The Effect of Speaker Identity on Metaphor Framing

Abstract

Metaphors are prevalent in our everyday communication because they assist us in expressing and understanding abstract or otherwise difficult topics. In previous studies, metaphor framing has been used to influence the way in which a person thinks about complicated topics: When participants are prompted to respond to questions about a topic, they are more likely to respond with answers that are congruent with the metaphor framing the topic was provided with. The present study investigated whether the social identity of the speaker (gender and ethnicity) affects how well a listener receives the metaphor they are exposed to, and whether this depends on the identity of the listener as well. To test this, the current study replicates a previous experiment that tested metaphor effectiveness across communication modalities by Flusberg, Lauria, and Thibodeau (2018). Participants were presented with a series of short videos in which one of three speakers (Caucasian male, Caucasian female, African-American female) read passages that utilize metaphor framing. Following these vignettes, participants answered short, multiple-choice questions that determined how often they would respond congruently to the metaphors they received. The results show that while metaphor framing has a small-to-medium effect size on congruency, the identity of the speaker made no difference to metaphor congruency.