Refine
Has Fulltext
- yes (1)
Is part of the Bibliography
- yes (1)
Year of publication
- 2014 (1)
Document Type
- Doctoral Thesis (1)
Language
- English (1) (remove)
Keywords
- Psychologie (1) (remove)
Institute
- Fakultät für Humanwissenschaften (Philos., Psycho., Erziehungs- u. Gesell.-Wissensch.) (1) (remove)
The present thesis examines embodiment—the body’s influence on psychological processes. Bodily states, perceptions, and actions influence cognitive processes; for example, a heavy backpack makes hills look steeper (Proffitt et al., 2003); and faint odors influence orderliness (Holland, Hendriks, & Aarts, 2005). In Chapter 2, embodiment phenomena are reviewed and classified according to three possible underlying mechanisms. Additionally, empirical tests for distinguishing between the workings of these mechanisms are discussed.
The empirical part of the thesis examines one specific embodiment in more detail, namely embodied cleansing. The basic idea in embodied cleansing is that physical cleansing reduces not only physical but also psychological remnants of the past. For example, Chapter 4 examines whether prosocial behavior after one’s own moral or immoral behavior is changed by embodied cleansing; and Chapter 5 examines how changes in optimism and self-esteem as a result of previous success or failure in an achievement test are reduced by embodied cleansing.
The present thesis examines psychological mechanisms that could explain embodied cleansing. For that, Chapter 3 derives and contrasts two possible explanations for embodied cleansing. Chapter 4 tests the effect of physical cleansing when both explanations make converging predictions (with morally negative memories) compared to when the two explanations make differing predictions (with morally positive memories). However, the results of embodied cleansing on prosocial behavior after (im)moral recall could not be examined as (im)moral recall, against expectations, did not influence prosocial behavior in the present paradigm.
Chapter 5 more closely examines one of the two explanations. For that, different aspects of the act of cleaning one’s hands are varied to examine necessary and sufficient criteria for embodied cleansing. The results show that deliberate cleaning is essential for embodied cleansing; additionally the cleaning action has to refer to one’s own body (and not to an object). Thus, a combination of inferential and automatic processes seem to play a role in embodied cleansing. Finally the results are discussed in relation to other embodiment effects and explanations.