Do you use your head or follow your heart? Self-location predicts personality, emotion, decision making, and performance.

Abstract

The head is thought to be rational and cold, whereas the heart is thought to be emotional and warm. Eight studies (total N = 725) pursued the idea that such body metaphors are widely consequential. Study 1 introduced a novel individual difference variable, one asking people to locate the self in the head or the heart. Irrespective of sex differences, head-locators characterized themselves as rational, logical, and interpersonally cold, whereas heart-locators characterized themselves as emotional, feminine, and interpersonally warm (Studies 1–3). Study 4 found that head-locators were more accurate in answering general knowledge questions and had higher GPAs and Study 5 found that heart-locators were more likely to favor emotional over rational considerations in moral decision-making. Study 6 linked self-locations to reactivity phenomena in daily life –e.g., heart-locators experienced greater negative emotion on high stressor days. Study 7 manipulated attention to the head versus the heart and found that head-pointing facilitated intellectual performance, whereas heart-pointing led to emotional decision-making. Study 8 replicated Study 3’s findings with a nearly year-long delay between the self-location and outcome measures. The findings converge on the importance of head-heart metaphors for understanding individual differences in cognition, emotion, and performance.

Toward a metaphor-enriched personality psychology.

“…Altogether, the findings of Fetterman and Robinson (2013), like those of Meier et al (2012), establish the relevance of metaphoric considerations in understanding personality processes in a manner that greatly extends the earlier results of Meier and Robinson (2006) and .…”

“…It is doubtful whether results of this type would have been found as quickly were it not for the individual difference findings. Similarly, the multiple individual difference findings of Fetterman and Robinson (2013) led to a manipulation study in which individuals pointed to their heads or hearts prior to completing trivia problems and moral Personality Psychology 21 dilemmas. Were it not for the earlier individual difference findings, Study 7 of this paper would not have been conducted.…”

“…-that have hitherto been treated as largely separate literatures. From this perspective, the findings of Fetterman and Robinson (2013) possess an integrative predictive value that is largely unprecedented to the personality literature. Finally, of course, these findings point to the value of a metaphor-informed personality psychology, perhaps even more so than any previous investigations.…”

“…In Study 7 of this (Fetterman & Robinson, 2013) paper, we introduced a cover story which stated that our interest was in understanding responding using one's non-dominant hand. In a betweensubjects manipulation, some individuals were asked to place their dominant index fingers on their temples and others over their hearts, in both cases to eliminate the temptation to use their dominant hands in responding.…”

“…It would therefore be of value to pit different metaphors against each other in the study of individual differences. Fetterman and Robinson (2013) essentially did so by asking individuals whether they thought of the self as a heart-or head-located entity. Individuals differed quite a bit in how the self was conceptualized and such differences had systematic implications for their personality traits, emotionality, thinking styles, and intellectual performance.…”