When what you say about others says something about you: Language abstraction and inferences about describers' attitudes and goals

@article{citeulike:300419, abstract = {According to the linguistic category model (Semin and Fiedler, 1988 and Semin and Fiedler, 1991), a person's behavior can be described at varying levels of abstraction from concrete (e.g., "Lisa slaps Ann") to abstract (e.g., "Lisa is aggressive"). Research has shown that language abstraction conveys information about the person whose behavior is described (Wigboldus, Semin, \& Spears, 2000). However to date, little research has examined the information that language abstraction may convey about describers themselves. In this paper, we report three experiments demonstrating that describers who use relatively abstract language to describe others' behaviors are perceived to have biased attitudes and motives compared with those describers who use more concrete language.}, author = {Douglas, Karen M. and Sutton, Robbie M. }, citeulike-article-id = {300419}, doi = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2005.06.001}, journal = {Journal of Experimental Social Psychology}, posted-at = {2005-11-29 23:21:24}, priority = {2}, title = {When what you say about others says something about you: Language abstraction and inferences about describers' attitudes and goals}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2005.06.001}, volume = {In Press, Corrected Proof} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:300419 L3 - citeulike-article-id:300419 N2 - According to the linguistic category model (Semin and Fiedler, 1988 and Semin and Fiedler, 1991), a person's behavior can be described at varying levels of abstraction from concrete (e.g., "Lisa slaps Ann") to abstract (e.g., "Lisa is aggressive"). Research has shown that language abstraction conveys information about the person whose behavior is described (Wigboldus, Semin, & Spears, 2000). However to date, little research has examined the information that language abstraction may convey about describers themselves. In this paper, we report three experiments demonstrating that describers who use relatively abstract language to describe others' behaviors are perceived to have biased attitudes and motives compared with those describers who use more concrete language. JF - Journal of Experimental Social Psychology TI - When what you say about others says something about you: Language abstraction and inferences about describers' attitudes and goals VL - In Press, Corrected Proof AU - Douglas, Karen AU - Sutton, Robbie UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2005.06.001 ER -