{"id":63197,"date":"2014-12-30T09:00:53","date_gmt":"2014-12-30T14:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=63197"},"modified":"2015-09-01T21:38:57","modified_gmt":"2015-09-02T02:38:57","slug":"thats-fishy-from-scent-to-suspicion-and-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2014\/12\/30\/thats-fishy-from-scent-to-suspicion-and-back\/","title":{"rendered":"That’s Fishy: From Scent to Suspicion and Back"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"2\"<\/a>Earlier this year I reviewed a study<\/a> that found that, simply by changing the weight of an object in hand, psychologists can manipulate how seriously a person\u00a0takes an issue. \u00a0In other words, when holding something heavy, matters seem heavy. \u00a0Or, concerns seem weightier when one is weighed down.<\/p>\n

Thanks to an email from USC professor Norbert Schwarz, I was introduced to a whole\u00a0series of studies on what psychologists call metaphorical effects<\/em>. \u00a0These are instances in which a metaphor commonly used\u00a0to describe<\/em> a psychological state\u00a0or social reality can, in turn, induce<\/em> that state or reality. \u00a0So, for example, holding a warm cup of coffee makes people feel warmly toward each other (here<\/a>), getting the cold shoulder makes people feel cold (here<\/a>), people placed in a high location seem to be high in a hierarchy (here<\/a>), and cleaning one’s hands makes a person feel morally clean (here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Schwarz was the co-author, with Spike W.S. Lee, on another example of a metaphorical effect. \u00a0They wanted to know if smelling something fishy made people suspicious. \u00a0It did<\/a>!<\/p>\n

Asked to participate in a fake study on whether they’d be willing to invest money in a scheme, subjects who were exposed to a fishy smell invested less than those exposed to no smell and less than those exposed to another<\/em> icky smell that was\u00a0“metaphorically irrelevant”: fart.<\/p>\n

From sensory perception to psychological state. \u00a0Boom.<\/p>\n

\"1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Lee and Schwarz were also interested in the reverse process. \u00a0Did being suspicious increase the likelihood that they would identify<\/em> a fishy smell as fishy. \u00a0Sometimes smells can be hard to figure out, but when people are\u00a0primed with the answer, they are more likely to get it right. \u00a0Would the metaphorical effect work in the other direction: from psychological state to sensory perception?<\/p>\n

They asked another group of subjects to sniff\u00a0five different vials and attempt to label each\u00a0smell. \u00a0Half the time, they induced suspiciousness by having the experimenter say: “Obviously, it\u2019s a very simple task and,\u00a0you know, there\u2019s . . . there\u2019s nothing we\u2019re trying to hide here.\u201d \u00a0The\u00a0experimented\u00a0would then spot a document on the table, whisk it away nervously and repeat:<\/p>\n

Sorry, it shouldn\u2019t\u00a0have been there. But . . . ahem . . . anyway. Where was I? Oh yes,\u00a0it\u2019s all very simple. There\u2019s nothing we\u2019re trying to hide or anything.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Did subjects induced to be suspicious identify the fishy smell correctly more often? \u00a0Yep!<\/p>\n

\"2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This is a fun literature, but it has serious implications. \u00a0It reveals that the associations we have in our minds impact how we perceive the world and each other.<\/p>\n

Sociologists believe that essentially all of life is socially constructed, meaning that we collectively learn and internalize\u00a0arbitrary connections between things: like being male and computing or being black and athleticism. \u00a0These connections literally structure our brain, such that thinking about one is likely to trigger thoughts of the other.<\/p>\n

Fishy and suspicious are connected in our minds and, so, when we are exposed to one, we are more likely to experience the other. \u00a0In other cultures, Lee and Schwarz point out, it is not fishiness, but other smells that are associated with suspicion. \u00a0These things are not natural or universal, but they\u00a0drive our perceptions nonetheless.<\/p>\n

Cross-posted at Pacific Standard<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this year I reviewed a study that found that, simply by changing the weight of an object in hand, psychologists can manipulate how seriously a person\u00a0takes an issue. \u00a0In other words, when holding something heavy, matters seem heavy. \u00a0Or, concerns seem weightier when one is weighed down. Thanks to an email from USC professor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":63198,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[23384,329,675,293,23622,37],"class_list":["post-63197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-social-construction-discourselanguage","tag-emotion","tag-psychology","tag-social-construction","tag-social-construction-symbols","tag-social-psychology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2014\/07\/1.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63197"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65559,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63197\/revisions\/65559"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}