An Experimental Study Of Within-outside Spatial Metaphor Of College Students’ Peer Relationship

The spatial metaphor mechanism of social relations is formed by human beings in the language environment and body movements,it is a tool for the formation of concepts.It also reveals the inner psychological and social phenomena,in which the within-outside spatial metaphor could be used to describe the concepts of interpersonal relations.The interpersonal relationship of college students,especially the peer relationship,is the object of the main social network of college students,while the social network of Chinese college students is a form of "Differential Mode of Association ",which depends more on the close degree of communication.Based on the theory of " Differential Mode of Association " by Fei Xiaotong,this study took college students as subjects to explore whether the psychological reality of within-outside spatial metaphor of the peer relationship exists in the explicit and implicit levels,and this psychological mechanism was supplemented and proved by the persons-reference effect experiment,which is also based on the Differential Mode of Association.Study 1 was to demonstrate the existence of within-outside spatial metaphor of College Students’ peer relationship from the explicit aspect.Using Inclusion of Other in the Self Scale(IOS),the peer relationship was divided into high,medium and low variables according to the degree of intimacy,then by using a paper-pencil forced-choice task in which participants saw a circle(divided into inside and outside),and were asked to place peer relationship words into the inside or the outside of their own will,the frequency of the peer relationship words in the circle and out of the circle was calculated.The results showed that: the frequency of high intimacy peer relationship words of the inside was significantly higher than that of the outside,the frequency of low intimacy peer relationship words of the outside was significantly higher than that of the inside,while the middle intimate relation words had no spatial trends of internal or external.It indicated that the psychological reality of within-outside spatial metaphor of peer relationship words exists at the conscious level.Study 2 was to demonstrate the existence of within-outside spatial metaphor of College Students’ peer relationship from the implicit aspect.Using Inclusion of Other in the Self Scale(IOS),the peer relationship was divided into high,medium and low variables according to the degree of intimacy.By using the word judgment task,reaction time that participants determined the different relation words in different positions(center,edge and peripheral of circle)was calculated,The results showed that:the reaction of high intimacy words appeared in the circle and at the edge of the circle was significantly faster than out of the cicle,while the reaction of middle intimate relation words and low intimacy words did not emerge the difference.It indicated that thepsychological reality of within-outside spatial metaphor of peer relationship words exists at the subconscious level,which is manifested in “Intimacy is inside”.Study 3 combined with Study 1 and Study 2,four reference conditions(Self,Friend,Class cadre,E-pal)was arranged,and this study adopted the R/K paradigm in Self-Reference Effect,the results showed that:the R judgement rate of self reference was higher than that of friend,class cadre and e-pal,and the R judgement rate of friend was higher than that of class cadre and e-pal.It indicated that,the self-reference effect and the intimate persons(friend)-reference effect does exist,that is to say,the memory advantage was appeared in “Intimacy is inside”relational objects,and the boundary point was between high intimacy and middle intimacy.In this study,three experiments had been made to find out that the mechanism of withinoutside spatial metaphor of college students’ peer relationship does exist,conscious level and subconscious level,but in the later level,it appeared that " Intimacy is inside and alienation is not always outside " ——the imbalances of metaphor.Moreover,in experiment of the reference effect,only the intimacy related words of the peer relationship had corresponding memory advantages,the consistency between these two lies in high intimacy.