How intent to interact can affect action scaling of distance: reply to Wilson

Abstract

Reply by the current author to the comments made by T. Soliman et al. (see record 2014-38881-001) on the original article (see record 2014-06437-001). Soliman et al. set out to demonstrate how the bodily level of analysis can unify explanations in psychology. Our argument was that common sensorimotor mechanisms underlie many of the behavioral phenomena that are currently segregated as cognitive, social, or cultural. Toward that end, we re-characterized a cultural construct—self-construal along the dimension of independence and interdependence—as reflecting degree of interaction with ethnically diverse others. The author believe that these subtle design differences render our original results and theoretical arguments immune to Wilson’s critiques. Perceived motor effort to interact with in-groups and outgroups can still be a conceptually valid re-characterizations of the cultural construct of interdependence-independence. And, importantly, when viewed in light of the RMC effects, our results can be categorized as belonging to the same class of phenomena explained by Proffitt’s theoretical framework. We thank Wilson for providing the opportunity for us to develop this account in greater detail, and we look forward to tests of the proposal. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)