The ups and downs of the moral personality: Why it’s not so black and white

Past research has suggested that people may form cognitive representations of concepts based on metaphoric dimensions. We report two studies that evaluate whether the moral personality is represented along two relevant metaphor dimensions: verticality and brightness. In addition, we sought support for an attentional bias towards immoral rather than moral traits. In Study 1, immoral personality traits were categorized slower when high in the visual field, consistent with expectations that people represent immorality as being low rather than high. In Study 2, only support for the immorality bias and not the brightness representation was found. Our results suggest evidence both that the moral personality is represented metaphorically, and for an adaptive attentional bias towards immoral traits.