Vertical positions and perceptual symbols of power

Vertical positions and perceptual symbols of power

When people talk about power, they often use metaphors about up and down, like having a high versus low status or seeing over others when you have control. When pictures of a hierarchy are drawn, the most powerful person is usually at the top. These are all examples of the ‘control is up, lack of control is down’ metaphor. Power is metaphorically described as a vertical dimension in physical space. In psychological research, power is defined as the potential to influence others and to promote one’s own goals. In psychology, there are no metaphors about the vertical dimension of power. The writers of this article provide arguments and data that shows that by taking metaphors literally, we can discover what thinking about abstract concepts like power has to do with perception and experience.

Perceptual symbols

In current theories of mental representation, perceptual content is usually neglected. Usually, mental representations are described as nodes that are abstract and a-modal. The idea is that knowledge is represented in the nodes and their connections. Perceptual content is an early input to the representations of concepts in these models and not seen as important for conceptual thinking itself. Recent research on human knowledge and categories proposes that concepts are a lot less abstract than previously thought. Embodied theories of cognition argue that concepts include more perceptual content than we thought before and work from neuropsychology and cognitive psychology support this. The activation of a social stereotype has been shown to cause the unintended mimicry of behaviour that is strongly associated with the stereotyped group. The automatic behaviour is explained by assuming that the mental representation of a group stereotype contains sensory-motor representations.

In some studies, perceptual simulation of space in thinking about concepts is studied. In one study, experimenters asked the participants to verify whether a given object (like a car) had a certain part (roof). To answer, they had to press one of two keys on a vertically mounted keyboard. Affirmative answers had to be given either with a key that required an upward movement of the participant’s arm or with a key that required a downward movement. The results indicated that if there was a fit between the position of the part relative to the object (roof is at the top of car) and the movement of the arm (upward) reactions were quicker. It seems that conceptual thinking involves perceptual simulation. In another study, two words were presented simultaneously. The participants’ task was to judge whether the two were related or not (root and branch). The words were presented above each other. The crucial manipulation was that their order either followed the canonical arrangement (branch is above root) or contradicted (root above branch). Judgments were quicker when the arrangement of the words followed the canonical arrangement of the objects.

In another study, researchers found that positive words were evaluated quicker when they appeared at the top of the screen compared with the bottom of the screen. The opposite was true for negative words. Judging valence seems to involve simulation of a vertical spatial dimension (good is up, bad is down). Another study found that judgments of time and temporal facts are made faster when a preceding judgment has to be made about a horizontal spatial dimension than when it has to be made about a vertical spatial dimension. It seems that abstract concepts, like concrete concepts, are at least partially represented by perceptual symbols that relate the concepts to perceptual content. Conceptual thinking involve the simulation of this content and can therefore be influenced by priming of perceptual input. This supports the idea that power (abstract social concept) includes spatial information about the vertical dimension. So it seems that when we think of power differences, we actually think of spatial differences.

Researchers propose that a perceptual symbol is derived from multiple sources of direct experience. Direct physical experience of vertical difference might be schematized into a perceptual symbol of power. In the animal kingdom, physical size typically correlates with physical strength and the winner of a fight is usually on top. The bigger animal is usually the more powerful. Almost every culture on earth uses vertical markers for authority ranks in their language. Verticality embodies power in many domains. The powerful have the largest house with the highest tower, they sit in an elevated seat and are addressed as ‘Your Highness.’

Study 1

The first study wanted to establish that there really is a shared power = up schema. The study assessed whether being powerful and being powerless is associated with high and low positions in space. Participants got to 18 propositions and they answered for each proposition which one of eight pictures best represented the proposition. In 6 of the propositions, the agent was more powerful than the patient. In another 6 propositions, the agent was less powerful than the patient. Six other propositions described horizontal relations between agent and patient (agent pulls patient). The eight pictures depicted eight possible angles between agent and patient. The hypothesis of the writers was that both powerful and powerless propositions were expected to be vertical rather than horizontal. The angle of a powerful proposition should be larger than 45 degrees and the horizontal proposition’s angle.

The results show that for both powerful and powerless propositions, primarily vertical angles were chosen. Horizontal propositions were primarily horizontal in their angles. The results also indicated that power relations are linked to a vertical schema and the powerful agent is on top of the powerless one.

Study 2

In this study participants saw, in each trial, labels of two social groups above each other on a screen. They had to decide either which one was the powerful one or which one was the powerless group. Each of the pairs was presented twice: once with the powerful group at the top and once with the powerful group at the bottom. Answers were given by pressing up and down keys.

The data indicated that the position on the screen influenced how quickly the task could be solved. Finding the powerful group was faster when it was at the top than when it was at the bottom. Finding the powerless group was faster when it was at the bottom than when it was at the top.

Study 3

The previous study found that powerful groups are judged more quickly as powerful when they are at the top and when this is acknowledged with an up movement. The writers want to know whether the effect is due only to the visual component (being up) or whether the motor component alone can influence thinking about power. This study tested whether judgments of groups’ power could be made more quickly when a compatible movement was necessary to make the judgment. Participants judged groups as powerful or powerless in a reaction time task. They had to use the up cursor key and the down cursor key on a keyboard to make these judgments. There were two blocks. In one block, judgments as powerful had to be given with the up key and judgments as powerless had to be given with the down key (compatible block). In the other block, judgments as powerful had to be given with the down key and judgments as powerless had to be given with the up key (incompatible block).

The results of this study show that judgment of a group as powerful or powerless is easier when the motor response used to answer fits the perceptual symbol of powerful groups as up and powerless groups as down. Judgments of a group as powerful were faster and more accurate when the up cursor key had to be used for the answer then when the down cursor key had to be used. The opposite could be found for powerless groups. It seems that action codes (up and down) are mentally represented as external events (top and bottom). These external event representations on the vertical spatial dimension interact with the power = up perceptual symbol.

Study 4

One researcher argued that motor representations of patterns of possible actions are primary and central for conceptual thinking. The current study tried to demonstrate that visual spatial input alone can influence judgments of power. In each trial, participants had to decide whether the presented group was powerful or powerless. Each group had to be judged twice, because one time it appeared in an upper position on the screen and the other time it appeared in a lower position. To make judgment, participants used left and right cursor keys. Assignment of the keys to the judgments was counterbalanced.

The results of this study showed that powerful groups were judged more quickly as powerful when they appeared in the upper part of the screen compared with when they appeared in the lower part of the screen. This was even the case when effects of the response movement (left or right key) were excluded. For powerless groups, there was no significant difference between the two spatial positions. This last finding could possibly be due to the fact that powerless groups are not seen as low, but as a middle position. Research has to look more into that.

Study 5

Some research suggests that valence and power may be confounded in their symbolization as up in space. Things that are evaluated positively, are often represented as up. So could the powerful groups be represented as up because they are evaluated positively? The previous studies did not support the assumption that powerful groups are evaluated more positively, but the writers of this text wanted to test the valence account. In this study, participants saw the names of both negative and positive groups. Their valance was either self-relevant or other-relevant and they were presented at either the top or the bottom of the screen. Participants had to decide, as quickly as possible, whether the presented group was powerful or powerless. There was also a second part of this study, but in that part participants had to decide whether the presented group was positive or negative.

The results showed that valence did not predict effects of vertical position on power judgments, but power did. Within the negatively evaluated groups, there was a clear difference between those for which the negative valence was self-relevant and those for which the negative valence was other-relevant. Self-relevant negative groups were judged more accurately as powerless when they were presented at the bottom. Other-relevant negative groups were judgment more accurately as positive when they were presented at the top. The power of a group, applied by the relevance of its negative valence, determined effects of spatial position on power judgments. When groups were combined according to power instead of valence, there was a clear interaction of power and spatial position on accuracy. These findings rule out the possibility that valence is behind the effects on power judgments.

Study 6

The writers wanted to know if people attribute more power to an agent just because he or she is on top. In this study, participants had to judge their respect for both powerful and powerless animals. Two lists of animals were created. One half of the participants saw eight of the powerful animals and eight of the powerless animals at the top of the screen, and the other eight powerful and eight powerless animals at the bottom of the screen (List A). For the other participants, assignments of animals to screen position were reversed (List B).

The results showed that participants felt more respect for typically powerful animals (beer) when these appeared at the top of the screen, compared with when they appeared at the bottom of the screen. For powerless animals, there was no effect of vertical position. The writers think that this no-effect for powerless animals is because animals were too clearly powerless.

The results show that thinking about power involves mental simulation of space and that it can be interfered with by perceptions of vertical differences. The concept of power is partly represented in perceptual form as vertical difference.