The Moral Stroop Effect msdffdsa fads CLICK HERE TO TAKE THE MORAL STROOP TASK ONLINE

There is a tendency to associate sin and evil with the color black and moral virtue and goodness with the color white.

A classic way to demonstrate associations between a concept and a color is the Stroop color-word task. In this task, you present either a color name (e.g., "yellow") or a color-related word (e.g., "lemon") in different colors (e.g., yellow and blue). The goal is to name the color of the word while ignoring the meaning of the word. But people automatically read the word, extracting its meaning along with any associated color. Therefore the time it takes to name the presented color will depend on whether the associated color and presented color are congruent (e.g., "lemon" in yellow font) or incongruent (e.g., "lemon" in blue font). People are slightly faster in the first case and slightly slower in the second, a phenomenon known as the Stroop effect.

We have demonstrated that there is a Moral Stroop effect. We presented a series of morally-relevant words in either black or white font (on a gray background): people are faster if the word and color are congruent ("sin" in black font) and slower if they are incongruent ("sin" in white font).

Link to Moral Purity

We believe that one reason people associate sin with black--giving rise to the Moral Stroop effect--is because they conceive of sin as having polluting powers (black is a symbol of physical impurity which in turn is a symbol of moral impurity). If we are right about this, then the Moral Stroop effect should be most likely to occur among those people who are generally concerned with issues of purity. These are the people most likely to make use of the metaphor. If the threat of physical impurity and contamination doesn't particularly bother you, then there is little metaphorical value in associating sin with black. Thus, having a basic concern with cleanliness should be a prerequisite for associating sin with black. Consistent with this reasoning, we found that the magnitude of the Moral Stroop effect was positively related to liking of cleaning products such as toothpaste and shower soap.

To read the complete write-up of these studies, see the following article, which is now in press at the journal Psychological Science.

Sherman, G. D., & Clore, G. L. (2009). The color of sin: White and black are perceptual symbols of moral purity and pollution. Psychological Science, 20, 1019-1025. [pdf]

 

Cuteness

As a species, we are intensely fascinated with our own young. Much of this fascination has to do with the apparent "cuteness" of infants and young children. Cuteness, which is based, in part, in infants' unique facial proportions (e.g., especially large eyes, large forehead, rounded features), is thought to be a powerful elicitor of human caregiving. Still, we know very little about the exact ways in which encountering comething cute may alter behavior.

The Operation Study:

If the emotional response to cuteness evolved to facilitate interaction with, and caring for, delicate human young, then seeing something cute might increase how careful people are in their fine motor behavior.

In two studies, we had participants watch a slideshow. Half of the participants were shown images of adult dogs and cats (rated as moderately cute) and the other half were shown images of puppies and kittens (rated as extremely cute). Before and after the slideshow, all participants played the game "Operation" which requires the use of extreme care in one's fine motor movements in order to use a pair of tweezers to remove a series of bodyparts from a "patient" without touching the tweezers to the sides. We found that those who had viewed the extremely cute images showed significantly greater improvement in this task than those who viewed the moderately cute images. Seeing cuteness made people better at Operation. That is, it made them better at executing careful, finely-tuned motor movements.

To read the complete write-up of this study, see the following article, which is currently in press at the journal Emotion:

Sherman, G. D., Haidt, J., & Coan, J. A. (2009). Viewing cute images increases behavioral carefulness. Emotion, 9, 282-286. [pdf]