Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T17:41:34.976Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Power in time: The influence of power posing on metaphoric perspectives on time

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2016

SARAH E. DUFFY  and
MICHELE I. FEIST
SARAH E. DUFFY*
Affiliation:
Northumbria University, UK
MICHELE I. FEIST
Affiliation:
University of Louisiana at Lafayette, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In English, the Moving Ego metaphor conceptualizes the ego as moving forward through time and the Moving Time metaphor construes time as moving forward toward the ego. Recent research has provided evidence that people’s metaphorical perspectives on deictic time may be influenced by experiences—both spatial and non-spatial—that are connected to approach motivations (Moving Ego) and avoidance motivations (Moving Time). We extend this research further, asking whether there are differences in preferred temporal perspective between those who exhibit higher and lower degrees of power, as high power has been connected to approach motivations and low power, to avoidance motivations. Across two temporal tasks, participants in our study who adopted high-power poses demonstrated a greater preference for the Moving Ego perspective, compared to those adopting low-power poses. These results suggest an embodied connection between approach and avoidance motivations and the Moving Ego and Moving Time metaphors, respectively.

Keywords

Moving TimeMoving EgoMetaphorEmbodimentPower posingApproach motivationsAvoidance motivations
Type
Research Article
Information
Language and Cognition , Volume 9 , Issue 4 , December 2017 , pp. 637 - 647
Copyright
Copyright © UK Cognitive Linguistics Association 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

references

Boroditsky, L. (2000). Metaphoric structuring: Understanding time through spatial metaphors. Cognition, 75(1), 1–28.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Boroditsky, L. & Ramscar, M. (2002). The roles of body and mind in abstract thought. Psychological Science, 13(2), 185–188.Google ScholarPubMed
Carney, D., Hall, J., & Smith LeBeau, L. (2005). Beliefs about the nonverbal expression of social power. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 29, 105–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carney, D., Cuddy, A., & Yap, A. (2010). Power posing brief nonverbal displays affect neuroendocrine levels and risk tolerance. Psychological Science, 21, 1363–1368.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carver, C. & Scheier, M. (1998). On the self-regulation of behavior. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, M. & Bargh, J. (1999). Consequences of automatic evaluation: Immediate behavioural predispositions to approach or avoid the stimulus. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, 215–224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, H. (1973). Space, time, semantics, and the child. In Moore, T. (ed.), Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of Language, 27–63. New York: Academic Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cuddy, A., Wilmuth, C., Yap, A. & Carney, D. (2015). Preparatory power posing affects nonverbal presence and job interview performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100(4), 1286–1295.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Darwin, C. (2009) [1872]. The expression of the emotions in man and animals. New York: Oxford.Google Scholar
de Waal, F. (1998). Chimpanzee politics: Power and sex among apes. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duffy, S. & Feist, M. (2014). Individual differences in the interpretation of ambiguous statements about time. Cognitive Linguistics, 25(1), 29–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duffy, S., Feist, M. & McCarthy, S. (2014). Moving through time: The role of personality in three real life contexts. Cognitive Science, 38(8), 1662–1674.Google ScholarPubMed
Elliot, A. (2006). The hierarchical model of approach-avoidance motivation. Motivation and Emotion, 30(2), 111–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elliot, A. (2008). Approach and avoidance motivation. In Elliot, A. (ed.), Handbook of Approach and Avoidance Motivation, 3–14. New York: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Elliot, A. & Thrash, T. (2002). Approach-avoidance motivation in personality: Approach and avoidance temperaments and goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82(5), 804–818.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Feist, M. & Duffy, S. (2015). Moving beyond next Wednesday: The interplay of lexical semantics and constructional meaning in an ambiguous metaphoric statement. Cognitive Linguistics, 26(4), 633–656.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gentner, D., Imai, M. & Boroditsky, L. (2002). As time goes by: Evidence for two systems in processing space time metaphors. Language and Cognitive Processes, 17(5), 537–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, R. (1994). The Poetics of Mind: Figurative Thought, Language and Understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Harmon-Jones, E. (2003). Anger and the behavioral approach system. Personality and Individual Differences, 35(5), 995–1005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hauser, D., Carter, M. & Meier, B. (2009). Mellow Monday and furious Friday: The approach-related link between anger and time representation. Cognition and Emotion, 23(6), 1166–1180.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Higgins, E. (1997). Beyond pleasure and pain. American Psychologist, 52, 1280–1300.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Keltner, D., Gruenfeld, D. & Anderson, C. (2003). Power, approach, and inhibition. Psychological Review, 110, 265–284.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kövecses, Z. (2000). Metaphor and Emotion: Language, Culture, and Body in Human Feeling. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kranjec, A. (2006). Extending spatial frames of reference to temporal concepts. In Forbus, K., Gentner, D., & Regier, T. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 28th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 447–452. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Margolies, S. & Crawford, L. (2008). Event valence and spatial metaphors of time. Cognition and Emotion, 22(7), 1401–1414.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matlock, T., Holmes, K., Srinivasan, M., & Ramscar, M. (2011). Even abstract motion influences the understanding of time. Metaphor and Symbol, 26, 260–271.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGlone, M. & Harding, J. (1998). Back (or forward?) to the future: The role of perspective in temporal language comprehension. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 24, 1211–1223.Google Scholar
Moore, K. (2006). Space to time mappings and temporal concepts. Cognitive Linguistics, 17, 199–244.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Núñez, R., Motz, B. & Teuscher, U. (2006). Time after time: The psychological reality of the Ego- and Time-Reference-Point distinction in metaphorical construals of time. Metaphor and Symbol, 21, 133–146.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ranehill, E., Dreber, A., Johannesson, M., Leiberg, S., Sul, S., & Weber, R. (2015). Assessing the robustness of power posing: No effect on hormones and risk tolerance in a large sample of men and women. Psychological Science, 26, 653–656.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richmond, J., Wilson, J. & Zinken, J. (2012). A feeling for the future: How does agency in time metaphors relate to feelings? European Journal of Social Psychology, 42(7), 813–823.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seibt, B., Neumann, R., Nussinson, R. & Strack, F. (2008). Movement direction or change in distance? Self-and object-related approach-avoidance motions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44(3), 713–720.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yap, A., Wazlawek, A., Lucas, B., Cuddy, A. & Carney, D. (2013). The ergonomics of dishonesty: The effect of incidental posture on stealing, cheating, and traffic violations. Psychological Science, 24(11), 2281–2289.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed