The Effect Of Body Size In The Moral Approach-avoidance Behavior

This article employs the manikin task to investigate an individual's approach-avoidance behavior when he or she encounters a moral or immoral person,and makes a discussion about the mechanism of it.Experiment 1 uses an improved manikin task.The results confirmed that the embodiment of moral-approach and immoral-avoidance behavior is significantly faster than moral � avoidance and immoral-approach behavior,moral approach-avoidance behavior exist indeed.On the foundation of experiment 1,the factor of perceiving other's body size is added.Result shows that when other's body size is being recognized,moral-approach behavior is significantly faster when size is big than when size is small.However,immoral-avoidance behavior has no difference in reaction time no matter other's size is big or small.Experiment 3 continues to investigate the effect of body size in the moral approach-avoidance behavior by canceling the attention to other's body size.Result shows that the effect is the same even body size is not recognized.Moral-approach behavior is faster when other's size is big,whereas immoral-avoidance behavior is faster when other's size is small.Moral-avoidance and immoral-avoidance behavior are not influenced by other's body size.The current research indicates that there is an embodied connection between approach-avoidance behavior and the cognition of other's moral character: individuals prefer to approach a moral man or woman,and prefer to avoid a immoral man or woman.Moreover,perceiving other's body size can impact on the moral approach-avoidance behavior.The effect is relatively complicated and related to the real circumstance,and it can be found either in the condition of recognizing the body size or not recognizing the size.The result is discussed in the point of view of social psychology and evolutionary psychology.