How, at a fundamental level, do people construe their social world? Mainstream perspectives on social cognition posit that we do so largely by applying hierarchically structured concepts (or schemas) about similar classes of people and events to selectively interpret and elaborate on the complex array of social information. In this dissertation I propose a complementary perspective according to which people lend meaning to the social world in large part through conceptual metaphors that use the structure of familiar, typically concrete concepts to reason about and evaluate information in dissimilar, typically more abstract conceptual domains. I describe a model of metaphor-enriched social cognition (MESC) that provides a preliminary framework for understanding the role of conceptual metaphor in everyday social thought and action. I review research supporting hypotheses derived from the model with respect to the effects of conceptual metaphor on social perception, attitudes, and behavior, and I present four studies designed to further test these hypotheses. Study 1 shows that the sensation of being physically burdened increased the subjective obligatory nature of everyday activities. Study 2 shows that images depicting historically significant people and events (both positively and negatively valenced) were perceived as larger in size than those depicting historically insignificant people and events. In Study 3, priming participants with the beneficial consequences of physical covering led to more permissive attitudes toward the government withholding information from the public, and this effect was specific to those with ambivalent prior attitudes toward the value of governmental secrecy. Study 4 showed that a heightened motivation to protect one's own body from contamination led to harsher attitudes toward immigrants entering the United States among those subtly primed to conceptualize the country as a body but not those primed with a literal conception of the country. Although further research and theoretical refinement are necessary, the MESC model is a step toward acquiring a richer, more general conception of everyday social meaning-making and its implications for social life.

The present work examined subjects' performance on eight types of four word analogy problems. Two critical dimensions distinguish among these analogy types: specificity and inclusiveness. Whole-part analogies such as hand : palm as foot : sole (read hand is to palm as foot is to sole) are specific because the association appearing in the two word pairs consist of spatial/functional relationships which are highly similar to each other. In contrast, analogies such as car : wheel as boat : mast are nonspecific because they use whole-part associations which are less similar to each other. Analogies are inclusive if they use relatively direct associations, as in the whole-part association illustrated by car : wheel. In contrast, noninclusive analogies require additional inferences between words, as illustrated in the part-part association bumper: wheel, which requires the object car to be inferred. Responses from undergraduate university subjects show that both inclusive and specific analogy problems were solved more quickly than their noninclusive and nonspecific counterparts, respectively. Experiment 1 illustrated these specificity and inclusiveness effects both in a recognition (multiple choice) paradigm, and a recall paradigm where subjects spoke their own answer choices aloud. Subsequent experiments were performed to examine the role of the association types and the role of word attributes in subjects' processing of these analogy problems. Experiment 2 attempted to prime subjects with the association type used in each block of analogy problems, but showed a very modest effect on solution latencies. In Experiment 3 reordering the words within analogy problems unexpectedly increased the latencies for many problems, apparently because different words appeared in the third word positions within them. Experiments 4 and 5 focussed directly on the study of specificity. Experiment 4 showed that the processing benefit found for specific analogies is due to the close match of word attributes between word pairs, not due to the attributes of the particular words used. Experiment 5 manipulated the taxonomic similarity of the subject matter addressed by the two pairs of words, and found that the use of word pairs from more taxonomically distant subject areas increased solution latencies for some analogy types. Experiment 6 required subjects to group analogy problems into categories they defined. This procedure validated six of the eight analogy types used in this thesis; the specificity distinction was not evident among the groups of problems formed by subjects. The discussion of these results supports a theoretical model of problem solving four word analogies which incorporates a stage-like, componential processing for nonspecific types, and a faster, more automatic processing for specific types. The discussions of empirical and theoretical work in this thesis also focussed more widely on its relevance to more practical uses of analogies in problem solving.

Since Plato's time, there have been attempts to show that the generally altruistic way of life is superior to the totally selfish way of life. Drawing upon the conclusions of philosophers and social psychologists, I argue that it is better to have a fairly moral character than a totally selfish one. I first argue that it is possible to have genuinely altruistic motivations (rather than disguised selfish motivations). I then show that both the altruistic and the selfish way of life are genuine choices for rational beings. Next I argue that the nature of values is such that they require reinforcement from others in order for us to verify that what we believe to be values are indeed values. I further argue that values are unattainable for the totally selfish person. Subsequently, I point out that values are necessary for an agent to have a meaningful life, and very likely necessary for a human to be able to have a sense of self. Since most people desire to have a meaningful life and a sense of self, I argue that the benefits possible to the fairly moral person outweigh the benefits possible to the totally selfish one, even if the latter can disguise her selfishness completely.

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Mothers with cancer are required to make medical and social decisions while attempting to balance their own physical, psychological and social needs with the needs of their children. To explore the decision-making process, in-depth interviews were conducted with 7 mothers with a cancer diagnosis and children aged birth to 6 years. They were asked to describe: 1) types of decisions; 2) process they used to make decisions; 3) conditions of their lives; 4) meanings assigned to their decisions. The grounded theory method was used. The driving force behind decision-making was the mothers’ desire to maintain the mother-child bond, influenced by the context of their lives. Making decisions to maintain the mother-child bond involved managing: 1) distance; 2) physical changes; 3) the information shared; and 4) the ongoing chain of decisions. The findings have implications for improving the quality and usefulness of psychosocial supports for mothers with cancer and their families.

Mothers with cancer are required to make medical and social decisions while attempting to balance their own physical, psychological and social needs with the needs of their children. To explore the decision-making process, in-depth interviews were conducted with 7 mothers with a cancer diagnosis and children aged birth to 6 years. They were asked to describe: 1) types of decisions; 2) process they used to make decisions; 3) conditions of their lives; 4) meanings assigned to their decisions. The grounded theory method was used. The driving force behind decision-making was the mothers’ desire to maintain the mother-child bond, influenced by the context of their lives. Making decisions to maintain the mother-child bond involved managing: 1) distance; 2) physical changes; 3) the information shared; and 4) the ongoing chain of decisions. The findings have implications for improving the quality and usefulness of psychosocial supports for mothers with cancer and their families.

This thesis is a study of the theory of meaning developed by the seventeenth century Indian Naiyāyika philosopher Gadādhara Bhaṭṭācārya. It has four chapters and an appendix. In chapter 1, I highlight some of the problems about meaning and reference thematised by the Indian philosophical tradition during its 'classical' period (third century B.C.E. to seventh century C.E). The work of the earliest grammarians proved very influential We tend to associate the name of the grammarian Vyddi with the origins of the study of singular reference in classical India, and I look at his theory, the problems it faced, and the innovations of early Nyāya, Mimāṃsā and grammarian authors. In the second chapter, I discuss Gadādhara's analysis of the semantics of nominal stems, his construction of a 'two-component' theory of meaning, and his criticisms of the work of earlier Navya-Naiyāyikas, especially Vardhamāna and Raghunātha. The main theme of this debate concerns the failure of a realist or referential theory of meaning to serve as a complete theory of meaning, one which recognises both the intensional and the context-invariant elements in the meaning of nominal expressions. The third chapter deals with Gadādhara's theory of anaphoric pronouns. I argue in particular that Gadādhara's use of a two-component meaning theory enables him to construct a theory ofpronouns which significantly improves on the proposals of earlier Navya-Nyāya authors. In the fourth chapter, I discuss the epistemological dimension to the Nyāya conception of language; the Nyāya doctrine that linguistic competence consists in the knowledge of a compositional meaning theory; the role of convention in the Nyāya theory, and their thesis that conventions are grounded in the authority of the name-giver. I have added an appendix in which I examine the technical language by means of which Gadādhara is able to give his arguments great precision. I show that this language can be translated into a certain fragment of quantified first-order predicate logic.

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Typescript. / Bibliography: leaves 102-110. / vii, 110 l tables