Date of Award

Fall 12-2007

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

Committee Chair

Dr. William Lyddon

Committee Chair Department

Psychology

Committee Member 2

Dr. Darlys Alford

Committee Member 2 Department

Psychology

Committee Member 3

Dr. Jamie Aten

Committee Member 3 Department

Psychology

Committee Member 4

Dr. William Wagner

Committee Member 4 Department

Psychology

Committee Member 5

Dr. James T. Johnson

Abstract

This study was designed to explore the influence of worldview orientation, psychoepistemological commitments, and emotional expressivity on the production of metaphors. Participants were asked to describe emotionally relevant experiences through a written narrative in order to elicit metaphors. The metaphors were then categorized by a panel of therapists trained in Pepper’s (1942) root metaphor theory and classification of root metaphors. The Organicism-Mechanism Paradigm Inventory (OMPI), Psychoepistemological Profile (PEP), and Berkeley Expressivity Questionnaire (BEQ) were administered to participants in order to respectively measure worldview, psychoepistemology, and emotional expressivity. A canonical correlation revealed that worldview, epistemological preference, and emotional expressivity explained about four percent of the variance of the total number and type of metaphors produced. In addition, the type and number of metaphors used explained approximately three percent of the variance in worldview, epistemological preference, and emotional expressivity. Another outcome of this study was that the subjectivity of metaphor usage and metaphoric thinking did not lend itself well to the use of a quantitative design.

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