Affect and Social Cognition Research Lab

 

How do people determine whether something is good or bad? How do perceptual experiences affect our emotions and behavior? Why do some people become less angry than others when provoked? Our lab examines the social-cognitive mechanisms involved in experiences like these. We have a strong interest in several areas of social cognition (e.g., aggression, mindfulness, & personality), but we focus on metaphor and embodiment. Metaphors describe abstract concepts like affect (i.e., the broad concept of good and bad) in terms that borrow from sensation and perception (e.g., perceptions of vertical position - "I'm feeling up"). Our research reveals that metaphors are more than communication devices, but are also indicative of a perceptual mode of knowledge representation. Indeed, metaphors can be used to better predict and understand human behavior. For example, sweet-taste preferences and experiences predict helping behavior in a manner consistent with metaphors (e.g., "a sweet person").

 

Research Lab in McCreary 301