Abstract
Previous research has shown that representation of certain social-category knowledge, such as that regarding gender, involves the process of perceptual simulation. The present research extended these findings and explored whether social categorization based on wealth, which is an important dimension of social categorization, involved perceptual simulation of spatial size. In Experiment 1, we used high- and low-income occupations as stimuli; categorization of high-income occupations presented in larger font was faster relative to that of those presented in small font, and vice versa for low-income occupations. In Experiments 2, 3, and 4, we used high-income occupations without social power and low-income occupations, names designated as those of rich and poor people, and idioms describing wealth and poverty as stimuli, respectively. All three experiments showed that responses to wealth-related stimuli in larger font were faster relative to those to the same stimuli in small font, and vice versa for poverty-related stimuli. These results suggest that social categorization based on wealth is grounded in perceptual simulation of spatial size.
Highlights
Models of grounded cognition assume that cognitive representations of concepts include sensory, motor, and introspective states, which are activated via simulations (Barsalou, 1999, 2008)
This research indicated that groups with high and low social power were associated with perceptual simulations of vertical position and spatial size, the findings only indicated that sensorimotor processes could influence the process of power judgment rather than the process of social categorization
We proposed that the social categorization process based on wealth, which is an important social categorization dimension (Leahy, 1981; Harvey and Bourhis, 2013), may involve sensory metaphors of different spatial sizes, and the aim of the current study was to determine whether perceptual simulation of spatial size would affect the categorization of the rich and the poor
Summary
Models of grounded cognition assume that cognitive representations of concepts include sensory, motor, and introspective states, which are activated via simulations (Barsalou, 1999, 2008). Researchers found that a fundamental social-cognitive process, social categorization, was represented by sensorimotor activity, and cognitive representations of social categories, such as gender and political persuasion, were grounded in perceptual simulation and sensorimotor activity (Slepian et al, 2011, 2012; Zhang et al, 2014; Slepian, 2015). Exploring the connection between the social categories of the rich and the poor and the perceptual simulation of the spatial size dimension is an important research issue on embodied cognition and social cognition (Cloutier et al, 2005; Macrae et al, 2005; Slepian et al, 2011)
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