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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
The notion that language can shape social perception has a long history in psychology. The current work
adds to this literature by investigating the relationship between ingroup-designating pronouns and perceptions
of familiarity. In two experiments, participants were exposed to nonsense syllables that were
primed with ingroup (e.g., we) and control (e.g., it) pronouns before perceptions of the syllables’ familiarity
(Experiments 1 and 2) and positivity (Experiment 2) were assessed. Because previous work has
shown that ingroup pronouns are perceived positively (Perdue, Dovidio, Gurtman, & Tyler, 1990), and
that positivity can trigger familiarity (e.g., Garcia-Marques, Mackie, Claypool, & Garcia-Marques, 2004;
Monin, 2003), we predicted that syllables primed with ingroup-designating pronouns would be perceived
as more familiar and positive than would syllables primed with control pronouns. These predictions were
confirmed. Additionally, Experiment 2 provided suggestive evidence that the effect of ingroup pronouns
on perceived familiarity is mediated by positivity. Implications of these results for the literatures on how
language shapes intergroup biases and on how positivity triggers feelings of familiarity are discussed.
Description
Keywords
Familiarity Positivity Intergroup relations
Citation
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46, 114-119