Two studies compared explicit and implicit vertical gender-space associations in Bai Taoists vs. Bai Azhaliists (a Vajrayana Buddhist lineage) in southwestern China, testing whether religious practice shapes the "male is up" metaphor.
Bai Taoists showed the conventional "male is up" metaphor both explicitly (Study 1) and implicitly (Study 2 — faster encoding of male faces at high positions). Bai Azhaliists reversed this pattern, showing a "female is up" association on both measures — an effect not explained by power or valence differences between genders in that group.
Sample size is not reported in the abstract; findings are specific to two religious subgroups of a single ethnic minority and may not generalize broadly. The study is cross-sectional, so causality between religious practice and metaphor reversal cannot be confirmed.
