Reification

Experience of the physical world, including the people in it, tends to be described in terms of bounded objects having some substance.

Experience of the psycho-cultural world, including the personalities, groups and bodies of knowledge in it, may be described in terms of bounded objects. Understanding experience in terms of objects and substances allows parts of experience to be selected out and treated as discrete entities or substances of a uniform kind.

The ubiquity of the reification process.

There is widespread recognition of personalities, groups, concepts and belief systems as substantive entities, even when their boundaries have been artificially imposed to render the phenomena adequately discrete. Problems are typically treated as distinct entities ('Inflation is endangering our economy') as are values ('Peace will bring prosperity for all'). Physical and emotional states within a person are also frequently treated as entities ('She has a pain in her chest'). Such metaphorical approaches are used in the attempt to deal rationally with complex experiences.

Variety of entities enated by reification.