An Empirical Demonstration of the Implausibility of the Semantic Similarity Explanation of How Trait Ratings Are Made and What They Mean

The systematic distortion hypothesis argues that the pattern of correlations among trait ratings can be explained by the semantic similarity of the trait terms. This contrasts with the position that raters more or less accurately and reliably describe others' characteristics when making trait r...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of personality and social psychology 1986-03, Vol.50 (3), p.595-601
Main Authors: Weiss, Daniel S, Mendelsohn, Gerald A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biological and medical sciences
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Human
Hypotheses
Interrater Reliability
Personality
Personality Measures
Personality Traits
Psychology
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Psychometrics
Psychometrics. Statistics. Methodology
Rating
Ratings & rankings
Semantics
Social research
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Summary:The systematic distortion hypothesis argues that the pattern of correlations among trait ratings can be explained by the semantic similarity of the trait terms. This contrasts with the position that raters more or less accurately and reliably describe others' characteristics when making trait ratings. The data presented in this study are offered in refutation of the systematic distortion hypothesis as an explanation of how trait ratings are made. Ratings obtained from a procedure that prevented preexisting conceptual networks from influencing them were compared to ratings obtained using standard procedures. Whether the rating procedure permitted or precluded systematic distortion effects, the descriptions of a set of target persons were very similar, that is, the target persons were described in essentially the same way regardless of the degree to which semantic similarity mechanisms could have operated. We concluded that it is not possible to explain the relationships among traits on the basis of the "unwitting" substitution of a model of conceptual association for the description of actual patterns of behavior.
ISSN:0022-3514
1939-1315
DOI:10.1037/0022-3514.50.3.595