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Sweet Taste Preferences and Experiences Predict Prosocial Inferences, Personalities, and Behaviors
Abstract
It is striking that prosocial people are considered "sweet" (e.g., "she's a sweetie") because they are unlikely to differentially taste this way. These metaphors aid communication, but theories of conceptual metaphor and embodiment led us to hypothesize that they can be used to derive novel insights about personality processes. Five studies converged on this idea. Study 1 revealed that people believed strangers who liked sweet foods (e.g., candy) were also higher in agreeableness. Studies 2 and 3 showed that individual differences in the preference for sweet foods predicted prosocial personalities, prosocial intentions, and prosocial behaviors. Studies 4 and 5 used experimental designs and showed that momentarily savoring a sweet food (vs. a nonsweet food or no food) increased participants' self-reports of agreeableness and helping behavior. The results reveal that an embodied metaphor approach provides a complementary but unique perspective to traditional trait views of personality.
... Foods often have a predominant taste, though the taste and flavor of foods are complex, and smell appears to contribute significantly more to the flavor of food than gustation (Spence, 2015). Examples of each taste are sweet (candy, ice cream), sour (cranberries, lemons), salty (bacon, beef jerky), bitter (beer, coffee), and umami (umami dashi soup) (Meier et al., 2012;Motoki et al., 2019). Moreover, although some tastes (e.g., sweet) are typically preferred more than others (e.g., bitter), broadly speaking (Velasco et al., 2015), taste preferences are influenced by factors such as personality (e.g., agreeableness, antisocial personality traits) (Meier et al., 2012), food-intrinsic (e.g., color) (Spence et al., 2010), and extrinsic factors (e.g., shelf position, background music, brand names) . ...
... Examples of each taste are sweet (candy, ice cream), sour (cranberries, lemons), salty (bacon, beef jerky), bitter (beer, coffee), and umami (umami dashi soup) (Meier et al., 2012;Motoki et al., 2019). Moreover, although some tastes (e.g., sweet) are typically preferred more than others (e.g., bitter), broadly speaking (Velasco et al., 2015), taste preferences are influenced by factors such as personality (e.g., agreeableness, antisocial personality traits) (Meier et al., 2012), food-intrinsic (e.g., color) (Spence et al., 2010), and extrinsic factors (e.g., shelf position, background music, brand names) . Here, we focus on the relationship between the five basic tastes and brand personality, identifying which tastes are related to which brand personality. ...
... Several findings have linked metaphorical or semantic associations with taste (Meier et al., 2012;O'Mahony, 1983;Velasco et al., 2016;Zhou & Tse, 2020; see also Nelson & Hitchon, 1995 for metaphors and crossmodal metaphoric language). For example, prior research suggests a metaphorical link between sweet taste and sincerity-related attributes such as agreeableness (Fetterman et al., 2017;Meier et al., 2012), gratitude (Schlosser, 2015), love (Chan et al., 2013;Ren et al., 2015), and happiness (Zhou & Tse, 2020). ...
We test how and why food taste and brand personality interactively influence consumer evaluations. Although food branding is a substantial and large market, studies on food taste and brand personality have only been conducted separately. Across four studies (including one real-brand study), the present study aimed to reveal the association between brand personality and tastes and how congruency between these two may influence brand evaluations. Sincerity as a brand personality trait is reliably associated with sweet tastes, regardless of culture, measures of brand personality, and experimental designs. Process evidence suggests that the relationship between sincerity and sweet foods increases perceived congruence, which leads to positive brand attitudes. Moreover, brand sincerity is positively associated with sweet food sales. These findings reveal a novel link between food taste and brand personality and provide practical implications for food branding.
... On the other hand, capsaicin can biologically enhance the body's energy expenditure (for example, energy expenditure is significantly increased 10 kcal over 270 min on average after capsaicin diet) [35,36], resulting in the promotion of negative energy balance and fat oxidation (for example, respiratory quotient is significantly decreased 0.15 over 270 min on average after capsaicin consumption) [35,36], body temperature increase (for example, core body temperature is increased 0.02 • C on average after capsaicin consumption) [35,36], and peripheral and central fatigue reduction. The physiological mechanism of capsaicin is regulating tissue glycogen utilization and increasing plasma adrenaline concentration, enhancing the body's excitement and positive emotion [35][36][37]. ...
... On the other hand, capsaicin can biologically enhance the body's energy expenditure (for example, energy expenditure is significantly increased 10 kcal over 270 min on average after capsaicin diet) [35,36], resulting in the promotion of negative energy balance and fat oxidation (for example, respiratory quotient is significantly decreased 0.15 over 270 min on average after capsaicin consumption) [35,36], body temperature increase (for example, core body temperature is increased 0.02 • C on average after capsaicin consumption) [35,36], and peripheral and central fatigue reduction. The physiological mechanism of capsaicin is regulating tissue glycogen utilization and increasing plasma adrenaline concentration, enhancing the body's excitement and positive emotion [35][36][37]. ...
... On the other hand, capsaicin can biologically enhance the body's energy expenditure (for example, energy expenditure is significantly increased 10 kcal over 270 min on average after capsaicin diet) [35,36], resulting in the promotion of negative energy balance and fat oxidation (for example, respiratory quotient is significantly decreased 0.15 over 270 min on average after capsaicin consumption) [35,36], body temperature increase (for example, core body temperature is increased 0.02 • C on average after capsaicin consumption) [35,36], and peripheral and central fatigue reduction. The physiological mechanism of capsaicin is regulating tissue glycogen utilization and increasing plasma adrenaline concentration, enhancing the body's excitement and positive emotion [35][36][37]. ...
This article studied whether food culture plays an important role in affecting the firm-level sustainable development. We linked firm-level sustainable total factor productivity to spicy-taste related food culture in China and found that firms in regions in which spicy culture plays a more prominent role showed higher sustainable productivity. Tests using the regional sunshine as an instrument suggested a causal interpretation. Moreover, firms more exposed to spicy culture showed more frequent equity incentive behavior, higher equity incentive intensity, and higher proportion of female executives, which suggests that the more proactive management behavior can be led by regional spicy culture. We also found that, compared with small-size firms, non-state-owned firms, and non-export firms, regional spicy culture has a stronger impact on large firms, state-owned firms, and export firms. Our results reveal the impact of food culture on the firm-level sustainable development.
... A more formal presentation of this theory is depicted in Fig. 21.2. As shown there, we begin with the metaphorically strong relationship between sweetness and prosociality (bottom line of each triad), as manifest in phrases like a "sweet person" or a "sweet gesture" (Meier et al., 2012). To the extent that a person likes sweet foods quite a bit, balance dynamics should favor greater prosociality (top panel). ...
... Consistent with such theorizing, Meier et al. (2012) found a positive relationship between the personality trait of agreeableness, which is strongly linked to prosociality (Jensen-Campbell et al., 2010), and preferences for sweet food. That is, agreeable people liked sweet foods to a greater extent than disagreeable people did. ...
... That is, agreeable people liked sweet foods to a greater extent than disagreeable people did. Moreover, sweet food preferences predict prosocial behaviors, both correlationally and experimentally (Meier et al., 2012). Relatedly, Fetterman et al. (2017) found that people were nicer to others on days that they consumed sweet foods, and the resulting links could not be explained in terms of mood states or self-control processes. ...
Most theories of embodiment emphasize processes that are thought to be normative in nature. However, a consideration of the relevant processes (e.g., perception, awareness of afferent inputs, simulation abilities, metaphor usage) suggests that substantial individual differences could constitute the rule rather than the exception. The present chapter focuses on such sources of variability and does so in relation to four themes or lines of enquiry—how bodily factors shape personality, whether embodiment processes link personality to perception, how normative tendencies toward metaphoric thinking could give rise to variance across individuals, and how embodiment itself could be an individual difference. Although the reviewed literatures tend to be somewhat isolated from each other, juxtaposing them highlights many points of convergence. Ideas about embodiment could therefore contribute to new, process-oriented views of personality. In addition, individual differences can be leveraged to show that embodied representational processes matter with respect to everyday functioning.
... Personality trait psychologists sugested a greater preference for sweet tastes was found in individuals with greater prosocial personality traits (Meier et al., 2012), Agreeableness (Meier et al., 2012), Neuroticism (Keller & Seigrist, 2015), and lower levels Openness (Saliba et al., 2009). Similarly, it has been found that highly disinhibited groups have a greater preference for sweet foods (Haynes, Lee & Yeomans, 2003), in particular sweet chocolate (Lattimore & Maxwell, 2004). ...
... Personality trait psychologists sugested a greater preference for sweet tastes was found in individuals with greater prosocial personality traits (Meier et al., 2012), Agreeableness (Meier et al., 2012), Neuroticism (Keller & Seigrist, 2015), and lower levels Openness (Saliba et al., 2009). Similarly, it has been found that highly disinhibited groups have a greater preference for sweet foods (Haynes, Lee & Yeomans, 2003), in particular sweet chocolate (Lattimore & Maxwell, 2004). ...
... The above findings are consistent with the notion that individuals described as 'bitter' or 'sour' possess some negative personality trait (Meier et al., 2012); quite literally, they elicit the same negative response in individuals around them that an adverse or bitter taste would. Very few studies have expolored the possible relationship between dark side personality traits and taste preferences. ...
This study investigated the association between a variety of taste preferences and the Dark Triad personality traits. We noted over twenty studies that linked personality to taste/beverage preference and experience. In this study just under 200 participants completed a personality and food preference questionnaire. Results demonstrated that dark side traits accounted for around ten percent of the variance in tastes, including bitter and sweet as well as alcohol and coffee strength preferences. For a number of the taste preference measures sensation seeking and harm aversive personality traits were particularly influential in determining taste preferences. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.
... Exposing participants with sweet taste led them to rate themselves more agreeable and boosted their motive to help others (e.g. Meier et al., 2012a). In contrast, bitter taste could induce emotional and moral disgust (e.g. ...
... Whilst participants tended to judge a hypothetical person to be more agreeable based on his/her preference for sweet food, agreeable people also showed a higher preference for sweet food (e.g. Meier et al., 2012a). Reading moral transgression (or morally virtue) events induced participants to rate bland water with more disgusting (or delicious) taste, in contrast to reading events that were irrelevant to morality (e.g. ...
... For example, the sweet taste could increase peoples' motivation to help others (e.g. Meier et al., 2012a). In contrast, bitter taste could cause emotional and moral disgust (e.g. ...
According to the Conceptual Metaphor Theory, abstract concepts can be understood in terms of concrete concepts, but not vice versa, suggesting the unidirectionality of metaphoric association. In the current four experiments (valid N = 541), we examined the directionality of taste-emotion metaphoric association. To test the taste-to-emotion metaphoric association, we had participants rate on pleasantness after consuming a chocolate or rate their change in emotion using different scales before and after consuming a chocolate. To examine the emotion-to-taste metaphoric association, we induced participants’ emotion via watching film clips or retrieving autobiographical memory and asked them to rate the sweetness and bitterness after consuming a chocolate. With a more optimal design, results showed that sweet chocolates increased positive emotion and reduced negative emotion, whereas bitter chocolates increased negative emotion and reduced positive emotion. In contrast, induced emotion did not influence participants’ perception of chocolate taste. Other possible mechanisms are discussed.
... Recent research also reported relationships of taste experience with prosocial behavior. In a series of experiments Meier et al. found evidence for the assumption that sweet taste may work as a source domain for prosocial functioning [21]. For example, in one of their experiments, the authors invited students to participate in a "research study on taste". ...
... These mindsets could then form the links between sweetness and prosocial behavior. Given that breast/formula milk tastes sweet, it has been suggested that the relationship between helping behavior and sweet taste (and perhaps also with love) may be based on feeding behaviors during infancy [1,21]. Over time, this experience may have built a scaffold of our thinking. ...
... Research also reported relationships between personality traits and sweetness, suggesting that individuals who prefer sweet food are more prosocial and agreeable. Meier et al. reported that participants with the personality of liking sweet-tasting foods exhibited not only prosocial intentions, but also concrete helping behavior [21]. Thus, individuals having a "sweet tooth" might have more prosocial personality traits. ...
This review summarizes current studies on the psychological effects of sweet taste and its role in overweight and obesity. Recent psychological studies demonstrate intriguing relationships between the experience of sweet taste and social perceptions and behavior. For example, studies show that experiencing sweet taste affects “helping behavior” or interest in initiating a romantic relationship. Furthermore, given that the role of sweet taste in obesity has been suggested, we reviewed studies on the relationship between sweet taste preference and eating behavior, thereby examining the role of sweet taste (and the preference for it) in the global rise of overweight and obesity in adults and children. Finally, we provide an outlook on future research perspectives on the psychological effects of sweet taste, and suggest some fundamental issues that future research should address to help provide a comprehensive understanding of how sweet taste and sweet taste preference affect our thinking and eating behaviors.
... The link between basic tastes and personality is, of course, also firmly embedded in the English language in phrases such as 'they are such a sweet person' (Meier et al., 2012), 2 'he is so bitter', or 'she was very sharp with me'. 3 Just think about it, you would never describe someone as having a 'grapefruit' or 'chocolate' personality, now, would you? 4 But if you were to describe them as sweet, then you would presumably be taken to mean that they are pleasant, kind, and gentle towards others. Intriguingly, tasting something sweet has also been shown to influence people's romantic perceptions too (see Ren et al., 2015). ...
... 9 And, once again, a genetic basis for, or contribution to, sweet-liking has now been identified, with a locus for this particular trait on chromosome 16 (see Keskitalo et al., 2007). Potentially relevant here, research by Meier et al. (2012) has shown that people with a so-called 'sweet' personality are more likely to like sweet-tasting foods. The latter researchers conducted a couple of experiments showing that individual differences in the preference for sweet foods predicted prosocial personalities, intentions, and behaviours. ...
... The relationship between personality and taste operates bidirectionally: That is, while certain emotional states can affect our taste perception, experiencing particular tastes can also make us more likely to behave in certain predictable ways too (Meier et al., 2012). Indeed, the very act of eating has been shown to affect our mood as well as the decisions that we make. ...
A number of personality characteristics have been linked to various aspects of taste (gustation), trigeminal, and olfactory perception. In particular, personality traits have been linked to olfactory sensory thresholds and olfactory identification abilities, as well as to the sensory-discriminative aspects of taste/flavour perception. To date, much of the research in this area has focused on Sensation Seeking (including Experience Seeking, and Openness to Novel Experiences), with the latter being linked to a preference for spicy, and possibly also crunchy, sour, and bitter foods/drinks. Novelty-seeking has also been linked to a preference for salty foods, while anxious individuals appear to enjoy a much narrower range of foods. A bidirectional link has also been documented between taste and mood. Certain of the personality-based differences in taste/flavour perception and food behaviour have been linked to differences in circulating levels of neurotransmitters and hormones in both normal and clinical populations. Taken together, therefore, the evidence that has been published to date supports a number of intriguing connections between personality traits and taste perception/food behaviour.
... It is important to note that many types of tastes may be acquired based on one's socioeconomic status (e.g., wine, craft beers, leafy greens, nonlocal foods), but large genetic studies have revealed that coffee, tea, and alcohol consumption habits are related to the genetic variant associated with bitter taste (Ong et al., 2018). This helps demonstrate that even with this ability to adapt our bitter taste preferences, individual variation persists (Meier et al., 2012;Ong et al., 2018;Sagioglou & Greitemeyer, 2016). Adjusting one's food preferences for nutritional or social reasons also could be adaptive and connected to other types of behaviors (Sagioglou & Greitemeyer, 2016). ...
... Those who consumed the bitter beverages were more likely to provide hostile responses and ratings than the control group. Combining this finding with the extant research on the connection between prosocial behavior and enjoying sweet-tasting foods (Meier et al., 2012), Sagioglou and Greitemeyer (2016) posited that consistent exposure to bitter foods may create a "chronic" trait of personality hostility. Using two samples of American adults, they found that self-rated assessment of bitter foods corresponded with the antisocial indices of Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy, even when controlling for salty, sweet, and sour taste preferences. ...
... Individual differences in bitter taste preferences also have been linked to emotions (Macht & Mueller, 2007), but most links to personality have involved tasting sweet substances and prosocial behaviors (Meier et al., 2012). Bitter taste exposure is associated with detecting emotions in faces (Schienle et al., 2017) and influencing one's personal mood (Dubovski et al., 2017), suggesting that these taste preferences continue to moderate social behaviors and perceptions of others. ...
A bstract
Risk is endemic to the political arena and influences citizen engagement. We explore this connection by suggesting that risk-taking may be biologically instantiated in sensory systems. With specific attention to gender and gender identity, we investigate the connections between self-reported bitter taste reception, risk tolerance, and both of their associations with political participation. In three U.S. samples collected in 2019 and 2020, participants were asked to rate their preferences from lists of foods as well as whether they detected the taste of the substance N-Propylthiouracil (PROP) and, if so, the strength of the taste. In this registered report, we find that self-reported bitter taste preference, but not PROP detection, is positively associated with higher levels of risk tolerance as well as political participation. The pattern with gender and gender identity is mixed across our samples, but interestingly, we find that sex-atypical gender identity positively predicts political participation.
... Despite the common use of taste words to express emotion in daily language, relatively few studies have investigated their metaphoric association. Most of those focused on sweet and bitter tastes as source concepts (e.g., Eskine et al., 2011;Meier et al., 2012;Hellmann et al., 2013;Ren et al., 2015). Relative to the control condition (e.g., salty taste induced by consuming potato chips), sweet taste, as induced by having participants consume cookies, led them to evaluate a hypothetical relationship to be more favorable and show more interest to begin a relationship with a potential partner (e.g., Ren et al., 2015). ...
... After tasting sweet, compared with bitter beverage, participants exhibited a more lenient tendency toward people who take revenge on others (e.g., Hellmann et al., 2013). Exposing participants with sweet taste led them to infer themselves to be more agreeable and boosted their motive to help others (e.g., Meier et al., 2012), but inducing participants with bitter taste increased their disgust ratings toward moral transgression (e.g., Eskine et al., 2011). Survival motivation could be embodied in bitter taste: Participants performed better for survival-related words in lexical decision task or memory task after drinking bitter lotus root or chewing bitter lotus root relative to control condition (e.g., drinking plain water) (e.g., Chen and Chang, 2012). ...
... There was also evidence for the opposite direction of the taste-emotion metaphoric association. Feeling gratitude, rather than pride, as triggered by reading description of kind actions, led participants to show higher preference for consuming sweet food (e.g., Meier et al., 2012;Schlosser, 2015). While participants tended to judge a hypothetical person to be more agreeable based on his/her preference for sweet food, agreeable people also showed a higher preference for sweet food (Meier et al., 2012). ...
According to the Conceptual Metaphor Theory, abstract concepts can be metaphorically associated with more concrete, physically embodied concepts, such as gustatory experience. Studies on taste–emotion metaphoric association reported that people associate love with sweet, jealousy with sour and bitter, and sadness with bitter. However, few studies have systematically examined the metaphoric association between taste and words referred to emotion (e.g., “sad”) or emotion-laden concepts (e.g., “funeral”). In the current four studies (total N = 357), we examined this metaphoric association by having participants come up with a taste word when reading an emotion and emotion-laden word (Study 1—explicit association of taste words-to-emotion/emotion-laden words), come up with an emotion word when reading taste words (Study 2—explicit association of emotion words-to-taste words), rate the association between taste words and basic or non-basic emotion words (Study 3), and rate the association between taste words and a more expanded pool of emotion/emotion-laden words (Study 4). Results showed that sweet was mostly associated with positive emotion and emotion-laden words, whereas bitter, followed by sour and spicy, was mostly associated with negative emotion and emotion-laden words. The bidirectionality of taste–emotion metaphoric association was supported by our dataset. The implications of these findings on the Conceptual Metaphor Theory and embodied cognition are discussed.
... Sweetness metaphors are often used when characterizing a friendly person or when giving nicknames to romantic partners. Meier et al. demonstrated that sweet taste preferences are stronger in participants with high scores in the personality trait agreeableness (Meier, Moeller, Riemer-Peltz, & Robinson, 2012). Moreover, experiencing sweet taste seems to increase the likeliness to help others. ...
... reactions in the sweet group (sweet: 56%, salty: 31%, χ 2 (1) = 4.50, p = 0.02; Cramer's V = 0.22). Hence, the results demonstrate that participants are more helpful when being primed with sweet taste experiences, thereby confirming the findings of Meier et al. (2012) and Fetterman et al. (2016). ...
... Recent studies suggest that this part of the sweetness metaphor may also point to a conceptual metaphor by demonstrating that it is linked to prosocial intentions and behavior. Meier et al. (2012) found that the experience of sweet taste made participants more helpful in their intentions and behavior. Fetterman et al. (2016) examined individual differences in metaphor usage over an extended period of time and showed that on days participants consumed more sweet foods, they were more prosocial than on other days. ...
Taste-related terms such as bitter or sweet are often used to describe people’s behavior. For example, sweetness metaphors are often used when giving nicknames for romantic partners or when characterizing a friendly person. Previous studies have suggested that sweet taste may be linked to prosocial behavior. Examining a total of 517 participants, we here demonstrate that experiencing sweet taste also seems to have an impact on subsequent attractiveness ratings of faces. Participants were asked to rate pictures of young people and of art. Before this task, they were primed either with sweet candies or with salty snacks. Results revealed that sweet taste increased subsequent attractiveness ratings of faces. In addition, results confirmed earlier findings that sweet taste affected prosocial behavior. Our results suggest that sweetness seems to be more than a mere linguistic metaphor; it influences prosocial behavior as well as attractiveness ratings of faces. We discuss the results with recent findings of physical-to-psychological links to certain figures in speech.
... On the other hand, conscientiousness is negatively correlated with sweet and savory food. People who score high in conscientiousness may adopt regulatory restrained eating, consume more fruits and vegetables, and consume less sweet and savory food, meat, and sweetened drinks (Meier et al., 2012). Meier et al. (2012) reported that sweet taste preferences were positively linked to prosocial personality characteristics. ...
... People who score high in conscientiousness may adopt regulatory restrained eating, consume more fruits and vegetables, and consume less sweet and savory food, meat, and sweetened drinks (Meier et al., 2012). Meier et al. (2012) reported that sweet taste preferences were positively linked to prosocial personality characteristics. Individual preference for sweet foods predicted prosocial personalities, prosocial intentions, and prosocial behaviors. ...
... As shown, people indicated strangers that liked sweet foods, such as candy, as having higher scores on agreeableness. Participants' self-reports of agreeableness and helping behavior increased after eating sweet food, compared to eating a non-sweet food (Meier et al., 2012). ...
Background. Understanding individual food preferences is critical for creating tailored strategies that promote healthy individual eating behaviors. Individual sensory liking appears to be an essential determinant of dietary intake. Taste preferences influence satisfaction and satiety, and may consequently influence weight status and psychological adjustment. The purpose of this study was to identify the association between taste preferences (sweet, salty, sweet & fatty, salty & fatty) and personality features.
Methods. The Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-III (MCMI-III) was used for the assessment of personality traits and PrefQuest (PQ) was used for measuring recalled food preferences. A total of 137 participants were included in the study. The relationship between compulsive and antisocial features and taste preferences was assessed by hierarchical multiple linear regression, while controlling for age, gender, BMI, marital status, and educational level.
Results. The antisocial personality traits were a negative explanatory variable for sweet & fatty taste preference, R2 = .15, t (132) = −2.40, p = .018, 95% [−.57, −.06] and salty & fatty taste preference, R2 = .16, t (133) = −2.38, p = .019, 95% [−.07, −.01], while controlling for anthropological factors. In addition, men showed a higher preference than women for sweet & fatty food, such as chocolate or desserts, rsp = .19, p = .021, and for the salty & fatty food, rsp = .30, p < .001. BMI was not found to moderate the relationship between personality and taste preference. No significant association was found between compulsive personality traits and food preference, as assessed by sensory liking.
Conclusions. The findings can bring a much better understanding of the relationship between the compulsive or antisocial personality and taste preferences. In addition, it may help build psychotherapeutic and nutritional strategies that promote healthy eating behaviors, tailored to a particular personality style.
... Furthermore, effects of sweet taste on social intentions and behavior have been reported (e.g. 17 ). The present study replicates these findings for the first time in a neuroimaging experiment. ...
... 72 ), one can speculate that for this kind of studies it may be crucial to establish a situation, where individuals are forced to decide from the gut. This seems to happen when participants had to decide immediately because someone surprisingly asks for help 17 , but also when lying inside the scanner and having only 13 s to decide between two options. Can our results on social behavior be explained by other variables than taste? ...
Taste may be the first sense that emerged in evolution. Taste is also a very important sense since it signals potential beneficial or dangerous effects of foods. Given this fundamental role of taste in our lives, it is not surprising that taste also affects our psychological perception and thinking. For example, previous research demonstrated remarkable psychological effects of sweet taste experiences, suggesting that sweetness may be a source domain for prosocial functioning. Recent research reports that briefly experiencing sweet taste made participants more helpful in their intentions and behavior. The current study aims to test this hypothesis and to examine the neural underpinnings of this effect by using an fMRI approach. Participants were asked to taste sweet, salty, and neutral taste while lying in the fMRI scanner. Subsequently their prosocial behavior was tested by playing the dictator game, a measure of prosocial behavior. Results showed that sweet taste was associated with an increase in prosocial behavior compared with previously experiencing salty taste but did not affect control stimuli ratings. FMRI results revealed a modulation of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex associated with this sweetness effect. This brain area is known to play a central role for monitoring conflicts and decisions and has been directly linked to selfish and prosocial economic decisions. The results demonstrate that sweet taste has complex psychological effects including positive and socially desirable outcomes. We discuss the results with other studies on psychological sweetness effects and suggest possible implications of these findings.
... One common alternative is using selfreport questionnaires, generally based on hedonic ratings of food items presented verbally (Kaminski et al., 2000) or visually (Jilani et al., 2019). For instance, Meier et al. (2012), asked participants to rate their liking of foods belonging to five taste/flavor groups, using a six-point scale ranging from dislike strongly to like strongly. In the present study, we asked participants to rate their overall liking of each food group ("please indicate how much you enjoy the following tastes"), using two examples for each taste group, based on the list of food items used in Meier et al. (2012) study. ...
... For instance, Meier et al. (2012), asked participants to rate their liking of foods belonging to five taste/flavor groups, using a six-point scale ranging from dislike strongly to like strongly. In the present study, we asked participants to rate their overall liking of each food group ("please indicate how much you enjoy the following tastes"), using two examples for each taste group, based on the list of food items used in Meier et al. (2012) study. To avoid ambiguity, the same examples were provided here and in the basic taste association task. ...
Music is a ubiquitous stimulus known to influence human affect, cognition, and behavior. In the context of eating behavior, music has been associated with food choice, intake and, more recently, taste perception. In the latter case, the literature has reported consistent patterns of association between auditory and gustatory attributes, suggesting that individuals reliably recognize taste attributes in musical stimuli. This study presents subjective norms for a new set of 100 instrumental music stimuli, including basic taste correspondences (sweetness, bitterness, saltiness, sourness), emotions (joy, anger, sadness, fear, surprise), familiarity, valence, and arousal. This stimulus set was evaluated by 329 individuals (83.3% women; Mage = 28.12, SD = 12.14), online (n = 246) and in the lab (n = 83). Each participant evaluated a random subsample of 25 soundtracks and responded to self-report measures of mood and taste preferences, as well as the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index (Gold-MSI). Each soundtrack was evaluated by 68 to 97 participants (Mdn = 83), and descriptive results (means, standard deviations, and confidence intervals) are available as supplemental material at osf.io/2cqa5. Significant correlations between taste correspondences and emotional/affective dimensions were observed (e.g., between sweetness ratings and pleasant emotions). Sex, age, musical sophistication, and basic taste preferences presented few, small to medium associations with the evaluations of the stimuli. Overall, these results suggest that the new Taste & Affect Music Database is a relevant resource for research and intervention with musical stimuli in the context of crossmodal taste perception and other affective, cognitive, and behavioral domains.
... However, as in the previous example of experiments, bodily states sometimes elicit metaphor-related concepts in sensory processing [4]. For example, chocolate eaters may assess themselves and others to be more agreeable [5], and a heavier book may be deemed to be more important than a lighter one [6]. These examples demonstrate that experiences of sensing sweetness and heaviness activate the concepts of affability and importance, which unconsciously influence one's judgments and choices. ...
... The mere act of touching sandpaper's coarse texture may make people perceive their relationships with others to be rougher (i.e., difficult and hostile) [28]. Some studies anticipate that sweettasting experiences will make others feel more agreeable [5] and that those who enjoy a spicy taste will be more temperamental than those who enjoy sweet tastes [29]. ...
Sensory experiences affect individuals’ judgment and behavior through the metaphors that experiences carry. The literature has demonstrated that the perception of warmth activates concepts related to positive meaning and metaphors, such as consideration and gentleness, which increase individuals’ tendency to help or relate to others. This study hypothesized that warm olfactory stimuli influence intention toward prosocial behavior by increasing the need for social connectedness (NSC). The first experiment (n = 123) demonstrated that the actual warm scent increased participants’ intentions for prosocial behavior and that the effect of the actual warm scent was mediated by NSC. Using Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk), a second experiment (n = 995) was conducted the showed that warm scent simulated via visual stimuli (i.e., a multimodal approach) led to prosocial behavior intention as well. The results of the study provide academic and managerial insights into how to improve prosocial behavior intention, which is essential for the sustainable development of societies.
... No broad range of different ethics, from varied distinctness of moral and immoral stimuli, has been tested. For instance, sweet taste has been shown to associate positive and secure evaluations (Ding et al., 2016) or increase participants' self-reports of agreeableness and helping behavior (Meier et al., 2012). Physical disgust, associated with bitter tastes, has been found to relate to emotional and moral disgust and to enhance the hostility of people (Chapman et al., 2009;Eskine et al., 2011;Ren et al., 2014;Sagioglou & Greitemeyer, 2014). ...
... Furthermore, it has been observed that bitter taste evokes aggressive affect or aggressive behavioral intention in humans (Sagioglou & Greitemeyer, 2014). Meier et al. (2012) have reported that sweet taste affected prosocial functions, and participants showed more concern about personality and helping behaviors in sweet conditions than in other gustatory conditions. Ren et al. (2014) have shown that sweet taste positively impacted romantic relationships and increased participants' interest to start such a relationship. ...
A growing body of evidence suggests that taste is not only an essential physical experience, but also an embodied cue of evaluation. The embodied gustatory experiences may affect ethical evaluation. However, it remains unclear how different forms of taste, such as the word sweet, the sweet food image and the actual sweet taste, are associated with ethical evaluation. Does the visual food taste have a priming effect on the moral-terms evaluation? Does the actual gustatory taste influence the ethical processing similarly to the taste images? All the questions will be answered by the three experiments introduced in this paper. Experiment 1 was to test the implicit association between taste words and ethical words. Experiments 2 and 3 were to test the prime-effect of the food image and the actual gustatory perception on ethical evaluation. The results supported our hypothesis that sweet taste words were strongly associated with moral words and bitter taste words with immoral words. Regarding the priming effect, food images and actual gustatory taste lead to different modifications of ethical evaluation. With food image priming, the bitter taste pictures up-regulated the ethical ratings, i.e., the moral phrases were rated more positive, and the immoral phrases were rated less negative, compared with sweet taste images. On the other hand, with actual taste priming, the sweet stimulation could indeed up-regulate the ethical ratings compared with the bitter stimulation. Such a seemingly conflicting influence of different forms of taste on moral evaluation is further considered.
... On the other hand, past experimental studies have shown that people's preferences could predict and are associated with their behaviors. For example, risk preferences could significantly predict certain health-related behaviors (Anderson & Mellor, 2008); individuals expressing greater liking for sweet food exhibited more prosocial intentions and behaviors (Meier et al., 2012). In sum, to date insufficient research has been carried out to understand adolescents' activity preferences and engagement in specific types. ...
... Gender ( (Muthen & Muthen, 1998-2012 with the robust maximum likelihood estimator. With the activity preferences data, we examined models with one to five latent classes, during which a large number of starting values were used to search the true highest log likelihood value (Sun et al., 2019). ...
The purpose of this study was to explore the patterns of Chinese adolescents’ activity preferences as well as the predictors and associations with the actual time spent on physical and sedentary activities. With the data set derived from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS), latent class analysis (LCA) was employed to analyze data of 501 adolescents in the age range of 12 to 17 years old. The results showed that three distinct groups of activity preferences were identified: like all (21.6%, n = 108), like media more than sports (52.9%, n = 265), and like none (25.5%, n = 128). Major predictors for activity preferences included residence, sleeping hours, dietary knowledge, and life attitudes. The results revealed that adolescents in different patterns had statistically significant differences in the weekly participating time on physical activities (e.g. martial arts, track and field/running/swimming, walking, soccer/basketball/tennis, badminton/volleyball, and other/ping pong/Tai Chi) as well as sedentary activities (e.g. watching TV, watching movies and videos online, surfing internet, chatting online, playing computer/smartphone games, doing homework, playing toy cars/puppets/board games, engaging in extracurricular reading/writing/drawing) among the three latent classes. Implications and future research directions are discussed.
... Troisi and Gabriel (2011) indicated comfort foods reduced people's belongingness threat whose attachment styles were secure. Meier, Moeller, Riemer-Peltz, and Robinson (2012) pointed out people preferred to believe strangers were higher in agreeableness if these strangers liked sweet. If participants liked sweet food, they would have more prosocial personalities, prosocial intentions, and prosocial behaviors. ...
... Some researchers preferred to use metaphor to interpret the relationships between bodily states and social metaphor because metaphor links in language could easily be found to describe these relationships. For example, good is up/bad is down, powerful is up/ powerless is down, past is backward (or left)/future is forward (or right), and interpersonal intimacy is spatial distance (IJzerman & Semin, 2009;Landau et al., 2010;Meier, Moeller et al., 2012;Weger & Pratt, 2008). However, other findings in social interaction could not find metaphorical descriptions in language. ...
... As noted, language use suggests that bitter tastes are associated with overcoming hardship for Chinese speakers, but with experiencing unfair treatment for English speakers. Similarly, describing a person as "sweet" conveys to English speakers that the person is agreeable, kind (Meier, Moeller, Riemer-Peltz, & Robinson, 2012), and benevolent (Gray, 2012), and tasting something sweet increases English speakers' self-reported agreeableness and actual helping behavior (Meier et al., 2012). In contrast, "sweetness" refers to inauthenticity and dishonesty for Hebrew speakers (Katriel, 1986) and tasting something sweet decreases Jewish-Israeli participants' perceptions of others' authenticity (Gilead, Gal, Polak, & Cholow, 2015). ...
... As noted, language use suggests that bitter tastes are associated with overcoming hardship for Chinese speakers, but with experiencing unfair treatment for English speakers. Similarly, describing a person as "sweet" conveys to English speakers that the person is agreeable, kind (Meier, Moeller, Riemer-Peltz, & Robinson, 2012), and benevolent (Gray, 2012), and tasting something sweet increases English speakers' self-reported agreeableness and actual helping behavior (Meier et al., 2012). In contrast, "sweetness" refers to inauthenticity and dishonesty for Hebrew speakers (Katriel, 1986) and tasting something sweet decreases Jewish-Israeli participants' perceptions of others' authenticity (Gilead, Gal, Polak, & Cholow, 2015). ...
THIS PAPER HAS BEEN RETRACTED AT THE AUTHORS' REQUEST. THE RETRACTION NOTICE:
"A user of the open science data sets accompanying the article noticed confounds between culture condition or treatment condition and sex of participants in studies 3, 4, and 5. What caused these
confounds could not be fully reconstructed. The first and second authors, who handled data collection, assume that the confounds resulted from a confluence of two decisions. First, students were
recruited through campus advertisements and encouraged to bring friends, which resulted in the arrival of mostly same-sex groups. Second, in deviation from standard protocol, the administration of
the taste tests was simplified in these studies by administering the same treatment to all participants who arrived together. The confounds were missed in data analyses conducted by the first author. The confounds render the data nondiagnostic for the conclusions the article offered. Hence, the authors asked for a retraction of the article." -------
STUDIES 1 AND 2 DID NOT SUFFER FROM THIS PROBLEM BUT MERELY REPORT A CULTURAL DIFFERENCE WITHOUT EXPLANATION OF THE UNDERLYING PROCESS. THE ORIGINAL ABSTRACT READ:
In English, unfair treatment and social injustice are often described as “bitter” experiences, whereas “eating bitterness” refers to endurance in the face of hardship in Chinese. This suggests that bitter taste may ground experiences of adversity in both cultures, but in culture-specific forms. We tested this possibility by assessing Canadian and Chinese participants’ responses to fairness and achievement scenarios after incidental exposure to bitter or neutral tastes. Tasting something bitter increased self-reported motivation and intention to invest effort for Chinese participants, but not Anglo-Canadian participants (Studies 1, 4, 5). Tasting something bitter decreased perceived fairness for Anglo-Canadian participants (Studies 1–3) but not Chinese participants living in China (Study 2). The fairness judgments of Chinese participants living in Canada shed light on adaptation to the host culture: Bitter taste decreased these participants’ fairness judgments after living in Canada for 4 years or more (Study 4), provided they were tested in English (Studies 3–4), but exerted no influence when they were tested in Chinese (Study 4). The observed cultural differences are compatible with a relatively higher emphasis on self-improvement in China versus self-enhancement in Canada. Supporting this conjecture, the fairness judgments of Chinese students in Canada followed the Anglo-Canadian pattern when primed with a self-enhancement motive and the effort judgments of Anglo-Canadian students followed the Chinese pattern when primed with a self-improvement motive (Study 5). This suggest that a universal aversive experience (bitter taste) grounds thought about adversity in ways compatible with cultural orientations and reflected in culture-specific metaphors.
... At the same time, the relationship between the emotional state of the consumer and taste should be considered bidirectional, with the ingestion of foods perceived as tasty generating a good mood in the consumer, while a good mood can lead to a more favourable perception of taste, increasing the predictability of our food buying behaviour (Meier et al., 2012). ...
Food consumption behaviour has played and will continue to play a fundamental role in the lives of consumers, since it is the source of satisfaction of one of the primary needs of consumers, namely the need for food. On the other hand, food consumption behaviour can also be seen as a hedonic experience, the result of the action of extremely heterogeneous and dynamic factors, with food consumption being influenced by economic, social, and cultural variables as well as personal, psychological, and biological factors which are related to the individual. The study of food consumption behaviour can be seen both as a challenge, given that understanding this behaviour requires a multidisciplinary analysis, the terms used referring to marketing, psychology, sociology, nutrition and food science, and as a necessity, given the impact on the structure and dynamics of the market, which in turn leads to the need for government decisions in the direction of ethics and social responsibility, and a global and at the same time sustainable development of the market. In this context, this paper aims to analyse the main factors influencing food consumption behaviour and how they are reflected in consumption decisions. The analysis is supported by an examination of these issues based on secondary data sources.
... Conversely, results from agreeableness appear to be less consistent with previous knowledge, as prosocial personalities usually tend to be associated with healthier food choices (see for a review Esposito et al., 2021). Nevertheless, such personality traits also co-occurred with high sweet (Meier et al., 2012) and low bitter (Sagioglou & Greitemeyer, 2016) taste preferences, which are proxies for the observed dietary patterns. Thus, as the role of agreeableness on eating habits remains controversial and inconsistent across studies (Pfeiler & Egloff, 2020), further studies are motivated to conclusively elucidate its influence on diet. ...
Oral microbiota-host interactions are gaining recognition as potential factors contributing to interindividual variations in taste perception. However, whether such possible links imply specific bacterial co-occurrence networks remains unknown. To address this issue, we used 16s rRNA gene sequencing to profile the salivary microbiota of 100 healthy individuals (52 % women; 18-30 y/o), who provided hedonic and psychophysical responses to 5 liquid and 5 solid commercially-available foods, each chosen to elicit a target sensation (sweet, sour, bitter, salty, pungent). The same cohort also completed several psychometric measures and a 4-day food diary. Unsupervised data-driven clustering of genus-level Aitchison distances supported the existence of two salivary microbial profiles (CL-1, CL-2). While CL-1 (n = 57; 49.1 % women) exhibited higher α-diversity metrics and was enriched in microbial genera assigned to the class Clostridia (e.g., Lachnospiraceae_[G-3]), CL-2 (n = 43; 55.8 % women) harbored greater amounts of taxa with potential cariogenic effects (e.g., genus Lactobacillus) and significantly lower abundances of inferred MetaCyc pathways related to the metabolic fate of acetate. Intriguingly, CL-2 showed enhanced responsiveness to warning oral sensations (bitter, sour, astringent) and a higher propensity to crave sweet foods or engage in prosocial behaviors. Further, the same cluster reported habitually consuming more simple carbohydrates and fewer beneficial nutrients (vegetable proteins, monounsaturated fatty acids). In summary, while the mediating role of participants' baseline diet on findings can not be definitively excluded, this work provides evidence suggesting that microbe-microbe and microbe-taste interactions may exert an influence on dietary habits and motivates further research to uncover a potential “core” taste-related salivary microbiota.
... The embodied cognition theory was extended vastly to sensory marketing research, which suggests that integration of sensory inputs constitutes consumer experience and influences their behaviors (Krishna & Schwarz, 2014;Wen & Leung, 2021). As such, individuals' five sensestouch (Williams & Bargh, 2008;Zhong & Liljenquist, 2006), taste (Dann & Jacobsen, 2003;Meier et al., 2012), smell (Liljenquist et al., 2010), hearing (Wilson et al., 2019) and sight (Raghubir & Krishna, 1999), have all been examined by researchers. Among these five senses, sight was the dominant sense, being most memorable and recognizable (Agapito, 2020;Krishna, 2012) and the most important factor for future research (Sun & Lv, 2021). ...
Dark-light spectrum was used to express the depth of dark experience in dark tourism. Based on embodied cognition theory, this paper examined the visual expression of tourists' dark tourism experience. Five consecutive studies were conducted including analysis of tourists' photos in online reviews of 53 dark tourism destinations worldwide, charcoal pencil painting tasks of selected dark tourism sites in lab experiments, and field experiment. Results showed that tourists with darker experience tend to use deeper visual darkness to express their feelings, in the forms of painting and photographs, even when the cognitive process (i.e., expression in the form of words) is omitted. This psychological mechanism explains the scientific principle behind dark tourism spectrum. Our research suggests a new way of interpretation of tourist image data (e.g., photos) and sheds light for effective management of tourist experience.
... Similar behavioural effects have been observed in relation to metaphors involving gustatory experience. Meier et al. (2012) report that exposure to a sweet tastant positively impacts people's attitudes towards others and judgement towards themselves. Ren et al. (2015) found that the same condition influences judgement of a relationship. ...
Taste is considered one of the lowest sensory modalities, and the most difficult to express in language. Recently, an increasing body of research in perception language and in Food Studies has been sparkling new interest and new perspectives on the importance of this sense. Merging anthropology, evolutionary physiology and philosophy, this book investigates the language of Taste in English, and its relationship with our embodied minds.
In the first part of the book, the author explores the semantic dimensions of Taste terms with a usage-based approach. With the application of experimental protocols, Bagli enquires their possible organization in a radial network and calculates the Salience index of gustatory terms in both American and British English. The second part of the book is an overview of the metaphorical extensions that motivate the polysemy of Taste terms, with the aid of corpus analysis methods and various texts.
This book is the first to review systematically and in a usage-based perspective the role of the sensory domain of Taste in English, showing a more complicated picture and suggesting that its under-representation and difficulty of encoding does not correspond to lack of importance.
... One's immediate bodily experience may also play a role in resistance to certain metaphors. In one social judgment study, participants who first tasted sweet candy rated their own levels of agreeableness as higher than participants who tasted non-sweet candy (Meier et al., 2012). The lower ratings in the nonsweet condition may reflect some resistance to thinking about oneself as agreeable when the situation does not metaphorically elicit this, compared to the more congruent sweet candy with sweet person condition. ...
A bstract
Most people love metaphor, but we still sometimes find ourselves resisting their presence or meanings for various reasons. We resist metaphors both as a general strategy (e.g., “Metaphors are meaningless” or “Mixed metaphor are incoherent”), and as a response to some metaphors in very specific situational and discourse contexts (e.g., “I do not like the idea that my cancer treatment is seen as a war against my body”). People resist metaphors they have produced, metaphors imposed on them by others, and metaphors that they find to be offensive or that negatively stigmatize other individuals, or groups of people. But metaphors are also resisted for their lack of explanatory power in, for instance, scientific communities. There are also many ironies associated with metaphor resistance, such as consciously resisting some metaphor while still being governed by that same metaphor in our unconscious thinking and actions. Most generally, though, metaphor resistance is its own kind of metaphorical action. Taking a dynamic systems approach to resistance to metaphors, we discuss several implications of these observations for theories of metaphorical thought and language.
... Glucose is contained in breast/formula milk. Thus, humans experience sweet tastes from the earliest stages of life (Meier, Moeller, Riemer-Peltz, & Robinson, 2012). Additionally, plants developed sweet molecules, so other species picked them up and spread their seeds (Beauchamp, 2016). ...
This study provides some insights into agribusiness involvement on cause-related marketing arguments related to the Colombian post-conflict. We conducted a mixed experimental design with four between-group conditions (employ reintegrated people, replace illicit crops, pay a fair price to the farmers, and control) and four types of fruit as a within-subject evaluation (guava, pineapple, apple, and avocado). Findings show that fruit with the tag paying a fair price to the farmers increases an expected savory taste and product evaluation compared to fruit with no tag. The tag associated with employing reintegrated people increase the expected sour taste of guava and pineapple. This work highlights relevant findings for policymakers and agribusiness concerning their strategies to build peace in Colombia.
... Psychologists highlighted how food modifies psychological processes when the physical self has ingested something through the bodily systems. Several researchers have provided enlightenment on how food affects intrapersonal aspects of the mind structure, such as how food and taste preference affects attitude and personality traits (Sagioglou & Greitmeyer, 2012;Robinson, 2012;Herz, 2011;Macht & Mueller, 2007). Further, substantive scientific evidence has also shown correlations on how food shapes interpersonal relationships, thus eliciting complex psycho-social behaviors such as social familiarity and acceptance, affiliation, social cohesion, etc. (Spence, 2016;Davey, 2016;McCouat, 2014;Williams & Bargh, 2008;Rozin et al., 1999). ...
In urban landscapes, understanding the diversity of roadside vegetation
is essential for better planning and designing of sustainable cities.
The city of Cebu, located in central Visayas Philippines, is considered
an urban tree biodiversity hotspot due to threats from continuous
infrastructure development, road widening, and anthropogenic activities.
To provide an update on tree diversity, as well as to determine the
ecological status of the remaining trees thriving in Cebu City’s urban
corridors, a floristic inventory and tree distribution survey (i.e. five
national streets /roads) were conducted. Following a standard protocol
for urban tree inventory, a tree distribution map was created using
GIS, and information on urban corridors’ name, BDH of each tree, wire
conflict, and tree condition were provided. Data showed 2,203 trees
(45 genera and 27 families) were listed from these roadsides, with the
proportion of alien trees higher (84.75%) than native trees (15.25%).
Among these trees, 12.94% were in excellent tree condition, with narra
(Pterocarpus indicus) and Manila palm (Adonidia merrillii) as the most
abundant native tree, and mahogany (S. macrophylla) as the most
exotic species. The distribution of trees by DBH classes along the
five national roads showed that most trees belonged to the range of
≥ 70 cm, suggesting that mature trees dominated five urban corridors.
In terms of tree protection and management, most trees in Cebu City
were recommended for silvicultural treatment to salvage mother trees
from further damage. Baseline data gathered in this study may serve as guide for urban planners for a responsible and sustainable urban tree
conservation and management.
... Psychologists highlighted how food modifies psychological processes when the physical self has ingested something through the bodily systems. Several researchers have provided enlightenment on how food affects intrapersonal aspects of the mind structure, such as how food and taste preference affects attitude and personality traits (Sagioglou & Greitmeyer, 2012;Robinson, 2012;Herz, 2011;Macht & Mueller, 2007). Further, substantive scientific evidence has also shown correlations on how food shapes interpersonal relationships, thus eliciting complex psycho-social behaviors such as social familiarity and acceptance, affiliation, social cohesion, etc. (Spence, 2016;Davey, 2016;McCouat, 2014;Williams & Bargh, 2008;Rozin et al., 1999). ...
The meaning of food is redefined. Human development witnessed the politicization of food and how key messages were relayed through the food we share or what we simply call ”gastrodiplomacy.” This study was conducted to determine the socio-demographic factors that affect attitude towards office gastrodiplomacy among employees of a local government unit in the Philippines. This is a descriptive-relational study that employed a one-shot survey among 327 respondents. Data were collected using a two-part questionnaire that included questions on: a) socio-demographic characteristics consisting of age, sex, educational attainment, length of service, monthly income, and nature of job position; and the b) researcher made instrument on attitude towards office gastrodiplomacy. It was found out that respondents had a generally ‘high positive attitude’ towards office gastrodiplomacy, although only age and length of service were significantly related. The findings of this study provide a breakthrough on research on office gastrodiplomacy in the Philippines, where such practice is prevalent yet understudied or has
not been tackled at all as of writing.
... In the aural dimension, music of the slow rhythm makes individuals stay longer in restaurants and increases the consumption (Milliman, 1986). In the olfactory dimension, clean smell can significantly increase an individual's donation behavior (Liljenquist et al., 2010), whereas for the taste sense, individuals who eat sweet candy are more likely to help others (Meier et al., 2012). In the dimension of tactile sense, individuals tend to have a higher sense of social closeness if they felt warmth through handshakes with others . ...
Research in dark tourism has been ongoing for over two decades. Although in practice, many dark tourism destinations adjusted the lighting of the display environment to influence tourist experience, little is known about the sensory stimulation of non-text related content (e.g., lighting of the environment or darkness of visual materials) on dark tourists' psychological experience. This study examined the influence of visual darkness on tourists' dark experience and explored the relationship between visual darkness and psychological darkness through a content analysis of online comments and photos for 30 dark tourism destinations worldwide, followed by four experiments. Results showed that the stimulation of visual darkness affected dark tourists’ psychological experience and behavioral intentions (including recommendation intention and touch preference), and such embodied effect existed in both two-dimensional plane and three-dimensional space. The study provides many practical implications for experience creation of dark tourism destinations.
... Finally, there are very few studies of personality inferences from food consumption that have considered inferences about basic personality traits (e.g., Big Five, Big Six) in addition to specific personality features identified as contextually relevant for the food target. For example, one study (Meier et al., 2012, Study 1) used one item each for three of the Big Five (i.e., agreeableness, extraversion, and neuroticism) and revealed that people perceived individuals who liked candy high in agreeableness. ...
The organic halo effect describes how individuals tend to ascribe positive attributes such as low-calorie content to organic food. In this contribution, we extend the organic halo effect to the inferences individuals make about organic food consumers regarding basic personality traits. In a first study (N = 608), we tested whether describing a person as a regular (vs. rare) consumer (man vs. woman) who buys and regularly (vs. rarely) consumes organic food influences inferences of the Big Six personality traits and other characteristics. Results showed that a person depicted as a regular consumer of organic food is perceived as more honest, more agreeable, more conscientious, and more open. A second study (N = 214) with a similar procedure tested whether the effects from the previous study were due to the frequency information by manipulating the type of food (organic vs. conventional) and the high-frequency information (present vs. absent). We also included a measure of the Dark Triads traits to see whether this effect only applies to positive traits. Results generally confirmed the previous pattern. However, organic consumers were also judged as more narcissistic. Merging the two studies, we also showed that the organic halo effect was stronger for participants who frequently consume organic food. We discuss results in light of the large effect sizes and the evidence suggesting that while positive valence plays a role, it cannot explain the trait inferences' extent and specificity.
... For instance, dry and bitter were associated with aggressive, energetic, and masculine emotions while sweet, creamy, and smooth were associated with pleasantness-related emotions (e.g., interested, happy, and loving). In another study, bitterness elicited feelings of moral disgust (Eskine (Meier et al. 2012). ...
Adolescence is a transitional phase that spans from childhood to adulthood, during which physical and psychological mutations transform the individual. In this life stage, young consumers become more independent and start to take the first autonomous consumption decisions as a way of escaping from parental control. As a result, parents lose their primary influence on adolescents, who devote their attention to peers. Friends, then, become a source of inspiration in the consumption process, especially for those products that are publicly consumed or characterized by a strong symbolic meaning, including food (Story et al. 2002; Stanford University 2020). For these reasons, adolescence is an interesting context in which to explore how individuals build their future relationships with goods, services, and brands.
... For instance, dry and bitter were associated with aggressive, energetic, and masculine emotions while sweet, creamy, and smooth were associated with pleasantness-related emotions (e.g., interested, happy, and loving). In another study, bitterness elicited feelings of moral disgust (Eskine (Meier et al. 2012). ...
A great designer is able to understand and satisfy both our material and emotional needs. “Abundance has satisfied, and even over-satisfied, the material needs of millions—boosting the significance of beauty and emotion” (Pink 2006). As our fundamental needs are met, we are increasingly looking for emotionally satisfying experiences (Brown 2008). In order to fulfill consumer needs and produce innovative food experiences that enhance consumers’ well-being, designers should bear in mind that consumers are not only cognitive but also emotional beings and food is an extremely emotion-laden experience due to its symbolic nature.
... Of the five traits, higher neuroticism and lower conscientiousness have been consistently associated with unhealthy eating behaviors. For example, people scoring higher on neuroticism tend to consume more sweet and savory foods (Keller and Siegrist, 2015;Kikuchi and Watanabe, 2000;Meier et al., 2012;Mõttus et al., 2012). It has been proposed that such behavior helps them to regulate negative emotions and states such as loss of control, feelings of helplessness, and depression by raising the level of serotonin in the body (Hamburg et al., 2014). ...
Previous studies have shown that certain personality traits such as neuroticism and conscientiousness influence dietary choices. Pregnancy is a unique period in a woman’s life during which most women are highly intrinsically and extrinsically motivated to start a diet rich in fruit and vegetables. Yet, an adequate consumption of fruits and vegetables remains a challenge for many women. The present study investigates the relationships between personality traits and fish, dairy, fruit, and vegetable intake. Data was collected from 602 pregnant women and analyzed using descriptive statistics and hierarchical regression analyses in order to examine predictive relationships between the variables of interest. The results demonstrated that high scores in openness to experience, older maternal age, higher income, and educational attainment were positively associated with increased fish, vegetable, and fruit intake. These findings have important implications for interventions that seek to improve eating behaviors of pregnant women, thereby increasing the health of their pregnancies.
... For example, a recent study found higher reward sensitivity was associated with liking spicy food in men whereas higher degrees of sensation seeking was associated with liking spicy foods in women (Byrnes and Hayes 2015, see also Byrnes and Hayes 2016). Moreover, Meier and colleagues found higher degrees of agreeableness was associated with a higher liking of sweet tastes (Meier et al. 2012). However, Croy et al. (2011) found that the gustatory thresholds score, a test of taste sensitivity assessed using salty and sour tastes of various concentrations, was not significantly correlated with any of the NEO-FFI personality traits (i.e. ...
IntroductionHigher psychopathic traits have been consistently associated with poorer olfactory abilities; however, only one study as reported by Sagioglou and Greitemeyer (Appetite 96:299-308, 2016) has explored whether psychopathy is linked to taste perception. Using self-report measures, Sagioglou and Greitemeyer (2016) found higher psychopathic traits were associated with higher liking ratings for bitter stimuli. The aim of the current study was to determine whether direct assessment of taste perception was linked with psychopathic traits.Methods
Seventy-eight participants (41 females) rated four tastants (i.e. bitter, sweet, salty and sour), at four concentrations. For each of the 16 stimuli, participants rated how much they liked, how disgusting and how intense they perceived each tastant.ResultsContrary to previous findings, higher psychopathic traits were not associated with higher liking ratings for bitter stimuli, but instead associated with higher disgust ratings of bitter stimuli. Moreover, higher psychopathic traits were associated with higher taste intensity ratings, suggesting psychopathy may be associated with increased taste sensitivity.Conclusions
Higher degrees of psychopathic traits are associated with higher disgust ratings of bitter stimuli.ImplicationsThe findings suggest that the chemical senses may be another confirmatory method for differentiating those with low and high psychopathic traits.
... The taste of food affects how we think in other ways as well. For example, people who eat sweet food report higher intentions to help another person in need (Meier, Moeller, Riemer-Peltz, & Robinson, 2012). ...
Tourists are exposed to various unfamiliar sensory experiences when traveling, such as sounds, touches, tastes, and temperatures.
Barsalou (2008) documents that sensory experiences and bodily feelings serve as unique sources of tacit information that influence
people's cognition, emotion, and behavior subconsciously. This notion is anchored in (bodily) feelings-as-information theory
(Greifeneder, Bless, & Pham, 2011; Schwarz & Clore, 1983; Slovic, Finucane, Peters, & MacGregor, 2007) according to which people
consult their affective states subconsciously to make judgments about objects (e.g., situations, people, the self, or the environment)
unrelated to the bodily senses. Thus, cognitive processes and mental states are deeply rooted in the body's interaction with the world
(Wilson, 2002). The sensory inputs can be associated directly with the judgment task itself or spill-over from sources that have no
direct link with (i.e., are incidental to) the judgment task. Consider the following illustrative example: Traditional sensory marketing
uses the smell of citrus fruit to signal freshness and cleanliness, whereas in embodied cognition, the sensory experience of the citrus
smell is incidentally and metaphorically projected upon others as being morally more pure (Lee & Schwarz, 2012). That is, incidental
embodied experiences differ from tourism research which only examines the direct sensory dimensions of tourist experiences, such as sensory destination aspects (Agapito, Valle, & Mendes, 2014) or the use of aroma marketing (Guillet, Kozak, & Kucukusta, 2019).
Embodied cognition is also different from the sociology- and geography-informed embodiment literature which explores the role of
the body in the consumption of places (Chronis, 2012; Rakić & Chambers, 2012).
... The taste of food affects how we think in other ways as well. For example, people who eat sweet food report higher intentions to help another person in need (Meier, Moeller, Riemer-Peltz, & Robinson, 2012). ...
... Previous work indicates that the acquisition of money is commonly described as finding a fortune, whereas the lack of finances is likened to a person's search for wealth (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). If metaphorically framing a target concept leads people to interpret their own evaluative states in a similar fashion (Keefer, Landau, Rothschild, & Sullivan, 2011;Meier et al., 2012), then activating the finding a fortune metaphor should lead people to feel more secure about their monetary situation, while individuals primed with the searching for wealth metaphor should experience greater financial strain. In three experiments, it was hypothesized that participants exposed to the finding a fortune metaphor would report lower money anxiety compared to individuals exposed to the searching for wealth metaphor. ...
People often use metaphors to discuss their financial prospects – for example, finding a fortune or searching for wealth. The purpose of the present research was to utilize conceptual metaphor theory to study the effect of metaphor use on money anxiety and spending intentions. Specifically, in three experiments, participants were randomly assigned to complete a word search puzzle where they either found the word fortune or where they searched but were unable to find the word wealth. The results revealed that the act of finding the word fortune in comparison to searching for wealth decreased concerns about money (Studies 1–3) and increased spending intentions (Study 3). These findings suggest how the activation of subtle money-related metaphors can influence attitudes and perceptions toward money.
... nicknames for romantic partners "honey," "sugar," "sweetie," and "sweetheart"). Because sweet tastes are especially palatable and pleasant, the word sweet is often used to characterize a kind action, such as a compliment or the granting of a favor or it is used to describe a nice, friendly, and caring person (Meier, Moeller, Riemer-Peltz & Robinson 2012;Petre 2018). Previous research showed that prison foodways may offer incarcerated women a mechanism for building positive identities: good and healthy (Smoyer 2014, 536). ...
Çikolatanın tüketimi çok uzun yıllar öncesine dayanmaktadır. Uyarıcı ve haz verici özelliklerinin yanı sıra çok çeşitli tüketim alanları ve kolay ulaşılabilir olması nedeniyle çikolataya yönelik pazar giderek büyümektedir. Çikolatayla ilgili yapılmış araştırmalar ise genellikle beslenme ve sağlık üzerinedir. Pazarlama alanında çikolatayla ilgili araştırmaların sadece çikolatanın nasıl tüketildiği üzerine olduğu ve sınırlı sayıda olduğu görülmektedir. Bu araştırma, çikolata tüketiminin tüketici davranışı üzerindeki etkisini ele almaktadır. Bu bağlamda, alışveriş öncesi çikolata yiyen tüketicilerin harcama miktarlarının ve tercih ettikleri ürün gruplarının çikolata yemeyen tüketicilerden farklılaşıp farklılaşmadığına bakılmıştır. Ayrıca, çikolataya yönelik tutum ve alışveriş öncesi çikolata tüketimi ile nostalji eğilimi arasındaki ilişki de incelenmiştir. Bu amaçlarla 511 tüketiciye ulaşılmıştır. Veri analizinde Mann-Whitney U testi ve Spearmans’s rho korelasyon analizi kullanılmıştır. Araştırma sonucunda, alışveriş öncesi çikolata yiyen tüketicilerin daha çok alışveriş yaptıkları görülmüştür. Ayrıca çikolataya yönelik tutum ve nostalji eğilimi arasında pozitif bir ilişki olduğu görülmüştür. Bu çalışma, araştırma konusu ve elde ettiği sonuçlar itibariyle ilgili literatürde ilk olma özelliği taşımaktadır. Elde edilen sonuçlara göre çok para harcamak istemeyen tüketicilerin alışveriş öncesi çikolata tüketmemeleri tavsiye edilebilir. Özellikle nostaljik ürün işletmeleri ise çikolata ikramında bulunarak etkili sonuçlar elde edebilirler.
Theories of mental functioning have suggested its metaphoric basis. Drawing from theories of this type as well as from recent extensions of such theories to the personality processing realm, participants in three studies (total N = 452) were asked to indicate their relative preferences for the spatial concepts of up versus down, given that verticality metaphors are frequently used to conceptualize states related to emotion and well-being. Up-preferring individuals were more extraverted and approach-motivated (Study 1), whereas down-preferring individuals were more depressed (Studies 1 and 2). Higher levels of vertical preference were also predictive of affective well-being in a daily diary protocol (Study 3) and these relationships operated in both between-person and within-person terms. Metaphors, which liken the intangible to the tangible, may play a significant role in shaping experience and verticality metaphors, in particular, appear to provide insights into the processes that that support happiness versus its absence.
Novel gustatory interfaces offer the potential to use the sense of taste as a feedback modality during the interaction. They are being explored in a wide range of implementations, from chemical to electrical and thermal stimulation of taste. However, the fundamental aspect of gustatory interaction that has yet to be explored is the Sense of Agency (SoA). It is the subjective experience of voluntary control over actions in the external world. This work investigates the SoA in gustatory systems using the intentional binding paradigm to quantify how different taste outcome modalities influence users' SoA. We first investigate such gustatory systems using the intentional binding paradigm to quantify how different tastes influence users' SoA (Experiment 1). The gustatory stimuli were sweet (sucrose 75.31 mg/ml), bitter (caffeine powder 0.97 mg/ml), and neutral (mineral water) as the outcomes of specific keyboard presses. We then investigated how SoA was altered depending on users' sweet liking phenotype, given that sweet is one of the taste outcomes (Experiment 2), and in contrast with audio as a traditional outcome. In Experiment 2, stronger taste concentrations (sweet-sucrose 342.30 g/L, bitter-quinine 0.1 g/L, and neutral) were used, with only participants being moderate sweet likers. We further contrasted tastes with audio as the traditional outcome. Our findings show that all three taste outcomes exhibit similar intentional binding compared to auditory in medium sweet likers. We also show that longer action-outcome duration improved the SoA. We finally discuss our findings and identify design opportunities considering SoA for gustatory interfaces and multisensory interaction.
The importance of creativity to organizations is significant, ergo, scholars have begun to investigate how sensory elements in the workplace might impact creative performance. Our research examines effects of the sensory experience of taste, specifically sweetness, on creativity. Using a range of real taste tests and imagination tasks, we demonstrate that sweet taste facilitates creative performance. We argue that this is because sweet taste, as a positive implicit affective cue, increases cognitive flexibility and creativity independent of the elicitation of positive emotions. However, when the positive associations of sweet taste are externally overridden, such as when health risks are made salient, the positive impact of sweet taste on creativity is attenuated. We further demonstrate that sensory experience of sweetness increases performance on related tasks that require cognitive flexibility, but does not increase performance on non-creative tasks.
Charitable activities emphasizing distant recipients or places often struggle to attract contributions because consumers tend to be more willing to help others who are spatially closer to them. Therefore, identifying methods to promote prosocial intentions toward distant recipients is critical, and the present study considers the implications of social crowding, as a common environmental factor, for evoking such prosocial intentions. Four studies conducted online and in the laboratory demonstrate that consumers are more likely to feel a stronger social connection to recipients of help in uncrowded (vs. crowded) environments, which, in turn, increases their helping intentions. This influence of social crowding on prosocial intentions is also moderated by spatial distance such that the effect is more significant when the charitable project targets distant (vs. closer) recipients.
Introduction: Image schemas are perceptual-motor simulations of the world that are likely to have broad importance in understanding models of the self and its regulatory operations. Methods: Seven samples of participants (total N = 1,011) rated their preferences for unspecified entities being “open” or “closed” and scores along this dimension were linked to variations in personality, emotion, and psychopathology. Results: Individuals endorsing closed preferences to a greater extent were prone to neuroticism (Study 1), experiential avoidance (Study 2), negative affect in daily life (Study 3), and symptoms of anxiety and depression (Study 4). Discussion: Although closed preferences are likely to be endorsed for protective reasons (inasmuch as the contents of closed objects are better protected), such preferences are linked to higher, rather than lower, levels of neuroticism and distress. The findings offer new evidence for theories of neuroticism and psychopathology that emphasize operations related to defensive motivation and experiential avoidance.
Voice quality, or type of phonation (e.g., a whispery voice) can prime specific sensory associations amongst consumers. In the realm of sensory and consumer science, a wide range of taste-sound correspondences have been documented. A growing body of research on crossmodal correspondences has revealed that people reliably associate sounds with basic taste qualities. Here, we examined the largely unexplored associations between basic tastes and sounds: namely taste-voice quality correspondences. Across three pre-registered studies, participants associated four types of voice qualities (modal, whispery, creaky, and falsetto) with the five basic tastes (sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami). Study 1 investigated the relations between voice qualities and taste words. Study 2 attempted to replicate the findings and revealed the underpinning psychological mechanisms in terms of semantic/emotional associations. Study 3 used the descriptions of food products that varied in terms of their taste in order to expand the applicability of the findings. The results demonstrated that participants reliably associate specific voice qualities with particular tastes. Falsetto voices are matched more strongly with sweetness than other voices. Creaky voices are matched more strongly with bitterness than with other voice qualities. Modal voices are matched more strongly with umami than creaky voices. Evaluation/positive valence might partially underlie the associations between sweet/bitter-voice quality correspondences. Taken together, these findings reveal a novel case of sound-taste correspondences and deepen our understanding of how people are able to associate attributes from different senses.
Self-location is a novel construct that identifies a bodily organ (head vs. heart) to represent self-concept. However, how self-location influences verbal performance is not well understood. This research investigates language use associated with self-location, an individual difference construct based on two different metaphoric concepts (use your head vs. follow your heart). Study 1 established the associations between self-location and verbal performance assessed by language variables in two writing tasks. Findings showed that self-location was related to specific language variables (nouns vs. verbs). In Study 2a, self-location was presented as a manipulation of the head-heart metaphor to predict language variables in a decision-making story recalled by participants. In Study 2b, a manipulation check was added, and the Heinz dilemma was used as a writing topic to control responses in different conditions. Studies 2a and 2b demonstrate that the metaphor could facilitate use of specific language variables. Implications of manipulating self-location are discussed.
In the previous chapter, we considered the idea that the amount of food that a person eats is often used by others as a basis for inferences about that person; we referred to these inferences as “consumption stereotypes.”
Three studies involving 3 participant samples (Ns = 39, 55, and 53) tested the hypothesis that people retrieve episodic emotion knowledge when reporting on their emotions over short (e.g., last few hours) time frames, but that they retrieve semantic emotion knowledge when reporting on their emotions over long (e.g., last few months) time frames. Support for 2 distinct judgment strategies was based on judgment latencies (Studies 1 and 2) and priming paradigms (Studies 2 and 3). The authors suggest that self-reports of emotion over short versus long time frames assess qualitatively different sources of self-knowledge.
Mothers often report that breastfeeding is an enjoyable and emotionally beneficial experience they share with their infants. However, little research has investigated the role of feeding method in the development of the maternal bond and the mother-infant relationship. This study tested two hypotheses—the bonding hypothesis and the good-enough caregiver hypothesis—regarding the association of breastfeeding with maternal bonding and the mother-infant relationship. Using data from a longitudinal study of 570 mother-infant pairs, bonding and the quality of the mother-infant relationship were measured at 4 and 12 months. Although breastfeeding dyads tended to show higher quality relationships at 12 months, bottlefeeding dyads did not display poor quality or precarious relationships. Such results are encouraging for nonmaternal caregivers and mothers who bottlefeed their children.
The ability of personality traits to predict important life outcomes has traditionally been questioned because of the putative small effects of personality. In this article, we compare the predictive validity of personality traits with that of socioeconomic status (SES) and cognitive ability to test the relative contribution of personality traits to predictions of three critical outcomes: mortality, divorce, and occupational attainment. Only evidence from prospective longitudinal studies was considered. In addition, an attempt was made to limit the review to studies that controlled for important background factors. Results showed that the magnitude of the effects of personality traits on mortality, divorce, and occupational attainment was indistinguishable from the effects of SES and cognitive ability on these outcomes. These results demonstrate the influence of personality traits on important life outcomes, highlight the need to more routinely incorporate measures of personality into quality of life surveys, and encourage further research about the developmental origins of personality traits and the processes by which these traits influence diverse life outcomes.
© 2007 Association for Psychological Science.
In this chapter, the authors first make some general comments on the contrasting assumptions of mind represented by implicit and explicit methods. Second, they present an overview on four classes of implicit measures, namely those related to (a) attention, (b) depressogenic thought, (c) category accessibility, and (d) associations in memory. Within the context of the last heading, the authors describe the Implicit Association Test (IAT), which has generated considerable interest recently. Third, they discuss the reliability and validity of implicit measures. And fourth and finally, they present some closing thoughts on the importance of implicit methods to the science of personality and assessment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Three experience-sampling studies explored the distributions of Big-Five-relevant states (behavior) across 2 to 3 weeks of everyday life. Within-person variability was high, such that the typical individual regularly and routinely manifested nearly all levels of all traits in his or her everyday behavior. Second, individual differences in central tendencies of behavioral distributions were almost perfectly stable. Third, amount of behavioral variability (and skew and kurtosis) were revealed as stable individual differences. Finally, amount of within-person variability in extraversion was shown to reflect individual differences in reactivity to extraversion-relevant situational cues. Thus, decontextualized and noncontingent Big-Five content is highly useful for descriptions of individuals' density distributions as wholes. Simultaneously, contextualized and contingent personality units (e.g., conditional traits, goals) are needed for describing the considerable within-person variation.
The now-classic Metaphors We Live By changed our understanding of metaphor and its role in language and the mind. Metaphor, the authors explain, is a fundamental mechanism of mind, one that allows us to use what we know about our physical and social experience to provide understanding of countless other subjects. Because such metaphors structure our most basic understandings of our experience, they are "metaphors we live by"--metaphors that can shape our perceptions and actions without our ever noticing them.
In this updated edition of Lakoff and Johnson's influential book, the authors supply an afterword surveying how their theory of metaphor has developed within the cognitive sciences to become central to the contemporary understanding of how we think and how we express our thoughts in language.
To what extent and in what ways is metaphorical thought relevant to an understanding of culture and society? More specifically: can the cognitive linguistic view of metaphor simultaneously explain both universality and diversity in metaphorical thought? Cognitive linguists have done important work on universal aspects of metaphor, but they have paid much less attention to why metaphors vary both interculturally and intraculturally as extensively as they do. In this book, Zoltán Kövecses proposes a new theory of metaphor variation. First, he identifies the major dimension of metaphor variation, that is, those social and cultural boundaries that signal discontinuities in human experience. Second, he describes which components, or aspects of conceptual metaphor are involved in metaphor variation, and how they are involved. Third, he isolates the main causes of metaphor variation. Fourth Professor Kövecses addresses the issue to the degree of cultural coherence in the interplay among conceptual metaphors, embodiment, and causes of metaphor variation. © Cambridge University Press 2005 and Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Introduction:
Debate continues over the precise causal contribution made by mesolimbic dopamine systems to reward. There are three competing explanatory categories: 'liking', learning, and 'wanting'. Does dopamine mostly mediate the hedonic impact of reward ('liking')? Does it instead mediate learned predictions of future reward, prediction error teaching signals and stamp in associative links (learning)? Or does dopamine motivate the pursuit of rewards by attributing incentive salience to reward-related stimuli ('wanting')? Each hypothesis is evaluated here, and it is suggested that the incentive salience or 'wanting' hypothesis of dopamine function may be consistent with more evidence than either learning or 'liking'. In brief, recent evidence indicates that dopamine is neither necessary nor sufficient to mediate changes in hedonic 'liking' for sensory pleasures. Other recent evidence indicates that dopamine is not needed for new learning, and not sufficient to directly mediate learning by causing teaching or prediction signals. By contrast, growing evidence indicates that dopamine does contribute causally to incentive salience. Dopamine appears necessary for normal 'wanting', and dopamine activation can be sufficient to enhance cue-triggered incentive salience. Drugs of abuse that promote dopamine signals short circuit and sensitize dynamic mesolimbic mechanisms that evolved to attribute incentive salience to rewards. Such drugs interact with incentive salience integrations of Pavlovian associative information with physiological state signals. That interaction sets the stage to cause compulsive 'wanting' in addiction, but also provides opportunities for experiments to disentangle 'wanting', 'liking', and learning hypotheses. Results from studies that exploited those opportunities are described here.
Conclusion:
In short, dopamine's contribution appears to be chiefly to cause 'wanting' for hedonic rewards, more than 'liking' or learning for those rewards.
82 female undergraduates were assigned to 1 of 4 experimental groups--predict-request, information-request, predict only, and request only--in which requested tasks involved writing a counterattitudinal essay or singing over the telephone. In 3 experiments, Ss overpredicted the degree to which their behavior would be socially desirable and these errors of prediction proved to be self-erasing. Having mispredicted a given behavior, Ss were likely to have these predictions confirmed in later behavior, indicating that prediction of a behavioral sequence evokes a specific cognitive representation of that sequence which is subsequently accessed. Results demonstrate the strong effects on behavior of engaging in prebehavioral cognitive work. (27 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).
The primate orbitofrontal cortex receives inputs directly from the inferior temporal visual cortex. The orbitofrontal cortex contains visual neurons that learn in one trial which visual object is associated with a reward such as a taste and represent reward value; error neurons that respond if there is a mismatch between the reward expected based on the visual input, and the (taste) reward actually obtained; neurons that respond to the sight of faces encoding information about identity or about expression; and neurons that respond to novel visual stimuli. The human orbitofrontal cortex is activated by visual stimuli that show how much monetary reward has been obtained; and by mismatches in a visual discrimination reversal task between the face expression expected, and that obtained. Discrete lesions of the human orbitofrontal cortex impair visual discrimination reversal and face expression (but not face identity) discrimination. Thus the orbitofrontal cortex plays a fundamental role in visual processing related to emotion.
Agreeableness is probably best conceptualized as a general latent variable that summarizes more specific tendencies and behaviors. Agreeableness should certainly qualify as an individual difference having significance for people's daily transactions. It can be predominantly an affective evaluation and may be a more diffuse reaction. Across a range of studies, agreeableness emerges in the natural language descriptions of the self and peers. Furthermore, there is evidence that self-rating and peer evaluations converge in assessing agreeableness. Later, the prosocial personality is discussed in this chapter. Prosocial behavior can be conceptualized as a form of agreeableness. Recent research suggests that there may be important dispositional components to prosocial behavior, and these may be seen even in young children. Precise identification of these dispositions has been inhibited by problems of differentiating among social motives, and by weak measures of altruism as an outcome and as a disposition. Basic bio-behavioral research suggests that individual differences in agreeableness in adults may have their origins in affective self-regulatory processes in childhood. In particular, individual differences in the pattern of inhibition of negative effect may be related to the development of agreeableness and these may be related to health, especially cardiovascular disease.
I will suggest that the English word ‘anger’ and its counterparts in diverse languages of the world are based on concepts of anger that have a great deal of complexity. This conceptual complexity derives from several sources: (1) the metaphors and metonymies that apply to the concepts in various languages; (2) the prototypes of anger that people share in these cultures, and (3) the many different senses that the word anger and its counterparts have in different languages. We can ask: Are there any universal aspects of the concept(s) of anger? On the basis of linguistic evidence from English, Chinese, Japanese, Hungarian, Zulu and Wolof, I will suggest that there are, but I will also claim that some of the aspects are culture specific. This raises the further important question of why there is both universality and culture specificity in the conceptualization of this emotion. At stake is the issue of which of the following two contradictory claims is valid: (1) that anger is conceptualized in the same way universally, or (2) that anger is a social construction and thus varies considerably from culture to culture. I will propose a compromise view, which can be called ‘body-based social constructionism’, that enables us to see anger and its counterparts as both universal and culture specific.
A comprehensive collection of essays in multidisciplinary metaphor scholarship that has been written in response to the growing interest among scholars and students from a variety of disciplines such as linguistics, philosophy, anthropology, music and psychology. These essays explore the significance of metaphor in language, thought, culture and artistic expression. There are five main themes of the book: the roots of metaphor, metaphor understanding, metaphor in language and culture, metaphor in reasoning and feeling, and metaphor in non-verbal expression. Contributors come from a variety of academic disciplines, including psychology, linguistics, philosophy, cognitive science, literature, education, music, and law.
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson take on the daunting task of rebuilding Western philosophy in alignment with three fundamental lessons from cognitive science: The mind is inherently embodied, thought is mostly unconscious, and abstract concepts are largely metaphorical. Why so daunting? "Cognitive science--the empirical study of the mind--calls upon us to create a new, empirically responsible philosophy, a philosophy consistent with empirical discoveries about the nature of mind," they write. "A serious appreciation of cognitive science requires us to rethink philosophy from the beginning, in a way that would put it more in touch with the reality of how we think." In other words, no Platonic forms, no Cartesian mind-body duality, no Kantian pure logic. Even Noam Chomsky's generative linguistics is revealed under scrutiny to have substantial problems.
Parts of Philosophy in the Flesh retrace the ground covered in the authors' earlier Metaphors We Live By , which revealed how we deal with abstract concepts through metaphor. (The previous sentence, for example, relies on the metaphors "Knowledge is a place" and "Knowing is seeing" to make its point.) Here they reveal the metaphorical underpinnings of basic philosophical concepts like time, causality--even morality--demonstrating how these metaphors are rooted in our embodied experiences. They repropose philosophy as an attempt to perfect such conceptual metaphors so that we can understand how our thought processes shape our experience; they even make a tentative effort toward rescuing spirituality from the heavy blows dealt by the disproving of the disembodied mind or "soul" by reimagining "transcendence" as "imaginative empathetic projection." Their source list is helpfully arranged by subject matter, making it easier to follow up on their citations. If you enjoyed the mental workout from Steven Pinker's How the Mind Works , Lakoff and Johnson will, to pursue the "Learning is exercise" metaphor, take you to the next level of training. --Ron Hogan Two leading thinkers offer a blueprint for a new philosophy.
"Their ambition is massive, their argument important.…The authors engage in a sort of metaphorical genome project, attempting to delineate the genetic code of human thought." -The New York Times Book Review
"This book will be an instant academic best-seller." -Mark Turner, University of Maryland
This is philosophy as it has never been seen before. Lakoff and Johnson show that a philosophy responsible to the science of the mind offers a radically new and detailed understandings of what a person is. After first describing the philosophical stance that must follow from taking cognitive science seriously, they re-examine the basic concepts of the mind, time, causation, morality, and the self; then they rethink a host of philosophical traditions, from the classical Greeks through Kantian morality through modern analytical philosophy.
In their connectionist approach, Schnitzer and Pedreira offer an explanation for the existence of metaphor, rejecting ‘process’ and ‘representation’ accounts for a more ‘vehicular’ theory that grounds the study of metaphor in the way the nervous system works. From their perspective, most contemporary studies of metaphor are process oriented in that they study how metaphor works and its utility for communication rather than the neuropsychological nature of metaphor. They discuss some of the issues raised by cognitivist metaphor theorists, particularly concerning the conceptual nature of metaphor. The authors then present pedagogical illustrations concerning neural networks that demonstrate not only the metaphorical nature of thought but also the importance of such networks in learning. Their neural-network proposal can account for phenomena as simple as fruit words and concepts and as complex as metaphorical expressions about emotions. They conclude by demonstrating that a connectionist approach can resolve some important dilemmas in cognitivist theory.
Emotional experiences are often described in metaphoric language. A major question in linguistics and cognitive science is whether such metaphoric linguistic expressions reflect a deeper principle of cognition. Are abstract concepts structured by the embodied, sensorimotor domains that we use to describe them? This review presents the argument for conceptual metaphors of affect and summarizes recent findings from empirical studies. These findings show that, consistent with the conceptual metaphor account, the associations between affect and physical domains such as spatial position, musical pitch, brightness, and size which are captured in linguistic metaphors also influence performance on attention, memory and judgment tasks. Despite this evidence, a number of concerns with metaphor as an account of affect representation are considered.
Philosophers and psycholinguists have argued that abstract concepts like affect are represented via the mechanism of metaphor. This review investigates this contention, specifically within the context of social-cognition and clinical psychology research that has studied the link between affect and brightness, vertical position, and distance between the self and an object. The review will be particularly concerned with automatic and incidental linkages between affect and perception and their relevance for a variety of affective phenomena related to evaluation, mood, and emotional behavior. The cumulative data reveal that the metaphorical representation of affect has considerable merit. For this reason, the review suggests an expanded research agenda including (a) other perceptual experiences (such as those related to taste and temperature), (b) potential cultural variations, (c) neuroimaging research, and (d) the elucidation of "real world" consequences.
Previous research has shown that exposure to violent media increased aggression-related affect and thoughts, physiological arousal, and aggressive behavior as well as decreased prosocial tendencies. The present research examined the hypothesis that exposure to prosocial media promotes prosocial outcomes. Three studies revealed that listening to songs with prosocial (relative to neutral) lyrics increased the accessibility of prosocial thoughts, led to more interpersonal empathy, and fostered helping behavior. These results provide first evidence for the predictive validity of the General Learning Model [Buckley, K. E., & Anderson, C. A. (2006). A theoretical model of the effects and consequences of playing video games. In P. Vorderer, & J. Bryant, (Eds.), Playing video games: Motives responses and consequences (pp. 363–378). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates] for the effects of media with prosocial content on prosocial thought, feeling, and behavior.
Social psychology and personality theorists have proposed that our understanding of prosocial behavior will be enhanced by examining the interplay of traits and motives. The present study was designed to test several pathways by which agreeableness, extraversion, and prosocial value motivation to volunteer influence volunteerism. A sample of 796 college students completed measures of the Big Five traits, prosocial value motivation to volunteer, and volunteering. Results of path analyses showed that prosocial value motivation to volunteer partially mediated the relations between agreeableness and extraversion, and volunteering. Furthermore, as agreeableness decreased, extraversion was more strongly related to prosocial value motivation to volunteer. In contrast, there was no support for the pathway in which extraversion and prosocial value motivation to volunteer jointly affect volunteering. Discussion focuses on the utility of examining the links among traits and motives in predicting volunteering.
Previous taxonomies of personality traits have been lexical in nature and have been concerned primarily with the meaning of adjectives in personality description. The taxonomy presented in this article employed personality scales as the units to be classified and was guided by theoretical, rather than lexical, considerations. A priori distinctions among different domains of trait-descriptive terms identified a distinctive domain of interpersonal traits within which a preliminary conceptually-based taxonomy was developed. The Interpersonal Adjective Scales (IAS) were constructed to provide geometrically precise semantic markers of that domain in the form of a circumplex model organized around the orthogonal coordinates of dominance and nurturance. In the course of a decade of research, some 172 personality scales were classified with reference to the IAS by computational procedures described in detail. Advantages and limitations of the current geometric taxonomy of personality scales are discussed, and future research directions are indicated.
As people seek to understand events within the world, they develop habitual tendencies related to categorization. Such tendencies can be measured by tasks that determine the relative ease or difficulty a person has in making a given distinction (e.g., between threatening and nonthreatening events). Researchers have sought to determine how categorization tendencies relate to personality traits on the one hand and emotional outcomes on the other. The results indicate that traits and categorization tendencies are distinct manifestations of personality. However, they often interact with each other. Three distinct interactive patterns are described. Categorization clearly does play a role in personality functioning, but its role goes beyond assimilation effects on behavior and experience.
Self-reports of behaviors and attitudes are strongly influenced by features of the research instrument, including question wording, format, and context. Recent research has addressed the underlying cognitive and communicative processes, which are systematic and increasingly well-understood. The author reviews what has been learned, focusing on issues of question comprehension, behavioral frequency reports, and the emergence of context effect in attitude measurement. The accumulating knowledge about the processes underlying self-reports promises to improve the questionnaire design and data quality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
In recent studies of the structure of affect, positive and negative affect have consistently emerged as two dominant and relatively independent dimensions. A number of mood scales have been created to measure these factors; however, many existing measures are inadequate, showing low reliability or poor convergent or discriminant validity. To fill the need for reliable and valid Positive Affect and Negative Affect scales that are also brief and easy to administer, we developed two 10-item mood scales that comprise the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). The scales are shown to be highly internally consistent, largely uncorrelated, and stable at appropriate levels over a 2-month time period. Normative data and factorial and external evidence of convergent and discriminant validity for the scales are also presented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Many current trait theorists suggest that a consensus is emerging around the Big Five as the basic structure of personality. This target article gives critical consideration to the nature of the evidence supporting such a view as well as to more fundamental issues concerning the conceptual status of the trait concept. It is argued that the evidence is less supportive and convincing than is suggested by trait enthusiasts, that there are fundamental problems with the trait concept, and that the trait model is not the only personality model to recognize consistency and coherence in functioning.
The eventual aim of the research reported here is the development of a comprehensive taxonomy of trait-descriptive terms in the English language. Building on earlier work of G. W. Allport, W. T. Norman, and L. R. Goldberg, preliminary a priori distinctions were made among different domains of trait categories. General procedures for developing structured taxonomies within domains are illustrated with reference to the interpersonal domain. Theoretical considerations dictated the definition of the universe of content, the choice of measurement model, and the procedures for classifying terms within the domain. Eight adjectival scales were developed as markers of the principal vectors of the interpersonal domain. The substantive, structural, and psychometric characteristics of these scales were found to be highly satisfactory. Hence, they may prove useful both as assessment devices in their own right and as reference points for the classification of variables in personality and social psychology. (63 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Repeated attempts have been made in the past 35 years to obtain self-report measures of motives originally identified in associative thought. Measures of the same motive obtained in these two ways seldom correlate significantly with each other and relate to different classes of behavior. Recent evidence is summarized showing that implicit motives, derived from stories written to pictures, combine generally with activity incentives to affect behavior, whereas self-attributed motives, derived from self-reports, combine generally with social incentives to affect behavior. Hence, implicit motives generally sustain spontaneous behavioral trends over time because of the pleasure derived from the activity itself, whereas the self-attributed motives predict immediate responses to structured situations because of the social incentives present in structuring the situation. Implicit motives represent a more primitive motivational system derived from affective experiences, whereas self-attributed motives are based on more cognitively elaborated constructs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
In recent years, psychological scientists' narrow focus on negative emotions and antisocial behavior has broadened to include a panoply of positive emotions such as empathy, compassion, gratitude, and forgiveness and a new emphasis on prosocial, generous, altruistic behavior. At the same time, neuroscientists, primatologists, and evolutionary biologists have begun to identify the evolutionary and neurological roots of prosocial feelings and actions. Research shows that human beings have an innate capacity for prosocial behavior, but the inclinations underlying such behavior can be inhibited or overpowered in selfish, neurotic, or culturally engrained attitudes and values. Genes, personality, past social experiences, social and cultural identities, and contextual factors can all influence the degree to which human behavior is empathic and generous or cruel, vindictive, and destructive.
Prosocial Motives, Emotions, and Behavior, with a subtitle borrowed from an inaugural address In Abraham Lincoln, is a comprehensive examination of the interplay of these influences. Part I considers theoretical perspectives on prosocial behavior; Part II illuminates the psychological processes that underlie prosocial behavior; Part III focuses on specific emotions such as compassionate love, gratitude, and forgiveness; Part IV examines prosocial behavior between individuals at the dyadic level; and Part V investigates prosocial behavior at the societal level, with an emphasis on solving intractable conflicts and achieving desirable social change. This stimulating, wide-ranging volume is sure to be of great interest to psychologists, social scientists, and anyone with an interest in understanding and fostering prosocial behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
82 female undergraduates were assigned to 1 of 4 experimental groups—predict-request, information-request, predict only, and request only—in which requested tasks involved writing a counterattitudinal essay or singing over the telephone. In 3 experiments, Ss overpredicted the degree to which their behavior would be socially desirable and these errors of prediction proved to be self-erasing. Having mispredicted a given behavior, Ss were likely to have these predictions confirmed in later behavior, indicating that prediction of a behavioral sequence evokes a specific cognitive representation of that sequence which is subsequently accessed. Results demonstrate the strong effects on behavior of engaging in prebehavioral cognitive work. (27 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)