Abstract

The research seeks to further understand the metaphor between social exclusion and coldness. In study 1, participants primed with social exclusion estimated that food contains more calories, compared with participants in the control condition, while in study 2, participants categorized words presented on a computer screen. However, social exclusion words were categorized more quickly in the cold font than in the hot font. These findings are consistent with the embodied cognition theory. The research demonstrates that the priming of social exclusion induces an actual feeling of coldness, and the connection between social exclusion and physical coldness is automatic and unconscious.

Key words: Conceptual metaphor, embodied cognition, social exclusion, temperature, psycholinguistics, social cognition, cognitive psychology.