A Metaphor-Enriched Social and Personality Psychology

1. A Metaphor-Enriched Social and Personality Psychology Brian P. Meier Gettysburg College The Barnard Interdisciplinary Workshop on Embodiment July 22nd – 24th, 2010

2. 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

3. 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.

4. 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 processing • Study 4 - anger primes increase temperature estimates • Study 6 - heat cues bias emotion judgments (i.e., anger)

5. 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)

6. Where is Embodiment Headed? A Metaphor-Enriched Social and Personality Psychology • Current work is phenomenon focused: • Meier & Dionne (2009) - attraction and vertical space

7. Where is Embodiment Headed? A Metaphor-Enriched Social and Personality Psychology F (1, 77) = 5.12, p = .027, ηp2 = .06

8. 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

9. 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)

10. 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

11. Where is Embodiment Headed? A Metaphor-Enriched Social and Personality Psychology F (2, 52) = 3.91, p = .026, ηp2 = .13

12. 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

13. Summary and Questions Questions • Where’s the metaphor? • What are the commonalities/differences between conceptual metaphor theory and “purist” views of embodiment?