Cultural Influence on Spatial and Weight Metaphors in Processing Gender Concepts of Kinship Terms: Evidence from the Yi, Bai, and Mosuo Peoples
This study examines how culture shapes spatial and weight metaphors for gender concepts in kinship terms, comparing Yi, Bai, and Mosuo ethnic groups, which differ in gender-role traditions (patriarchal, mixed, and matrilineal, respectively). Experiment 1 tested vertical spatial metaphors: Yi participants responded faster to "male-up/female-down" pairs; Bai participants showed this pattern only for elder-generation kinship terms; Mosuo participants responded slower to "male-up/female-down" pairs, reflecting their matrilineal culture. Experiment 2 used gender concepts to prime weight judgments, finding congruency effects: for Yi, male terms activated "heavy" and female terms activated "light"; for Mosuo, the reverse occurred; Bai showed no significant difference. Experiment 3 reversed the priming direction, with weight concepts activating gender concepts, yielding parallel culture-specific patterns for Yi and Mosuo but null effects for Bai. Overall, findings demonstrate that gender culture significantly influences spatial and weight metaphors underlying kinship-term gender processing, providing strong evidence for the cultural specificity of metaphor.
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