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From the physical to the psychological: Mundane experiences influence social judgment and interpersonal behavior

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 October 2010

John A. Bargh ,
Lawrence E. Williams ,
Julie Y. Huang ,
Hyunjin Song  and
Joshua M. Ackerman
John A. Bargh
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520. [email protected]@[email protected]/acmelab
Lawrence E. Williams
Affiliation:
Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309-0419. [email protected]/lw/
Julie Y. Huang
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520. [email protected]@[email protected]/acmelab
Hyunjin Song
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520. [email protected]@[email protected]/acmelab
Joshua M. Ackerman
Affiliation:
Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142. [email protected]/joshack/www/
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Abstract

Mere physical experiences of warmth, distance, hardness, and roughness are found to activate the more abstract psychological concepts that are analogically related to them, such as interpersonal warmth and emotional distance, thereby influencing social judgments and interpersonal behavior without the individual's awareness. These findings further support the principle of neural reuse in the development and operation of higher mental processes.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 33 , Issue 4 , August 2010 , pp. 267 - 268
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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