Based on the assumption that extended metaphor may constitute a case of deliberate metaphor and therefore has the potential to influence people’s opinions, this paper investigates whether extending a metaphorical frame in a text leads people to perceive policy measures that are in line with that frame as more effective for solving a crime problem than other policy measures. The metaphorical frames ‘Crime is a virus’ and ‘Crime is a beast’ were extended in one experiment each via a series of additional conventional metaphorical expressions having crime as the target domain and beasts/viruses as the source domain. Participants (N = 354, Experiment 1; N = 361, Experiment 2) were randomly assigned to one of five experimental conditions with increasing numbers of sentences containing metaphorical expressions, and rated the effectiveness of a set of policy measures to solve the crime problem described in the text. The data yield limited support for our hypothesis. When controlling for political affiliation, the ratings for frame-consistent measures trended in the hypothesised direction in Experiment 2. Experiment 1 yielded a trend for frame-inconsistent measures. These results suggest that metaphorical framing effects may be more subtle than has been assumed.
Cohen, J.A. (1992). A power primer. Psychological Bulletin, 112(1), 155–159.
Entman, R.M. (1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication, 43(4), 51–58.
Faul F., Erdfelder, E., Lang, A.G., & Buchner, A. (2007). G*Power 3: A flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences. Behavior Research Methods, 39(2), 175–191.
Goodall, C.E., Slater, M.D., & Myers, T.A. (2013). Fear and anger responses to local news coverage of alcohol-related crimes, accidents, and injuries: Explaining news effects on policy support using a representative sample of messages and people. Journal of Communication, 63(2), 373–392.
Hartman, T.K. (2012). Toll booths on the information superhighway? Policy metaphors in the case of net neutrality. Political Communication, 29(3), 278–298.
Kalmoe, N.P. (2014). Fueling the fire: Violent metaphors, trait aggression, and support for political violence. Political Communication, 31(4), 545–563.
Krennmayr, T. (2011). Metaphor in newspapers. LOT Dissertation Series, 276. Utrecht: LOT.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Lau, R.R., & Schlesinger, M. (2005). Policy frames, metaphorical reasoning, and support for public policies. Political Psychology, 26(1), 77–114.
Nay, C.G., & Brunson, M.W. (2013). A war of words: Do conflict metaphors affect beliefs about managing “unwanted” plants?Societies, 3(2), 158–169.
Ortony, A. (1975). Why metaphors are necessary and not just nice. Educational Theory, 25 (1), 45–53.
Peer, E., Paolacci, G., Chandler, J., & Mueller, P. (2012). Screening participants from previous studies on Amazon Mechanical Turk and Qualtrics. Unpublished manuscript, retrieved from [URL].
Robins, S., & Mayer, R.E. (2000). The metaphor framing effect: Metaphorical reasoning about text-based dilemmas. Discourse Process, 30(1), 57–86.
Rundell, M. (Ed.). (2002). Macmillan English dictionary for advanced learners. Oxford: Macmillan.
Scherer, A.M., Scherer, L.D., & Fagerlin, A. (2015). Getting ahead of illness: Using metaphors to influence medical decision making. Medical Decision Making, 35(1), 37–45.
Scheufele, D.A., & Tewksbury, D. (2007). Framing, agenda setting, and priming: The evolution of three media effects models. Journal of Communication, 57(1), 9–20.
Schön, D. (1979). Generative metaphor: A perspective on problem-setting in social policy. In A. Ortony (Ed.), Metaphor and thought (pp. 137–163). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Semino, E. (2008). Metaphor in discourse. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Sopory, P., & Dillard, J.P. (2002). The persuasive effects of metaphor: A meta-analysis. Human Communication Research, 28(3), 382–419.
Steen, G.J. (2008). The paradox of metaphor: Why we need a three-dimensional model of metaphor. Metaphor and Symbol, 23(4), 213–241.
Steen, G.J., Reijnierse, W.G., & Burgers, C. (2014). When do natural language metaphors influence reasoning? A follow-up study to Thibodeau and Boroditsky (2013). PLoS ONE, 9(12), e113536.
Tewksbury, D., Jones, J., Peske, M.W., Raymond, A., & Vig, W. (2000). The interaction of news and advocate frames: Manipulating audience perceptions of a local public policy issue. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 77(4), 804–829.
Thibodeau, P.H., & Boroditsky, L. (2011). Metaphors we think with: The role of metaphor in reasoning. PLoS ONE, 6(2), e16782.
Thibodeau, P.H., & Boroditsky, L. (2013). Natural language metaphors covertly influence reasoning. PLoS ONE, 8(1), e52961.
Cited by (27)
Cited by 27 other publications
Schnepf, Julia & Ursula Christmann
2024. “Domestic Drama,” “Love Killing,” or “Murder”: Does the Framing of Femicides Affect Readers’ Emotional and Cognitive Responses to the Crime?. Violence Against Women 30:10 ► pp. 2609 ff.
Gibbs, Raymond W.
2023. Pragmatic complexity in metaphor interpretation. Cognition 237 ► pp. 105455 ff.
2023. Thinking by metaphor, fast and slow: Deliberate Metaphor Theory offers a new model for metaphor and its comprehension. Frontiers in Psychology 14
Vandeleene, Audrey, François Randour, Jérémy Dodeigne, Pauline Heyvaert, Thomas Legein, Julien Perrez & Min Reuchamps
2018. ‘Riots engulfed the city’: An experimental study investigating the legitimating effects of fire metaphors in discourses of disorder. Discourse & Society 29:3 ► pp. 279 ff.
Hart, Christopher
2021. Animals vs. armies. Journal of Language and Politics 20:2 ► pp. 226 ff.
Reuchamps, Min, Jeremy Dodeigne & Julien Perrez
2018. Changing your political mind: The impact of a metaphor on citizens’ representations and preferences for federalism. Regional & Federal Studies 28:2 ► pp. 151 ff.
Van Stee, Stephanie K.
2018. Meta-Analysis of the Persuasive Effects of Metaphorical vs. Literal Messages. Communication Studies 69:5 ► pp. 545 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 25 october 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.