Effect of Priming on Implicit Moral Judgement

The present study tries to investigate 'implicit moral reasoning' by using a priming paradigm wherein a prime can influence the categorization of a target word into two categories viz. 'morally wrong' or 'not morally wrong'. The participants comprised of healthy female young adults (age ranging from 18 to 25 years) with a minimum educational qualification of graduation in any discipline. The prime consisted of phrases (ranging from 5 to 9 words) denoting actions which are either a 'highly immoral activity' (e.g., 5 year old girl raped) or a 'highly moral activity' (e.g., girl jumps into river to save little brother). The target words had a 'non-moral' negative connotation (e.g., Distress, Illness). The prime and targets were presented with the help of a software designed for the purpose; the 'latency' of responding to the target and the 'frequency' of target being categorized into 'morally wrong' in each condition (i.e., variation of nature of prime) was measured. Statistical analysis revealed that target words (which are inherently unpleasant but without explicit moral connotation) are likely to be morally judged or categorised based on the nature of prime received by the participant (i.e., prime phrase denoting a moral activity or an immoral activity).