The Metaphor Representation Of Integrity Concepts And The Influence Of Bright And Dark Metaphor On Integrity Cognition In College Student

Metaphor is pervasive in language. The conceptual metaphor theory holds that metaphor is not only a kind of decoration language, but also an important cognitive and thinking mode. Especially in the effect of cognitive study of metaphor, through the connection between the concept of embodied experience and abstract concepts, analyzing and discussing the cognition of the abstract concept has become a new research trend.This paper firstly reviewed the development of several cognitive view of metaphor and the core ideas of the conceptual metaphor theory. Then it focused on the researches of moral metaphor which account for an important part in the empirical researchs in metaphor. Combined with the phenomena that dishonesty behaviors of current college students occur frequently and the integrity education often is disjointed, it pointed out the possibility of using metaphors to discuss the question of the integrity. In order to prove the the psychological reality of the metaphor of integrity, this study conducted three layers of progressive researches on the theoretical basis of conceptual metaphor theory. Study 1 constructed the structure of metaphorical representation of the integrity on the method of the corpus analysis. Study 2 were a forced-choice test and a implicit association test in order to prove the psychological reality of bright and dark metaphor of integrity in both of conscious and unconscious levels. Study 3 investigated the college students’ integrity judgment, integrity attitude and integrity behavior with bright-or-dark perception in laboratory situation or natural context. Get the following results:(1) There are 12 dimensions of metaphorical representation of integrity, which includes four physical dimensions: the power and stability; comfort; purity; brightness.(2) The most significant dimension of the four physical dimensions is “bright”, because that frequency of metaphor loaded words of “bright” is the highest.(3)The psychological reality of bright and dark metaphor of integrity exist in both of conscious and unconscious aspects in college students. That is to say, college students are more prone to think that “integrity is light, dishonest is dark”.(4)The brightness of background impects the good faith judgment and integrity attitude: In contrast to the bright computer screen, when the material presented on the dark screen, the subjects’ evaluation about the dishonest behavior is lower and is more inclined to choose dishonest behavior when faced with a dilemma.(5)The brightness of environment impects the subjects’ behaviors: Compared with light environment, the dark environment is more prone to emerge acts of bad faith, which is further proof that the metaphor consistency effect between the dark-or-bright experience and the integrity concepts.