Their Sincerity, Not My Certainty: Effect of Visual Transparency on Perceived Truthfulness

Abstract

The concept of transparency is used to talk about objects, processes, and people. Drawing on social cognition and metaphor research, the present thesis investigates the metaphorical transparency of others, or the extent to which an observer believes to be accurately inferring a person’s dispositions. Consistent with the everyday use of the transparency metaphor, we hypothesize that the perceived accuracy of one’s own inferences will be higher for observers who view a metaphorically-transparent person, than for observers who view a metaphorically-opaque person. Three studies test and reject this hypothesis, but provide mixed evidence that the perceived truthfulness of others varies in a metaphor-consistent way. We discuss how this finding fits into existing theories of metaphor and cognition and discuss avenues for further research. Keywords: transparency, metaphor, social cognition