ABSTRACT
Metaphor use can satisfy motives to think in certain ways. By knowing how those motives vary in strength across situations and individuals, we can predict variation in metaphoric social cognition.
The previous chapter summarized empirical evidence that conceptual metaphor shapes people’s construal of the social world. We saw that two kinds of situational cues-sensorimotor experiences and exposure to metaphorically framed messages-influence processing of abstract social concepts in ways that parallel conventional linguistic metaphors. These findings back up the core proposition of conceptual metaphor theory: Metaphor is not a “mere” matter of words; it is a cognitive mechanism that plays a vital and far-reaching role in everyday life.
