Abstract
The present research examined whether a communicator’s verbal, implicit message regarding a target is used as a cue for inferring that communicator’s social identity. Previous research has found linguistic intergroup bias (LIB) in individuals’ speech: They use abstract language to describe in-group targets’ desirable behaviors and concrete language to describe their undesirable behaviors (favorable LIB), but use concrete language for out-group targets’ desirable behaviors and abstract language for their undesirable behaviors (unfavorable LIB). Consequently, one can infer the type of language a communicator is likely to use to describe in-group and out-group targets. We hypothesized and found evidence for the reverse inference. Across four studies, individuals inferred a communicator’s social identity on the basis of the communicator’s use of an LIB. Specifically, participants more strongly believed that a communicator and target shared a social identity when the communicator used the favorable, rather than the unfavorable, LIB in describing that target.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 94-102 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Psychological Science |
Volume | 27 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jan 1 2016 |
Funding
This work was supported by a fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and a grant from the National Science Foundation (BCS-0921728), both awarded to J. A. Richeson.
Keywords
- attitudes
- intergroup dynamics
- language
- open data
- social cognition
- social perception
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Psychology