Bodily sensations impact metaphorically related judgments. Are such effects obligatory or do they follow the logic of knowledge accessibility? If the latter, the impact of sensory information should be moderated by the accessibility of the related metaphor at the time of sensory experience. We manipulated whether “importance” was on participants’ minds when they held a physically heavy versus light book. Participants held the book while making an importance judgment versus returned it before making the judgment (Study 1) or learned prior to holding the book that the study was about “importance evaluations” versus “graphics evaluations” (Study 2). In both studies, the same book was judged more important when its heft was increased but only when importance was on participants’ minds at the time of sensory experience. We conclude that sensory experiences only impact metaphorically related judgments when the applicable metaphor is highly accessible at the time of experience. — Hauser, D. J., & Schwarz, N. (2021). Situated embodiment: When physical weight does and does not inform judgments of importance. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 12(7), 1225-1232.
Experimental work has revealed causal links between physical cleansing and various psychological variables. Empirically, how robust are they? Theoretically, how do they operate? Major prevailing accounts focus on morality or disgust, capturing a subset of cleansing effects, but cannot easily handle cleansing effects in non-moral, non-disgusting contexts. Building on grounded views on cognitive processes and known properties of mental procedures, we propose grounded procedures of separation as a proximate mechanism underlying cleansing effects. This account differs from prevailing accounts in terms of explanatory kind, interpretive parsimony, and predictive scope. Its unique and falsifiable predictions have received empirical support: Cleansing attenuates or eliminates otherwise observed influences of prior events (1) across domains and (2) across valences. (3) Cleansing manipulations produce stronger effects the more strongly they engage sensorimotor capacities. (4) Reversing the causal arrow, motivation for cleansing is triggered more readily by negative than positive entities. (5) Conceptually similar effects extend to other physical actions of separation. On the flipside, grounded procedures of connection are also observed. Together, separation and connection organize prior findings relevant to multiple perspectives (e.g., conceptual metaphor, sympathetic magic) and open up new questions. Their predictions are more generalizable than the specific mappings in conceptual metaphors, but more fine-grained than the broad assumptions of grounded cognition. This intermediate level of analysis sheds light on the interplay between mental and physical processes. — Lee, S. W., & Schwarz, N. (2021). Grounded procedures: A proximate mechanism for the psychology of cleansing and other physical actions. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 44, e1: 1-69.
In language, people often refer to decision difficulty in terms of spatial distance. Specifically, decision-difficulty is expressed as proximity, for instance when people say that a decision was “too close to call”. Although these expressions are metaphorical, we argue, in line with research on conceptual metaphor theory, that they reflect how people think about difficult decisions. Thus, here we examine whether close spatial distance can actually make decision-making harder. In six experiments (total N = 672), participants chose between two choice options presented either close together or far apart. As predicted, close (rather than far) choice options led to more difficulty, both in self-report (Experiment 1A–1C) and behavioral measures (decision-time, Experiment 2 and 3). Identifying a boundary condition, we show that close choice options lead to more difficulty only for within-category choices (Experiment 3). The too-close-to-call effect is theoretically and methodologically relevant for a broad array of research where choice options are visually presented, ranging from social cognition, judgment and decision-making to more applied settings in consumer psychology and marketing. — Schneider, I. K., Stapels, J., Koole, S. L., & Schwarz, N. (2020). Too close to call: Spatial distance between options influences choice difficulty. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 87, 103939.
Bellicose metaphors for cancer are ubiquitous. But are they good metaphors for health communicators to use? Because metaphors can guide reasoning about abstract concepts, framing cancer with metaphors of battle, war, and enemies leads people to apply attributes of these concepts to cancer. The current research investigates how this affects inferences about cancer treatment, prevention, and monitoring. Battles and war are usually seen as being difficult. Indeed, reading about a person’s “battle” or “fight” against cancer makes cancer treatment seem more difficult (studies 1–4). One way to approach a battle is to surrender and give up control. Consistent with this implication, battle metaphors increase fatalistic beliefs about cancer prevention (e.g. believing that there is little one can do to prevent getting cancer; study 3). Finally, even though battles invoke vigilance and action, Study 4 failed to find that such metaphors motivate people to immediately see their doctor when imagining a cancer scare. These findings suggest that bellicose metaphors for cancer can influence the health beliefs of nonpatients in ways that may make them less willing to enact healthy behaviors. — Hauser, D. J., & Schwarz, N. (2020). The war on prevention II: Battle metaphors undermine cancer treatment and prevention and do not increase vigilance. Health Communication, 35(13), 1698-1704.
The smell of suspicion: How the nose curbs gullibility (Schwarz & Lee, 2019)
Review chapter — Schwarz, N., & Lee, S. W. (2019). The smell of suspicion: How the nose curbs gullibility. In The Social Psychology of Gullibility (pp. 234-252). Routledge.
How one thing leads to another: Spillover effects of behavioral mind-sets (Xu & Schwarz, 2018)
Cognitions involved in a goal-directed activity may influence people’s behaviors in unrelated domains. We review evidence for such spillover effects and discuss the underlying processes in terms of behavioral mind-sets. — Xu, A. J., & Schwarz, N. (2018). How one thing leads to another: Spillover effects of behavioral mind-sets. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 27(1), 51-55.
Embodied cognition and the construction of attitudes (Schwarz & Lee, 2018)
Handbook chapter. — Schwarz, N., & Lee, S. W. (2018). Embodied cognition and the construction of attitudes. In The Handbook of Attitudes, Volume 1: Basic Principles (pp. 450-479). Routledge.
Metaphorical effects are commonly assumed to be unidirectional, running from concrete to abstract domains but not vice versa. Noting that metaphorical effects are often found to be bidirectional, we explore how they may be mediated and moderated according to the principles of knowledge accessibility and applicability. Using the example of “something smells fishy” (a metaphorical expression of social suspicion), seven experiments tested for the behavioral effects of fishy smells on social suspicion among English speakers, the reversed effects of suspicion on smell labeling and detection, and the underlying mechanism. Incidental exposure to fishy smells induced suspicion and undermined cooperation in trust-based economic exchanges in a trust game (Study 1) and a public goods game (Study 2). Socially induced suspicion enhanced the correct labeling of fishy smells, but not other smells (Studies 3a-c), an effect that could be mediated by the accessibility and moderated by the applicability of metaphorically associated concepts (Studies 4-6). Suspicion also heightened detection sensitivity to low concentrations of fishy smells (Study 7). Bidirectionality, mediation, and moderation of metaphorical effects have important theoretical implications for integrating known wisdom from social cognition with new insights into the embodied and metaphorical nature of human thinking. These findings also highlight the need for exploring the cultural variability and origin of metaphorical knowledge. — Lee, S.W.S., & Schwarz, N. (2012). Bidirectionality, mediation, and moderation of metaphorical effects: The embodiment of social suspicion and fishy smells. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103, 737-749. DOI: 10.1037/a0029708
Metaphor in judgment and decision making (Lee & Schwarz, 2014)
Review chapter. — M. J. Landau, M. D. Robinson, & B. P. Meier (Eds.), Metaphorical thought in social life. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association
Embodiment in social psychology (Meier et al., 2012)
Psychologists are increasingly interested in embodiment based on the assumption that thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are grounded in bodily interaction with the environment. We examine how embodiment is used in social psychology, and explore the ways in which embodied approaches enrich traditional theories. Although research in this area is burgeoning, much of it has been more descriptive than explanatory. We provide a critical discussion of the trajectory of embodiment research in social psychology. We contend that future researchers should engage in a phenomenon-based approach, highlight the theoretical boundary conditions and mediators involved, explore novel action-relevant outcome measures, and address the role of individual differences broadly defined. Such research will likely provide a more explanatory account of the role of embodiment in general terms as well as how it expands the knowledge base in social psychology. — Meier, B. P., Schnall, S., Schwarz, N., & Bargh, J. (2012). Embodiment in social psychology. Topics in Cognitive Science, 4, 705-716. DOI: 10.1111/j.1756-8765.2012.01212.x
Participants evaluated a book as more important when it weighed heavily in their hands (due to a concealed weight), but only when they had substantive knowledge about the book. Those who had read a synopsis (Study 1), had read the book (Study 2) and knew details about its plot (Study 3) were influenced by its weight, whereas those unfamiliar with the book were not. This contradicts the widely shared assumption that metaphorically related perceptual inputs serve as heuristic cues that people primarily use in the absence of more diagnostic information. Instead, perceptual inputs may increase the accessibility of metaphorically congruent knowledge or may suggest an initial hypothesis that is only endorsed when supporting information is accessible. — Chandler, J., Reinhard, D., & Schwarz, N. (2012). To judge a book by its weight you need to know its content: Knowledge moderates the use of embodied cues. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48, 948-952
Many superstitious practices entail the belief that good or bad luck can be “washed away”. Consistent with this belief, participants who recalled (experiment 1) or experienced (experiment 2) an episode of bad luck were more willing to take risk after having than after not having washed their hands, whereas participants who recalled or experienced an episode of good luck were less willing to take risk after having than after not having washed their hands. Thus, the psychological effects of physical cleansings extend beyond the domain of moral judgment and are independent of people’s motivation: incidental washing not only removes undesirable traces of the past (such as bad luck) but also desirable ones (such as good luck), which people would rather preserve. — Xu, A. J., Zwick, R., & Schwarz, N. (2012). Washing away your (good or bad) luck: Physical cleansing affects risk-taking behavior. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 141, 26-30; DOI: 10.1037/a0023997
Wiping the slate clean: Psychological consequences of physical cleansing (Lee & Schwarz, 2011)
Cleaning one’s hands removes more than physical contaminants; it also removes residues of the past, from the guilt of past transgressions to doubts about past decisions. We review recent evidence for these and other clean slate effects from the perspectives of neural re-use, grounded cognition, and conceptual metaphor, discuss their implications, and suggest promising future directions. — Lee & Schwarz (in press). Wiping the slate clean: Psychological consequences of physical cleansing. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20, 307-311. – DOI: 10.1177/0963721411422694
Washing away postdecisional dissonance (Lee & Schwarz, 2010)
After choosing between two alternatives, people perceive the chosen alternative as more attractive and the rejected alternative as less attractive. This postdecisional dissonance effect was eliminated by cleaning one’s hands. Going beyond prior purification effects in the moral domain, physical cleansing seems to more generally remove past concerns, resulting in a metaphorical “clean slate” effect. — Lee, S.W.S., & Schwarz, N. (2010). Washing away dissonance. Science, 328 (7 May 2010), 709.
Of dirty hands and dirty mouths (Lee & Schwarz, 2010)
Abstract thoughts about morality are grounded in concrete experiences of physical cleanliness. Noting that natural language use expresses this metaphorical link with reference to the body part involved in an immoral act (e.g., “a dirty mouth”; “dirty hands”), we address the role of motor modality in the embodiment of moral purity. We find that conveying a malevolent lie on voicemail (using the mouth) increases the desire to clean one’s mouth, but not the desire to clean one’s hands; conversely, conveying the same lie on email (using one’s hands) increases the desire to clean one’s hands, but not one’s mouth. Additional findings suggest that conveying a benevolent message may decrease the desire to clean the involved body part. Secondary analyses of earlier studies further support the assumption that the embodiment of moral purity is specific to the motor modality involved in the act. — Lee, S.W.S., & Schwarz, N. (in press). Of dirty hands and dirty mouths: Embodiment of the moral purity metaphor is specific to the motor modality involved in moral transgression. Psychological Science. DOI: 10.1177/0956797610382788
Thinking of objects as alive makes people less willing to replace them (Chandler & Schwarz, 2010)
Anthropomorphic beliefs about objects lead people to treat them as if they were alive. Two experiments test how anthropomorphic thought affects consumers’ product replacement intentions. Consumers induced to think about their car in anthropomorphic terms (i) were less willing to replace it and (ii) gave less weight to its quality when making replacement decisions. Instead, they (iii) attended to (experimentally induced connotations of) the car’s “warmth”, a feature usually considered relevant in the interpersonal domain. While anthropomorphic beliefs about brands are often seen as advantageous by marketers because they increase brand loyalty, similar beliefs about products may be less desirable. –Chandler, J., & Schwarz, N. (2010). Use does not wear ragged the fabric of friendship: Thinking of objects as alive makes people less willing to replace them. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 20, 138-145.
How extending your middle finger affects your perception of others (Chandler & Schwarz, 2009)
Body movements both express and influence how people feel and think. Conceptualizations of this bidirectional influence assume that movement-concept associations can be innate or learned, although evidence for learned associations remained ambiguous. Providing a conservative test of learned movement-concept associations, two studies investigate the influence of culture-specific body movements, which involve an arbitrary relationship between movements and associated concepts. Paralleling the influence of hostility primes, extending the middle finger influenced the interpretation of ambiguously aggressive behaviors as hostile, but did not influence unrelated trait judgments (Study 1). Paralleling the effects of global evaluative primes, upward extension of the thumb resulted in more positive evaluations of the same target along all trait dimensions and higher liking of the target (Study 2). — Chandler, J. & Schwarz, N. (2009). How extending your middle finger affects your perception of others: Learned movements influence concept accessibility. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45, 123-128.