The influence of verticality metaphor on moral judgment and intuition

Lakoff and Johnson’s theory of conceptual metaphor predicts that the notion of verticality is often used as a basis for understanding concepts: so, for example, physically higher locations are associated with morally good, and lower locations are associated with immorality. As the moral dimension plays a crucial role when we judge other people, one would expect that verticality metaphor is also connected with moral evaluation of other people. We present here two experiments to explore this issue. Results of the first experiment suggest that the judgment of a morally ambivalent behaviour description is more favourable when presented at the top of the page in comparison to presenting it at the bottom of the page. The second experiment shows that participants are more willing to stop to talk to a volunteer asking for donation for charity after they ride up the escalator rather than after riding down. These results together lead to the conclusion that activation of verticality metaphor influences moral judgment, both when it comes to deliberate and conscious evaluation (first experiment), and also when the decision is based on the first impression, intuition and automatic reaction (second experiment).