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From Which Direction Does the Empire Strike (Back)?

In cultures with left-right-script, agentic behavior is mentally represented as following a left-to-right trajectory, an effect referred to as the Spatial Agency Bias (SAB, Suitner and Maass, 2016). In this research, we investigated whether spatial representations of activities are universal across...

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Autores principales: Halicki, Katharina Theresa, Ingendahl, Moritz, Mayer, Maren, John, Melvin, Schreiner, Marcel Raphael, Wänke, Michaela
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8118385/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33995179
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.625554
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author Halicki, Katharina Theresa
Ingendahl, Moritz
Mayer, Maren
John, Melvin
Schreiner, Marcel Raphael
Wänke, Michaela
author_facet Halicki, Katharina Theresa
Ingendahl, Moritz
Mayer, Maren
John, Melvin
Schreiner, Marcel Raphael
Wänke, Michaela
author_sort Halicki, Katharina Theresa
collection PubMed
description In cultures with left-right-script, agentic behavior is mentally represented as following a left-to-right trajectory, an effect referred to as the Spatial Agency Bias (SAB, Suitner and Maass, 2016). In this research, we investigated whether spatial representations of activities are universal across activities by analyzing the opposite concepts of “attack” and “defense”. Both behaviors involve similar actions (e.g., fighting) but may differ in perceived agency. Moreover “defense” is necessarily always a response to an attack and may therefore be represented by a trajectory in the opposite direction. Two studies found the classic SAB for activities representing attacking but a reduction (Study 1) and reversal (Study 2) for activities involving defense. Although the spatial representation of defense on the right was much weaker and less unequivocal than that of attack on the left, the results suggest that the spatial representations of defense and attack are located in different positions. Apparently not all actors and all activities are spatially represented on the left with a left-to-right trajectory but position and direction depend on the perceived agency. Directions for future research and applications of our findings are discussed.
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spelling pubmed-81183852021-05-14 From Which Direction Does the Empire Strike (Back)? Halicki, Katharina Theresa Ingendahl, Moritz Mayer, Maren John, Melvin Schreiner, Marcel Raphael Wänke, Michaela Front Psychol Psychology In cultures with left-right-script, agentic behavior is mentally represented as following a left-to-right trajectory, an effect referred to as the Spatial Agency Bias (SAB, Suitner and Maass, 2016). In this research, we investigated whether spatial representations of activities are universal across activities by analyzing the opposite concepts of “attack” and “defense”. Both behaviors involve similar actions (e.g., fighting) but may differ in perceived agency. Moreover “defense” is necessarily always a response to an attack and may therefore be represented by a trajectory in the opposite direction. Two studies found the classic SAB for activities representing attacking but a reduction (Study 1) and reversal (Study 2) for activities involving defense. Although the spatial representation of defense on the right was much weaker and less unequivocal than that of attack on the left, the results suggest that the spatial representations of defense and attack are located in different positions. Apparently not all actors and all activities are spatially represented on the left with a left-to-right trajectory but position and direction depend on the perceived agency. Directions for future research and applications of our findings are discussed. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-04-29 /pmc/articles/PMC8118385/ /pubmed/33995179 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.625554 Text en Copyright © 2021 Halicki, Ingendahl, Mayer, John, Schreiner and Wänke. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Halicki, Katharina Theresa
Ingendahl, Moritz
Mayer, Maren
John, Melvin
Schreiner, Marcel Raphael
Wänke, Michaela
From Which Direction Does the Empire Strike (Back)?
title From Which Direction Does the Empire Strike (Back)?
title_full From Which Direction Does the Empire Strike (Back)?
title_fullStr From Which Direction Does the Empire Strike (Back)?
title_full_unstemmed From Which Direction Does the Empire Strike (Back)?
title_short From Which Direction Does the Empire Strike (Back)?
title_sort from which direction does the empire strike (back)?
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8118385/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33995179
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.625554
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