Popular saying and moral judgment: The influence of proverbs on moral intuition

Abstract

The present research explores whether familiar proverbs can shape moral intuitions and influence people's moral judgments. A two-response experimental paradigm was used to capture participants’ responses to others’ opinions that condemn or condone immoral behaviors using popular proverbs compared to non-proverbial sentences carrying the same meaning. Results indicate that, when proverbs align with participants' previous moral beliefs, proverbs increase the strength of participants' moral intuitions – making their judgments more polarized, confident, and resistant to response revision. But not when proverbs conflict with such previous beliefs. Our results further suggest that the cognitive ease associated with proverbs contributes to explaining their impact on people’s moral judgments.