Differential contributions of linguistic factors to memory-based ratings: Systematizing the systematic distortion hypothesis.

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Abstract
Asserts that the systematic distortion hypothesis, based on a general cognitive bias contention for memory-based ratings of persons, does not account for functional differences between different types of linguistic form. A distinction between immediate terms (e.g., verbs, behaviors) and mediate terms (e.g., adjectives, traits) is offered, and it is argued that these linguistic forms fulfill different functions in the description of behaviors and persons. It is hypothesized that the former terms differentiate features of persons in situations and are not affected by conceptual similarity, whereas the latter are primarily used to interpret persons and are organized by their conceptual relations. 255 undergraduates participated in a study in which types of situations were varied orthogonally to types of persons. Ss judged how likely a particular person was to manifest each of a series of behaviors (immediate terms) in a specific situation, then judged how likely the same person was to manifest specific qualities (mediate terms) in the same situation. Results support the hypothesis and show that while immediate terms differentiated for persons, situations, and persons in situations, their co-occurrence matrices were virtually unaffected by conceptual similarity. A strong conceptual similarity effect was found for mediate terms. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

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