A Metaphor-Enriched Social and Personality Psychology Brian P. Meier Gettysburg College The Barnard Interdisciplinary Workshop on Embodiment July 22 nd – 24 th , 2010
Dec 17, 2015
A Metaphor-Enriched Social and Personality Psychology
Brian P. Meier
Gettysburg College
The Barnard Interdisciplinary Workshop on Embodiment
July 22nd – 24th, 2010
An Embodied Mind Approach
Barsalou (1999), Lakoff & Johnson (1980, 1999)
Landau, Meier, & Keefer (in press)
Conceptual Metaphors - conceptual mappings between typically concrete source concepts and superficially dissimilar and typically abstract target concepts
Embodiment - concepts contain modality-specific representations of sensations, motor activity, and other bodily states that occur during interactions with stimuli corresponding to those concepts
Where is Embodiment Headed?A Metaphor-Enriched Social and Personality Psychology
Early work was metaphor focused:
Meier et al. (2004, 2007) - brightness and bad/good
Meier & Robinson (2004, 2006) - verticality and bad/good
Meier et al. (2007) - verticality and perceptions of God.
Where is Embodiment Headed?A Metaphor-Enriched Social and Personality Psychology
Current work is phenomenon focused:Wilkowski, Meier, et al. (2009) - anger-related processing
and heat cues (“hotheaded”)
Study 1 - heat cues facilitate anger-related processingStudy 4 - anger primes increase temperature estimatesStudy 6 - heat cues bias emotion judgments (i.e., anger)
Where is Embodiment Headed?A Metaphor-Enriched Social and Personality Psychology
Current work is phenomenon focused:Meier & Dionne (2009) - attraction and verticality
Buss (1994, 2007) - evolution and human mating strategies (men seek youth and fidelity; women seek resources and status; a power difference?)
Verticality is a source domain for power (e.g., “high in the hierarchy”, “on the bottom rung of the ladder”; Giessner & Schubert, 2007)
Where is Embodiment Headed?A Metaphor-Enriched Social and Personality Psychology
Current work is phenomenon focused:Meier & Dionne (2009) - attraction and vertical space
Where is Embodiment Headed?A Metaphor-Enriched Social and Personality Psychology
F (1, 77) = 5.12, p = .027, ηp2 = .06
Where is Embodiment Headed?A Metaphor-Enriched Social and Personality Psychology
Current and future work is phenomenon focused:Meier et al. (in preparation) - the “sweet” person
Nice, pleasant, and caring people are described as “sweet”Sweet taste may be a source domain for agreeableness
Where is Embodiment Headed?A Metaphor-Enriched Social and Personality Psychology
Current and future work is phenomenon focused:Meier et al. (in preparation) - the “sweet” person
Study 1 - participants believed strangers who liked sweet foods (e.g., candy, sugar) were higher in agreeableness than strangers who liked other food taste types (e.g., sour, spicy)
Study 2 - sweet-food preferences positively correlated with agreeableness even after controlling for other food preferences (e.g., sour, spicy)
Where is Embodiment Headed?A Metaphor-Enriched Social and Personality Psychology
Current and future work is phenomenon focused:Meier et al. (in preparation) - the “sweet” person
Study 3 - people with a higher preference for sweet foods were more likely to volunteer to help their community during a flood
Study 5 - participants randomly assigned to eat a sweet food (Dove chocolate), a non-sweet food (Carr’s Crackers), or no food Later asked to help another researcher
Where is Embodiment Headed?
F (2, 52) = 3.91, p = .026, ηp2 = .13
A Metaphor-Enriched Social and Personality Psychology
Summary and Questions
Summary
An embodied framework can enrich the basic understanding and prediction of social and personality processes
A phenomenon-based focus rather than a metaphor-based focus
Summary and Questions
Questions
Where’s the metaphor?
What are the commonalities/differences between conceptual metaphor theory and “purist” views of embodiment?