Language Extension in Social Cognition: Personality Impression Judgment as a Cognitive Matching Operation
Trierweiler, Steven
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/69631
Description
Title
Language Extension in Social Cognition: Personality Impression Judgment as a Cognitive Matching Operation
Author(s)
Trierweiler, Steven
Issue Date
1984
Department of Study
Psychology
Discipline
Psychology
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Psychology, Social
Abstract
Most current research in personality impression formation has concentrated on the structural properties of descriptive language removed from specific, naturalistic judgment contexts. In contrast, this study concerns the referential aspects of descriptive language: the process of tying a particular descriptor to a particular experience of a person. It is proposed that this process of verbal meaning extension, especially as manifested in most psychological rating tasks, involves a cognitive matching operation wherein a descriptor is evaluated against the properties of an experimental representation extant in memory. This formulation differs from other current formulations in that it emphasizes the "stimulus-value" of a target as well as the implicit structural properties of a descriptive lexicon. Evidence is presented demonstrating that response latencies for descriptor ratings of targets presented in a realistic videotape vary as a function of independent judgments of the applicability of items. It is further demonstrated that manipulations of encoding strategy, which are designed to affect the representation of a target held in memory, impact this matching operation in a predictable fashion. The theoretical and methodological implications of these results are discussed.
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