Metaphor and Intra-Attitudinal Structural Coherence

Abstract

Metaphor is ubiquitous as a persuasion device although the process by which its effects are achieved is still not yet fully understood. The study proposes that the trope's persuasive outcomes derive from an emergent structural match between linguistic and conceptual metaphor that produces coherence among the structural components of attitude; a literal-only message offers no such match and hence by comparison less attitude coherence. To test this proposition, four hypotheses related to metaphor's effect on attitude and intra-attitudinal structural coherence were tested by manipulating message type (metaphor vs. literal), knowledge of metaphor target/attitude object (low vs. high), and placement of metaphor/literal equivalent (message introduction vs. conclusion). Results provided moderate support for the predictions.