Spacious Environments Make Us Tolerant—The Role of Emotion and Metaphor

Chenjing Wu, Fuqun Liang, Xiaoling Liang, Chuangbing Huang, Hua Wang, Xianyou He, Wei Zhang, Don Rojas and Yan Duan
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Chenjing Wu: Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, China, School of Psychology, Center for Studies of Psychological Application, and Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China
Fuqun Liang: Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, China, School of Psychology, Center for Studies of Psychological Application, and Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China
Xiaoling Liang: Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, China, School of Psychology, Center for Studies of Psychological Application, and Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China
Chuangbing Huang: Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, China, School of Psychology, Center for Studies of Psychological Application, and Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China
Hua Wang: Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, China, School of Psychology, Center for Studies of Psychological Application, and Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China
Xianyou He: Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, China, School of Psychology, Center for Studies of Psychological Application, and Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China
Wei Zhang: Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, China, School of Psychology, Center for Studies of Psychological Application, and Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China
Don Rojas: Department of Psychology, Colorado State University, Campus Delivery 1876, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA
Yan Duan: Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, China, School of Psychology, Center for Studies of Psychological Application, and Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 19, 1-17

Abstract: The physical environment plays an important role in moral cognition. Previous research has demonstrated that the physical environment affects individual moral judgment. Investigators have argued that the environment influences moral judgment through emotion and cognition, such as during metaphor processing. Following the intensification of urbanization and increases in population size, the phenomenon of a narrow environment has become more common. However, the relation between environmental spaciousness and moral judgment has not been thoroughly examined. We examined the effect of environmental spaciousness (spaciousness vs. narrowness) on moral judgments in Experiment 1 and Experiment 2. Results showed that participants report a higher rating score of moral judgment in more spacious environments compared with narrow environments. We further explored the roles of emotion and metaphor in the relation between environmental spaciousness and moral judgments. We found support for a partial mediation effect of emotion in the relationship between environmental spaciousness and moral judgment. The results also supported an association between the concept of spaciousness and tolerant cognition. Spacious environments may elicit positive emotions and more tolerant cognition, which in turn influences moral judgment. These results provide new evidence for the influence of the environment on moral judgments, and more attention may be warranted to incorporate this relationship in environmental design.

Keywords: spacious environment; narrow environment; moral judgment; emotion; metaphor (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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