Phrase Depicting Immoral Behavior Dilates Its Subjective Time Judgment

Abstract

Intuitive moral emotions play a major role in forming our opinions and moral decisions. However, it is not yet known how we perceive the subjective time of moral-related information. In this study, we compared subjective durations of phrases depicting immoral, disgust, or neutral behaviors in a duration bisection task and found that phrases depicting immoral behavior were perceived as lasting longer than the neutral and disgusting phrases. By contrast, the subjective duration of the disgusting phrase, unlike the immoral phrase, was comparable to the neutral phrase. Moreover, the lengthening effect of the immoral phrase relative to the neutral phrase was significantly correlated to the anonymously prosocial tendency of the observer. Our findings suggest that immoral phrases induce embodied moral reaction, which alters emotional state and subsequently lengthens subjective time.

Impact of babyface schema on time perception: Insights from neutral and crying facial expressions

“…The trial began with an 800‐ms white fixation point (“+”), followed by a blank screen, lasting for 400 to 600 ms. A facial image, of either an infant or an adult, was then displayed for a randomly chosen probe duration (options: 400, 500, 600, 700, and 800 ms). The set of durations was selected based on past research for better comparison (duration selection referenced from Droit‐Volet et al, 2010 ; Jia, et al, 2021 ; Shi et al, 2012 ). A 500‐ms blank screen ensued, and then a white question mark appeared.…”

Student Moral Foundations in the Context of Research Misbehavior: An Experimental Study

“…Previous studies focused on the association of moral decision-making and textual information found that people who are high on the Care dimension are faster in the recognition of words of high moral valence compared to neutral words (Yang et al, 2017). Moreover, previous studies have indicated that people need longer time for decision-making when presented with messages which are perceived to have immoral content (Gantman et al, 2020; Jia et al, 2021), and that for that phenomenon there is a biological basis (Heekeren et al, 2005). However, the moral foundations theory has never been tested in the context of research integrity and research ethics, where moral foundations could be considered a decisive factor in the recognition of inappropriate research behaviors.…”