Michael L. Slepian

Fluid Movement and Creativity

Cognitive scientists describe creativity as fluid thought. Drawing from findings on gesture and embodied cognition, we hypothesized that the physical experience of fluidity, relative to nonfluidity, would lead to more fluid, creative thought. Across 3 experiments, fluid arm movement led to enhanced creativity in 3 domains: creative generation, cognitive flexibility, and remote associations. Alternative mechanisms such as enhanced mood and motivation were also examined. These results suggest that creativity can be influenced by certain types of physical movement.

Tough and Tender Embodied Categorization of Gender

Emerging evidence has shown that human thought can be embodied within physical sensations and actions. Indeed, abstract concepts such as morality, time, and interpersonal warmth can be based on metaphors that are grounded in bodily experiences (e.g., physical temperature can signal interpersonal warmth). We hypothesized that social-category knowledge is similarly embodied, and we tested this hypothesis by examining a sensory metaphor related to categorical judgments of gender. We chose the dimension of “toughness” (ranging from tough to tender), which is often used to characterize differences between males and females. Across two studies, the proprioceptive experience of toughness (vs. tenderness) was manipulated as participants categorized sex-ambiguous faces as male or female. Two different manipulations of proprioceptive toughness predictably biased the categorization of faces toward “male.” These findings suggest that social-category knowledge is at least partially embodied.

The Physical Burdens of Secrecy

The present work examined whether secrets are experienced as physical burdens, thereby influencing perception and action. Four studies examined the behavior of people who harbored important secrets, such as secrets concerning infidelity and sexual orientation. People who recalled, were preoccupied with, or suppressed an important secret estimated hills to be steeper, perceived distances to be farther, indicated that physical tasks would require more effort, and were less likely to help others with physical tasks. The more burdensome the secret and the more thought devoted to it, the more perception and action were influenced in a manner similar to carrying physical weight. Thus, as with physical burdens, secrets weigh people down.

Mating Interest Improves Women’s Accuracy in Judging Male Sexual Orientation

People can accurately infer others’ traits and group memberships across several domains. We examined heterosexual women’s accuracy in judging male sexual orientation across the fertility cycle (Study 1) and found that women’s accuracy was significantly greater the nearer they were to peak ovulation. In contrast, women’s accuracy was not related to their fertility when they judged the sexual orientations of other women (Study 2). Increased sexual interest brought about by the increased likelihood of conception near ovulation may therefore influence women’s sensitivity to male sexual orientation. To test this hypothesis, we manipulated women’s interest in mating using an unobtrusive priming task (Study 3). Women primed with romantic thoughts showed significantly greater accuracy in their categorizations of male sexual orientation (but not female sexual orientation) compared with women who were not primed. The accuracy of judgments of male sexual orientation therefore appears to be influenced by both natural variations in female perceivers’ fertility and experimentally manipulated cognitive frames.

Relieving the Burdens of Secrecy Revealing Secrets Influences Judgments of Hill Slant and Distance

Recent work demonstrates that harboring secrets influences perceptual judgments and actions. Individuals carrying secrets make judgments consistent with the experience of being weighed down, such as judging a hill as steeper and judging distances to be farther. In the present article, two studies examined whether revealing a secret would relieve the burden of secrecy. Relative to a control condition, thinking about a secret led to the judgments of increased hill slant, whereas revealing a secret eliminated that effect (Study 1). Additionally, relative to a control condition, thinking about a secret led to judgments of increased distance, and again, revealing a secret eliminated that effect (Study 2). Sharing secrets with others might relieve the perceived physical burden from secrecy.

Cognition from on high and down low: Verticality and construal level.

Across 7 studies, the authors examined the relationship between experiences of verticality and abstract versus concrete processing. Experiencing high, relative to low, verticality led to higher level identifications for actions (Study 1), greater willingness to delay short-term monetary gains for larger long-term monetary gains (Studies 2 and 5), and more frequent perceptions of meaningful relationships between objects and categories (Studies 3, 4, and 6), demonstrating that high verticality leads to more high-level construals. Mechanisms of these effects were explored, and the studies present evidence suggesting that mood (Studies 3 and 4), felt power (Study 4), arousal (Study 4), perceptual scope (Study 4), superficial semantic associations (Study 5), and movement (Study 5) do not mediate these effects. Instead, we found that even minimal experiences of verticality influence construal level (Study 6) and that verticality can influence construal level independent of the many plausible mediators. Furthermore, the relationship is reciprocal with abstract and concrete processing influencing the verticality of ones visual perspective (Study 7), suggesting an intimate link between construal level (abstract vs. concrete processing) and experiences of verticality.

Proprioception and Person Perception Politicians and Professors

Social-categorical knowledge is partially grounded in proprioception. In Study 1, participants describing “hard” and “soft” politicians, and “hard” and “soft” scientists used different “hard” and “soft” traits for the two groups, suggesting that the meaning of these traits is context specific. Studies 2 to 4 showed that both meanings were supported by hard and soft proprioception. Consistent with political stereotypes, perceivers viewing faces while handling a hard ball were more likely to categorize them as Republicans rather than as Democrats, compared to perceivers viewing the same faces while handling a soft ball (Study 2). Similarly, consistent with stereotypes of “hard” and “soft” academic disciplines, perceivers were more likely to categorize photographs of professors as physicists than historians when handling a hard versus soft ball (Study 3). Finally, thinking about Republicans and Democrats led participants to perceive a ball as harder or softer, respectively, suggesting that simulating proprioception might aid social-categorical thinking (Study 4).

The Cognitive Consequences of Formal Clothing

Drawing from literature on construal-level theory and the psychological consequences of clothing, the current work tested whether wearing formal clothing enhances abstract cognitive processing. Five studies provided evidence supporting this hypothesis. Wearing more formal clothing was associated with higher action identification level (Study 1) and greater category inclusiveness (Study 2). Putting on formal clothing induced greater category inclusiveness (Study 3) and enhanced a global processing advantage (Study 4). The association between clothing formality and abstract processing was mediated by felt power (Study 5). The findings demonstrate that the nature of an everyday and ecologically valid experience, the clothing worn, influences cognition broadly, impacting the processing style that changes how objects, people, and events are construed.

Gender Moderates the Relationship Between Emotion and Perceived Gaze

Recent evidence shows that gender modulates the morphology of facial expressions and might thus alter the meaning of those expressions. Consequently, we hypothesized that gender would moderate the relationship between facial expressions and the perception of direct gaze. In Study 1, participants viewed male and female faces exhibiting joy, anger, fear, and neutral expressions displayed with direct and averted gazes. Perceptions of direct gaze were most likely for male faces expressing anger or joy and for female faces expressing joy. Study 2 established that these results were due to facial morphology and not to gender stereotypes. Thus, the morphology of male and female faces amplifies or constrains emotional signals and accordingly alters gaze perception.

The experience of secrecy.

The concept of secrecy calls to mind a dyadic interaction: one person hiding a secret from another during a conversation or social interaction. The current work, however, demonstrates that this aspect of secrecy is rather rare. Taking a broader view of secrecy as the intent to conceal information, which only sometimes necessitates concealment, yields a new psychology of secrecy. Ten studies demonstrate the secrets people have, what it is like to have a secret, and what about secrecy is related to lower well-being. We demonstrate that people catch themselves spontaneously thinking about their secrets—they mind-wander to them—far more frequently than they encounter social situations that require active concealment of those secrets. Moreover, independent of concealment frequency, the frequency of mind-wandering to secrets predicts lower well-being (whereas the converse was not the case). We explore the diversity of secrets people have and the harmful effects of spontaneously thinking about those secrets in both recall tasks and in longitudinal designs, analyzing more than 13,000 secrets across our participant samples, with outcomes for relationship satisfaction, authenticity, well-being, and physical health. These results demonstrate that secrecy can be studied by having people think about their secrets, and have implications for designing interventions to help people cope with secrecy.