Bidirectional Relationship Of The Clean And Dirty Metaphor Among Junior School Students And Its Impact On Moral Judgments Of Different Actors

In people’s daily life,physical cleanliness is often used to express the quality of moral character.The theory of conceptual metaphor suggests that there is a metaphorical connection between concrete and abstract concepts in their conceptual meanings.At the same time,the perception of concrete concepts can also affect abstract cognitive thinking activities,such as the impact of pure perception on deeper moral issues — moral judgments.However,there is still controversy over the direction in which the metaphor of cleanliness affects moral judgment,possibly due to differences in the target audience,moral story materials,and moral story actors.In recent years,topics related to the moral issues of middle school students have received widespread attention from society.Therefore,it is of great practical significance to examine the psychological reality of the metaphor of cleanliness in middle school students and its impact on the moral judgments of different behavioral subjects.Based on this,this study conducted a total of three studies(four experiments).Study 1 referred to the Stroop diagram word separation paradigm and used two experiments to verify whether there is a bidirectional mapping relationship between moral concept cleanliness metaphors in the middle school student population.Among them,Experiment 1a examines the mapping from the source domain to the target domain,the mapping from the specific concept of purification to the abstract concept of morality;Experiment 1b examines the mapping of the target domain to the source domain,the mapping of moral abstract concepts to specific concepts of cleanliness.Study 2 examines the impact of a clean background(clean background vs dirty background)combined with behavioral subjects(self vs others)on moral judgment.Study 3 adopts the sentence priming paradigm to examine the impact of the combination of the clean self(clean self vs dirty self)and the behavioral subject(self vs others)on moral judgment.The conclusion drawn is as follows:Firstly,there is still a bidirectional mapping relationship between the source domain and the target domain,as well as the target domain and the source domain,in the moral concept of the clean and dirty metaphor among middle school students.Secondly,the metaphor of cleanliness only has an impact on the moral judgments of moral dilemma stories of different actors,and has no impact on the moral judgments of unethical stories of different actors.Thirdly,the background of cleanliness has an impact on the moral judgment of moral dilemma stories among different actors.In clean backgrounds,there is no significant difference in the participants’ moral judgments towards themselves and others.In dirty backgrounds,participants have stricter moral judgments about themselves and are more lenient towards others.Fourthly,the self purification has an impact on the moral judgment of moral dilemmas among different behavioral subjects.Under the condition of clean self activation,the subjects had stricter moral judgments towards themselves and more lenient towards others;Under the priming of dirty self,participants have a more relaxed moral judgment of themselves and are more strict towards others.In summary,all three studies have shown that the moral concept of clean and dirt metaphor has a stable psychological reality in the group of middle school students.At the same time,the combination of pure dirt metaphor with behavioral subjects can affect the moral judgment of middle school students,and the direction of moral judgment also shows differences due to the different targets and behavioral subjects of clean and dirt.This study not only deepens the theory of moral concept metaphor,but also provides reference for the educational ideas of moral judgment,moral cognition,and moral behavior for middle school students.