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A downside of conceptual metaphor: metaphoric alignments of black and white
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

A downside of conceptual metaphor: metaphoric alignments of black and white

Frank H Durgin, Safietou Marième Diop, Jessica Lewis-Owona and Olivia Eaton
Cognitive research: principles and implications, Forthcoming
18 Jun 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-026-00739-5
PMID: 42313212
url
https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-026-00739-5View
Published, Version of Record (VoR) Open

Abstract

Metaphor Race Implicit association test
Conceptual metaphor theory supposes that metaphor underlies much of human understanding. The implicit association test (IAT) has recently been used to quantify metaphoric alignments, like black and white, that may also be associated with racial bias. Here, in six experiments, we studied the extent to which performance on the controversial race IAT might be attributed to metaphoric alignments of white and black, such as with good and evil. Experiment 1 replicates a prior report that IAT scores for black-white color alone are as strong as those associated with race. Experiment 2 shows that, for White participants, measured biases are just as strongly correlated between race and color IATs as between two different instances of the race IAT. Experiment 3 shows that metaphor-based color biases measured by IATs are just as strong among people who identify as Black as those who identify as White. Experiments 4 and 6 show that correlations between race and color IAT scores extend to Black participants. Experiment 5 shows that white-positive bias on a variety of color IATs is related to the figurative affective meanings of colors, not to literal color preferences or to explicit racial bias. Experiment 6 showed that variations in the figurative affective meanings of colors predicts within-group variation in scores on the race IAT. Across all experiments that tested both color and race IATs, variation in performance on a black-white color IAT (but not a blue-gray color IAT) was the strongest predictor of variation in performance on the Black-White race IAT.

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