Sensitivity to moral goodness under different aesthetic contexts

ABSTRACT

Does context influence our appreciation of beauty? To answer this question, two experiments were conducted to determine the effect of contextual aesthetics on the recognition of moral behavior. Experiment 1 demonstrated that individuals in a high-aesthetic context had a quicker recognition time for moral behavior than those in a low-aesthetic context. In a low-aesthetic context, individuals recognize immoral behavior more quickly than in a high aesthetic context. Individuals showed greater recognition rates for moral behavior in a high aesthetic context and higher recognition for immoral behaviors in a low aesthetic context for behavior with unclear information. Experiment 2 revealed that individual fixation counts were smaller under the conditions of high aesthetic context and moral behavior than under the conditions of low aesthetic context and moral behavior, indicating a correlation between low aesthetic context and immoral behavior. This study shows that high aesthetic context facilitates the recognition of moral behavior, which has implications for moral education.

KEYWORDS:

• Contextual aesthetics
• sensitivity to moral goodness
• moral behavior

Acknowledgments

We thank our team of smart and talented research assistants for their help in data collection.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, [X. H], upon reasonable request.

Institutional review board statement

The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Institutional Review Board (or Ethics Committee) of Ethics Committee of South China Normal University.

Authors’ contributions

C. W wrote the first draft, C. W and H. Z conducted the statistical analysis and wrote the analytical part, C. W and H. Z made the study concept and design, C. W, and H. Z interpreted the results.All the authors had a full access to the data in the study and were responsible for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. C. W, H. Z, Y. Z, W. Z and X.H made a correct for the manuscript. X.H provide the research funding. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

National Natural Science Foundation of China (31970984)