Straight to heaven: Rectitude as spatial representation of morality

Abundant literature in cognitive sciences has shown that morality is grounded in bodily experience. Four studies tested the perceptual association between the spatial dimension of straightness and the abstract concept of morality. Study 1 ( n = 61) employed an IAT and revealed an association between straight figures and moral related words. Study 2 ( n = 83) employed a similar paradigm and further revealed that the effect we found in Study 1...