Do you use your head or follow your heart?: Self-location predicts personality, emotion, decision making, and performance

• Autores: Adam K. Fetterman, Michael D. Robinson
• Localización: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, ISSN 0022-3514, ISSN-e 1939-1315, Vol. 105, Nº. 2, 2013, págs. 316-334
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The head is thought to be rational and cold, whereas the heart is thought to be emotional and warm. In 8 studies (total N = 725), we pursued the idea that such body metaphors are widely consequential. Study 1 introduced a novel individual difference variable, one asking people to locate the self in the head or the heart. Irrespective of sex differences, head-locators characterized themselves as rational, logical, and interpersonally cold, whereas heart-locators characterized themselves as emotional, feminine, and interpersonally warm (Studies 1-3). Study 4 showed that head-locators were more accurate in answering general knowledge questions and had higher grade point averages, and Study 5 showed that heart-locators were more likely to favor emotional over rational considerations in moral decision making. Study 6 linked self-locations to reactivity phenomena in daily life --for example, heart-locators experienced greater negative emotion on high stressor days. In Study 7, we manipulated attention to the head versus the heart and found that head-pointing facilitated intellectual performance, whereas heart-pointing led to emotional decision making. Study 8 replicated Study 3's findings with a nearly year-long delay between the self-location and outcome measures. The findings converge on the importance of head�heart metaphors for understanding individual differences in cognition, emotion, and performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved)