Is Prick of Conscience Associated With the Sensation of Physical Prick?

Xyle Ku,Hyunyup Lee,Jonghwan Lee

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00283

Abstract

“Prick of conscience” is a phrase to express feelings of guilt in both English and Korean. Particularly in South Korea, guilt is metaphorically associated with a sense of touch by pricking. Koreans commonly express feelings of guilt by using the metaphor, “It pricks my conscience.” Across three studies, we examined whether prick of conscience (i.e., feelings of guilt) is grounded in bodily experiences of physical prick (e.g., a needle prick), using a sample of Koreans. Participants who recalled past unethical acts were less likely to choose a needle prick rather than medication as a treatment for indigestion, whereas those who recalled ethical acts presented no significant difference in their willingness to receive either treatment (Study 1). Participants who decided to lie sensed the finger prick deeper and felt more pain as compared to those in the truth group or the control group (Study 2). Lastly, participants who had the finger prick rendered harsher moral judgments than participants in the control condition (Study 3). In line with an embodied cognition framework, these findings suggest that prick of conscience is not just a linguistic metaphor but can be embodied as physical sensations in forms of pricking.

Highlights

Prick of Conscience is regarded as one of the most popular English poems of the Middle Ages (Lewis and McIntosh, 1982)
Given the nature of metaphorical expressions that delivers beyond the literal meaning (Landau et al, 2010; Lakoff, 2012), many scholars support the argument that there is a significant association between bodily experience and emotional experience in, for example, “coldness” (Zhong and Leonardelli, 2008), “comfort food” (Troisi and Gabriel, 2011), “fishiness” (Lee et al, 2015), “heavy-heartedness” (Min and Choi, 2016), “highness” (Schubert, 2005), “warmth” (Williams and Bargh, 2008), and “weight” (Jostmann et al, 2009). These findings propose an intriguing possibility that the metaphorical sense of pricking as in the expression “prick of conscience” may be associated with physical prick
This study was conducted to investigate whether prick of conscience would be grounded in bodily experiences of physical prick, using a sample of Korean participants who were familiar with the metaphorical expression “It pricks my conscience.”

Summary

Introduction

Prick of Conscience is regarded as one of the most popular English poems of the Middle Ages (Lewis and McIntosh, 1982). The English word “prick” metaphorically illustrates disturbed feelings after engaging in guilty acts, as noticed in the metaphor, “prick of conscience,” which expresses feelings of guilt (e.g., Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Merriam-Wester Dictionary). People may express their remorse and penitence by saying, “I feel a prick of conscience,” or “It pricks my conscience.”. This paper investigates a possible relationship between physical prick and emotional prick (i.e., guilt)

Methods

Results

Conclusion