Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Department of Psychology, New York University.
Psychol Sci. 2016 Mar;27(3):375-83. doi: 10.1177/0956797615624029. Epub 2016 Feb 1.
In the present article, we introduce the concept of metaphorical conflict-a conflict between the concrete and abstract aspects of a metaphor. We used the association between the concrete (spatial) and abstract (ideological) components of the political left-right metaphor to demonstrate that metaphorical conflict has marked implications for cognitive processing and social perception. Specifically, we showed that creating conflict between a spatial location and a metaphorically linked concept reduces perceived differences between the attitudes of partisans who are generally viewed as possessing fundamentally different worldviews (Democrats and Republicans). We further demonstrated that metaphorical conflict reduces perceived attitude differences by creating a mind-set in which categories are represented as possessing broader boundaries than when concepts are metaphorically compatible. These results suggest that metaphorical conflict shapes social perception by making members of distinct groups appear more similar than they are generally thought to be. These findings have important implications for research on conflict, embodied cognition, and social perception.
在本文中，我们介绍了隐喻冲突的概念——一种隐喻的具体和抽象方面之间的冲突。我们利用政治左-右隐喻的具体（空间）和抽象（意识形态）成分之间的联想，表明隐喻冲突对认知处理和社会感知有显著的影响。具体来说，我们表明，在一个空间位置和一个隐喻相关的概念之间制造冲突，会减少通常被认为具有根本不同世界观的党派（民主党人和共和党人）之间态度的感知差异。我们进一步表明，隐喻冲突通过创造一种心态来减少感知态度差异，在这种心态中，类别被表示为具有比概念更具包容性的边界。这些结果表明，隐喻冲突通过使不同群体的成员看起来比通常认为的更相似来塑造社会感知。这些发现对冲突研究、具身认知和社会感知具有重要意义。
