Metaphors as Mind Control

In this Psychology Today article from 2011, David DiSalvo shares research that suggests how much the language we frame issues with has a significant impact on how we perceive the issue.  In this experiment, a reader received a news story describing a city's problems as a "virus" or a "beast."  Either way, the metaphor used seemed to direct or condition how the reader understood the city and the way that the reader developed solutions to the problem.

Researchers Paul Thibodeau and Lera Boroditsky from Stanford University demonstrated how influential metaphors can be through a series of five experiments designed to tease apart the "why" and "when" of a metaphor's power.  First, the researchers asked 482 students to read one of two reports about crime in the City of Addison. Later, they had to suggest solutions for the problem. In the first report, crime was described as a "wild beast preying on the city" and "lurking in neighborhoods".

After reading these words, 75% of the students put forward solutions that involved enforcement or punishment, such as building more jails or even calling in the military for help. Only 25% suggested social reforms such as fixing the economy, improving education or providing better health care. The second report was exactly the same, except it described crime as a "virus infecting the city" and "plaguing" communities. After reading this version, only 56% opted for great law enforcement, while 44% suggested social reforms.

Not only did the metaphors frame -- control? -- the readers' responses; the framing was invisible to the readers.  They didn't know that they were being controlled.

When Thibodeau and Boroditsky asked the participants to identify which parts of the text had most influenced their decisions, the vast majority pointed to the crime statistics, not the language. Only 3%  identified the metaphors as culprits.

I know that this is not new.  It's one of the "cognitive biases" explained in Daniel Kahneman's magnum opus, Thinking Fast and Slow.  But every time that I think about it, it stops me in my tracks.