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?