THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX
When Psychologists Take Things Too Literally:
“Angela Leung, a researcher in Singapore, and her colleagues in the United States were studying a phenomenon called “embodied cognition.” The idea is that a brain can’t help being influenced by the body it’s stuck inside. Feelings can run backward: We might be smiling because we’re happy, or we might feel happy because our face is being forced into a smile.
Researchers have extended this idea to figurative language. They’ve found that people who hold a hot cup of coffee judge others as having warmer personalities, compared to when they’re holding an iced coffee. When people hold a heavy clipboard, they judge certain matters as weightier. After tasting a sweet food, people feel more agreeable and helpful—that is, sweeter.
The new study looked at a few different metaphors for creative thinking and problem solving. One experiment involved a 5-foot-by-5-foot box made out of cardboard and PVC piping. Subjects completed a word association test while sitting inside the box, outside of the box, or with the box nowhere in sight. The test presented sets of three words and asked for a fourth word that went with all of them. For example, the word that goes with the set measure, worm, and video is tape. (Subjects also filled out a claustrophobia questionnaire.)
Subjects who sat in the box performed as well on the test as those who never saw the box at all. But subjects who sat outside the box—witnessing themselves acting out the metaphor—did significantly better.”
*Photo by Artist Anton Tang
Waiting for my rocket to come.
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