Who says “larger” and who says “smaller”? Individual differences in the language of comparison
Who says “larger” and who says “smaller”? Individual differences in the language of comparison
复制标题
比较语言中谁说“大”、谁说“小”？
DOI：
10.17863/cam.35346
复制
发表时间：
2018
影响因子：
2.5
通讯作者：
Claire L. McComas
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
W. Skylark;Joseph Carr;Claire L. McComas
当比较一对属性值时，讲英语的人可以使用“较大”比较级（“A比B大/长/高/多”）或“较小”比较级（“B比A小/短/低/少”）。这种选择很重要，因为它影响人们对比较项的绝对大小的推断，并影响比较句本身的真实性。在4项研究（总N = 2335）中，我们调查了人们用来描述属性之间的顺序关系的语言。具体来说，我们研究了人口统计学，情绪和个性是否预测倾向于使用“较大”的比较，而不是“较小”的。参与者观看了在单一属性上不同的成对项目，并指出他们将用来描述它们之间关系的单词;他们还完成了一系列自我报告措施。重复以前的工作，我们发现一个强大的倾向，使用“更大的”比较级，无论是当人们选择两个形容词，当他们自由地产生自己的话在一个句子完成任务。我们还发现，这种倾向在年龄较大的参与者中更为明显，那些具有积极情绪或前景的人，以及那些具有高宜人性，热情和情绪稳定性的人。然而，这些效应非常小，荟萃分析效应大小表明它们解释的方差不到1%。我们的结论是，虽然人们的比较形容词的使用是由被比较的项目的属性的影响，人们描述大小关系的方式是相对稳定的变化在一系列重要的特征和性格，保护决策者从一个潜在的不良来源的偏见，在他们的推断和陈述所描述的选项。
When comparing a pair of attribute values, English speakers can use a “larger” comparative (“A is larger/longer/higher/more than B”) or a “smaller” comparative (“B is smaller/shorter/lower/less than A”). This choice matters because it affects people’s inferences about the absolute magnitudes of the compared items, and influences the perceived truthfulness of the comparative sentence itself. In 4 studies (total N = 2335), we investigated the language that people use to describe ordinal relations between attributes. Specifically, we examined whether demography, emotion, and personality predict the tendency to use “larger” comparatives rather than “smaller” ones. Participants viewed pairs of items differing in a single attribute and indicated the word they would use to describe the relationship between them; they also completed a series of self-report measures. Replicating previous work, we found a robust tendency to use “larger” comparatives, both when people chose between two adjectives and when they freely produced their own words in a sentence completion task. We also found that this tendency was more pronounced in older participants, those with positive mood or outlook, and among people high in agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability. However, these effects were very small, with meta-analytic effect sizes indicating they explain less than 1% of the variance. We conclude that, although people’s use of comparative adjectives is influenced by properties of the items that are being compared, the way that people describe magnitude relations is relatively stable across variation in a range of important traits and dispositions, protecting decision-makers from a potentially undesirable source of bias in their inferences and representations of described options.
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影响因子：
7.6
作者：
Mehl, Matthias R.;Gosling, Samuel D.;Pennebaker, James W.
通讯作者：
Pennebaker, James W.
影响因子：
4.3
作者：
Barr, Dale J.;Levy, Roger;Scheepers, Christoph;Tily, Harry J.
通讯作者：
Tily, Harry J.
影响因子：
7.6
作者：
SCHEIER, MF;CARVER, CS;BRIDGES, MW
通讯作者：
BRIDGES, MW
影响因子：
7.6
作者：
J. M. Digman
通讯作者：
J. M. Digman