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Gepubliceerd in: Psychological Research 7/2022

24-01-2022 | Original Article

Bodily, emotional, and public sphere at the time of COVID-19. An investigation on concrete and abstract concepts

Auteurs: Claudia Mazzuca, Ilenia Falcinelli, Arthur-Henri Michalland, Luca Tummolini, Anna M. Borghi

Gepubliceerd in: Psychological Research | Uitgave 7/2022

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Abstract

The outbreak of Covid-19 pandemics has dramatically affected people’s lives. Among newly established practices, it has likely enriched our conceptual representations with new components. We tested this by asking Italian participants during the first lockdown to rate a set of diverse words on several crucial dimensions. We found concepts are organized along a main axis opposing internal and external grounding, with fine-grained distinctions within the two categories underlining the role of emotions. We also show through a comparison with existing data that Covid-19 impacted the organization of conceptual representations. For instance, subclasses of abstract concepts that are usually distinct converge into a unitary group, characterized by emotions and internal grounding. Additionally, we found institutional and Covid-19 related concepts, for which participants felt more the need for others to understand the meaning, clustered together. Our results show that the spread of Covid-19 has simultaneously changed our lives and shaped our conceptual representations.
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Metagegevens
Titel
Bodily, emotional, and public sphere at the time of COVID-19. An investigation on concrete and abstract concepts
Auteurs
Claudia Mazzuca
Ilenia Falcinelli
Arthur-Henri Michalland
Luca Tummolini
Anna M. Borghi
Publicatiedatum
24-01-2022
Uitgeverij
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Gepubliceerd in
Psychological Research / Uitgave 7/2022
Print ISSN: 0340-0727
Elektronisch ISSN: 1430-2772
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-021-01633-z

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