Weight matters: The role of physical weight in non-physical language across age and culture

Languages commonly use physical properties to discuss distinctly non-physical states and events in the world (e.g., “I'm not a huge fan of licorice”). Here, we investigate the degree to which associations between physical properties and abstract concepts are culturally specific constructs. To do this, we tested three distinct populations-US adults, US children, and adults from an indigenous group in the lowlands of Bolivia, the Tsimane'-on their associations between the physical concept of weight and a variety of abstract attributes (e.g., importance, emotional state, moral worth). We find a strong relationship between the associations of US and Tsimane' adults, but little-to-no relationship between US children and either adult population. These results suggest that the property of weight plays a similar role in everyday thought across cultures, but that it takes time to develop. Further, we found that these associations could not be recovered from a simple semantic embedding analysis, suggesting that the cross-culturally shared connections between physical and abstract attributes may be learned through more complex experiences than language alone.