidance in the influence of spatial distance on moral judgment is further explored.It was found in experiment 1 that the harm perception score of the harm violation situation was significantly higher than that of the pure violation situation,F(1,84)=176.56,p<0.001,η_p~2=0.68;The moral judgment score of future time group was significantly higher than that of the past time group only in the harm violation situation,F(1,84)=5.05,p=0.027,η_p~2=0.06.In experiment 2,it was found that the harm perception score of harm violation situation was significantly higher than that of pure violation situation,F(1,80)=144.83,p<0.001,η_p~2=0.64;Only in the harm violation situation,the score of moral judgment the close range group was significantly higher than that the distance group,F(1,80)=57.62,p<0.001,η_p~2=0.42.In experiment 3,it was found that the harm perception score of pointing at others’pure violation situation was significantly higher than that of pointing at one’s own pure violation situation,F(1,111)=134.94,p<0.001,η_p~2=0.55;Only in the situation of pure violation pointed at others,the score of moral judgment in the close range group was significantly higher than that the distance group,F(1,111)=46.69,p<0.001,η_p~2=0.30,the harm perception score in the close range group was significantly higher than that the distance group,F(1,111)=15.32,p<0.001,η_p~2=0.12,the score of need for harm avoidance in the close range group was significantly higher than that the distance group,F(1,111)=4.83,p=0.03,η_p~2=0.04,for the harm perception(LLCI=0.35,ULCI=1.69)in Bootstrap analysis with a sample size of 5000,the results of mediation analysis under 95%confidence interval did not include 0,indicating a significant mediating effect of injury perception.The research draws the following conclusions:(1)The spatio-temporal property influences moral judgment in moral situations with high harm perception.(2)In moral situations with high harm perception,spatio-temporal property influences moral judgment through harm perception and the need for harm avoidance. |
PDF Full Text Request