Abstract
Correlational techniques were used to assess the relative influence of positively and negatively evaluated adjectives representing two different dimensions of evaluation (sociability and responsibility) on evaluations of sets containing those adjectives. Relative influence was determined by comparing zero-order correlations between individual evaluations of adjectives and evaluation of sets; the adjective whose evaluation, across people, was most similar to the evaluation of the set was considered as having the greatest influence. Among consistently positive sets, sociability had the greater influence, and among consistently negative sets, responsibility had the greater influence. Among sets combining both positive and negative attributes, the negatively evaluated traits in general had the greater influence. However, this latter effect could be attributed to the influence of negative descriptions on the responsibility dimension only. These results suggested that evaluative decisions differed in social distance as a function of the evaluative nature of the set.
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Bryson, J.B. Relative influence of evaluative sign and evaluative dimensions in impression formation. Psychon Sci 27, 333–334 (1972). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03328981
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03328981