“That’s Bitter!” Culture Specific Effects of Gustatory Experience on Judgments of Fairness and Advancement
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Date
2017
Authors
Xu, Jialiang
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Abstract
In English, unfair treatment and social injustice are often described as “bitter” experiences, but in Chinese “eating bitterness” refers to endurance in the face of hardship. We tested the influence of these metaphors by assessing Canadian and Chinese participants’ responses to a fairness and an achievement scenario after incidental exposure to a bitter, sweet or neutral taste. A bitter taste experience increased Chinese (but not Canadian) participants’ judgments of effort and motivation in the face of hardship (Study 1). Bitter taste also increased perceptions of unfairness for Canadian participants (Studies 1-3) as well as Chinese participants who lived in Canada, provided they were tested in English (Studies 1 and 3) rather than Chinese (Study 3); it did not influence fairness perceptions of Chinese participants who had never lived in an English speaking country (Study 2).
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Keywords
Bitterness, Culture, Conceptual Metaphor, Language