Conference Paper

Embodiment of Abstract Concepts in Right- and Left-Handers: A Replication Study

Asil Ali Özdoğru and Şahsenem Sarı

Theory of embodied cognition implies that human thoughts include mental models of bodily experiences. According to the body specificity hypothesis derived from this theory, individuals' different systematic interactions with their physical environment leads to different mental representations. In his test of this hypothesis with five experiments in 2009, Casasanto showed that right- and left-handed individuals made different concrete object preferences and abstract concept evaluations. This study is a direct replication of the first experiment of the original study in a Turkish sample. The study sample consisted of 164 adults, mostly working in the same organization, from İstanbul, Turkey. Nineteen of the participants were left-handed and 145 were right-handed. A paper-pencil questionnaire including demographic questions and the experimental task were administered to participants in their workplace. In the experimental task, participants were presented with a written depiction of a fictional character’s good or bad evaluations of two animals. On the next page, participants were asked to draw the related animals from the character’s point of view in two empty boxes placed next to each other. Our findings showed that 63% (103 out of 164) of all participants placed the good animal on their dominant side. Additionally, 89% (17 out of 19) of left-handers placed the good animal in the left box and 59% (86 out of 145) of right-handers did the same for the right box. These findings were statistically significant as tested by sign tests. These findings indicate that adults associate positive thoughts with their dominant side and negative thoughts with their nondominant side. Successfully replicating Casasanto's findings in a Turkish sample, this study shows that individuals with different body habits develop corresponding mental representations in consistency with predictions of the body specificity hypothesis.

Citation: Özdoğru, A. A., & Sarı, Ş. (2022, July 5-8). Embodiment of abstract concepts in right- and left-handers: A replication study [Conference presentation]. 17th European Congress of Psychology, Ljubljana, Slovenia. https://www.ecp2022.eu

Media: Üsküdar Üniversitesi Psikoloji Bölümü Çalışmalarıyla Avrupa Psikoloji Kongresinde! (2022, Temmuz 7). Üsküdar Haber Ajansı. https://uskudar.edu.tr/tr/icerik/8143/uskudar-universitesi-psikoloji-bolumu-calismalariyla-avrupa-psikoloji-kongresinde