Visceral Projection Onto Dissimilar Others
Posted: Sat May 12, 2012 11:39 pm
What people feel shapes their perceptions of others. This paper focuses specifically on the assimilative influence of visceral states on social judgment. Replicating prior research, participants who were outside during winter overestimated the extent to which others were bothered by cold (Study 1) and participants who ate salty snacks without water thought others were overly bothered by thirst (Study 2). However, in both studies this effect evaporated when participants judged others who held opposing political views. Participants who judged dissimilar others were unaffected by their own strong visceral drive states. This observation highlights the power of dissimilarity in social judgment. Among various implications, dissimilarity may represent a boundary condition for embodied cognition and inhibit an empathic understanding for shared outgroup pain. These findings reveal the need for a better understanding of how people’s own internal experiences influence their perceptions of the internal worlds of others.
Full Paper: http://www.sitemaker.umich.edu/eob/file ... others.pdf
Full Paper: http://www.sitemaker.umich.edu/eob/file ... others.pdf