Li Heng, Cao Yu
a Jiangsu Normal University.
b Northumbria University.
J Soc Psychol. 2018;158(2):152-156. doi: 10.1080/00224545.2017.1297289. Epub 2017 Apr 5.
It has long been observed that speakers employ spatial concepts "front" and "back" to talk about temporal concepts "past" and "future." However, the direction of space-time mappings varies across cultures. According to Temporal Focus Hypothesis (TFH), people's implicit associations between space and time are conditioned by their temporal focus. Here we tested whether pregnancy can affect Chinese women's temporal focus and thereby influence their space-time mappings. One of the most striking characteristics of pregnant women noted by previous research is their future-oriented thought. Based on this, we predicted that pregnant women should be more future-focused. Consistent with this prediction, the results demonstrated that pregnant women tended to be more future-focused than non-pregnant women and demonstrated a greater tendency to conceptualize the future as in front of them, supporting the TFH. The current research offers a new perspective that culture-external factors such as pregnancy can also influence people's spatialization of time.
长期以来，人们一直观察到，说话者会使用空间概念“前”和“后”来谈论时间概念“过去”和“未来”。然而，时空映射的方向在不同文化中有所不同。根据时间焦点假说（TFH），人们在空间和时间之间的隐性关联受其时间焦点的制约。在此，我们测试了怀孕是否会影响中国女性的时间焦点，进而影响她们的时空映射。先前研究指出，孕妇最显著的特征之一是她们的未来导向思维。基于此，我们预测孕妇应该更关注未来。与这一预测一致，结果表明，孕妇比未怀孕的女性更倾向于关注未来，并且更倾向于将未来概念化为在自己前方，这支持了时间焦点假说。当前的研究提供了一个新的视角，即怀孕等文化外部因素也会影响人们对时间的空间化。
