Cognitive Analysis of Quality of Life Metaphors from the Perspective of Health Promotion Students

The purpose of this study was the cognitive analysis of quality of life conceptual metaphors from the perspective of health promotion students of Tehran University.

This qualitative study was conducted on 35 health promotion students of Tehran Medical University through cognitive analysis in 2021. They were selected by the purposive sampling method. Participants were asked to compare the dimensions of quality of life (WHO-36) to what they perceived. Their conversation was recorded and collected by WhatsApp voice recording. The population of 946 metaphorical phrases was obtained. According to the theoretical saturation rule, 300 phrases were selected purposively.  Phrases and sentences in which the quality of life was metaphorically expressed were manually separated and categorized.

The results showed that there were 8 salient source domains for quality of life. They respectively included object, place or location, path, direction, product, strength and power, human, and money. There were different metaphorical mappings for each source domain. Moving and edible objects were the most mapping for “quality of life is the object”.

It seems that quality of life can be understood and conceptualized as material things according to the embodiment rule. This fact has cultural roots as well. Paying attention to the leads to quality of life promotion.