Temperature-Based Metonymies for Emotions in Children and Adults

Research with adults has found consistent metonymic mappings between emotions and temperature (e.g., anger is metonymically described with heat). The present study investigated the development of these relationships in early middle childhood. 30 7-yr.-olds, 30 9-yr.-olds, and 60 adults (M age = 18 yr., 3 mo.) matched the emotions of anger, fear, sorrow, love, hate, happiness, embarrassment, and shame to the temperature dimension. Age-related differences in the mappings were observed for all emotions except fear. Findings are discussed in terms of Kovecses' analyses of temperature-emotion metonymies in adults.