Here’s a fascinating paper by Lera Boroditsky about how subtle metaphors influence the way we think about situations. Iirc, participants were asked to read a sentence about crime; in some versions, crime was described as a “virus”, and in others crime was described as a “beast”. People were then asked how they would stop the crime; the people who heard the different metaphors responded in different ways, but they were not conscious of how much the metaphor had influenced their response.
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0016782
Here’s a fascinating paper by Lera Boroditsky about how subtle metaphors influence the way we think about situations. Iirc, participants were asked to read a sentence about crime; in some versions, crime was described as a “virus”, and in others crime was described as a “beast”. People were then asked how they would stop the crime; the people who heard the different metaphors responded in different ways, but they were not conscious of how much the metaphor had influenced their response.
Interesting. Could be related to anchoring.