Selection Bias in Choice of Words: Evaluations of ”I” and ”We” Differ between Contexts, but ”They” are Always Worse
Gustafsson Sendén, Marie ; Sikström, Sverker LU
and Lindholm, Torun
(2014)
In Journal of Language and Social Psychology
33(1).
p.49-67
- Abstract
- In everyday life, people use language to communicate evaluative messages about social categories. We examine a selection bias in language across two social dimensions not previously integrated; a self-inclusive/self-exclusive dimension and an individual/collective dimension. We used pronouns as markers for social categories (I, We, He/she and They), and developed a new measure, the Evaluative Sentence Generating (ESG) task, to investigate the evaluative context selected for the pronouns. Results demonstrate that individuals select a more positive context for self-inclusive than self-exclusive pronouns, and a more positive contexts for individual than collective pronouns. However, in an interpersonal context, evaluative differences between... (More)
- In everyday life, people use language to communicate evaluative messages about social categories. We examine a selection bias in language across two social dimensions not previously integrated; a self-inclusive/self-exclusive dimension and an individual/collective dimension. We used pronouns as markers for social categories (I, We, He/she and They), and developed a new measure, the Evaluative Sentence Generating (ESG) task, to investigate the evaluative context selected for the pronouns. Results demonstrate that individuals select a more positive context for self-inclusive than self-exclusive pronouns, and a more positive contexts for individual than collective pronouns. However, in an interpersonal context, evaluative differences between I and We diminished, whereas in an intergroup condition the evaluative gap between self-inclusive and self-exclusive pronouns was magnified. The ESG-task shows how language is used to form evaluative differences between social categories even in the absence of explicit comparisons or descriptions of specified persons or groups, and that it constitutes a new, simple and effective tool for measuring such biases across a number of domains. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/3768526
- author
- Gustafsson Sendén, Marie
; Sikström, Sverker
LU
and Lindholm, Torun
- organization
- publishing date
- 2014
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- ingroup bias, language, pronouns, Evaluative Sentence Generating, psycholinguistics
- in
- Journal of Language and Social Psychology
- volume
- 33
- issue
- 1
- pages
- 49 - 67
- publisher
- SAGE Publications
- external identifiers
-
- wos:000328608200004
- scopus:84890651828
- ISSN
- 0261-927X
- DOI
- 10.1177/0261927X13495856
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- fdbc6ed9-86b7-442e-8a1b-ec61c274c598 (old id 3768526)
- date added to LUP
- 2016-04-01 11:04:21
- date last changed
- 2022-02-02 23:31:12
@article{fdbc6ed9-86b7-442e-8a1b-ec61c274c598,
abstract = {{In everyday life, people use language to communicate evaluative messages about social categories. We examine a selection bias in language across two social dimensions not previously integrated; a self-inclusive/self-exclusive dimension and an individual/collective dimension. We used pronouns as markers for social categories (I, We, He/she and They), and developed a new measure, the Evaluative Sentence Generating (ESG) task, to investigate the evaluative context selected for the pronouns. Results demonstrate that individuals select a more positive context for self-inclusive than self-exclusive pronouns, and a more positive contexts for individual than collective pronouns. However, in an interpersonal context, evaluative differences between I and We diminished, whereas in an intergroup condition the evaluative gap between self-inclusive and self-exclusive pronouns was magnified. The ESG-task shows how language is used to form evaluative differences between social categories even in the absence of explicit comparisons or descriptions of specified persons or groups, and that it constitutes a new, simple and effective tool for measuring such biases across a number of domains.}},
author = {{Gustafsson Sendén, Marie and Sikström, Sverker and Lindholm, Torun}},
issn = {{0261-927X}},
keywords = {{ingroup bias; language; pronouns; Evaluative Sentence Generating; psycholinguistics}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{1}},
pages = {{49--67}},
publisher = {{SAGE Publications}},
series = {{Journal of Language and Social Psychology}},
title = {{Selection Bias in Choice of Words: Evaluations of ”I” and ”We” Differ between Contexts, but ”They” are Always Worse}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0261927X13495856}},
doi = {{10.1177/0261927X13495856}},
volume = {{33}},
year = {{2014}},
}