Commonality Scores under Instructions to Give Opposites

Association Test Antonym‐response Set1

“…-9- Carroll, Kjeldergaard, and Carton (1962) analyzed free-association test response-class frequencies and concluded that there are t.,O or more alternative response-class sets that Ss bring into the testing situation: a set to give opposite (and possibly also coordinate) associations, and set(s) to give various kinds of nonantonym associations. Moran, Mefferd, and Kimble (1964) The results of the present study, taken together with the conclusions by Moran et al (1964), the results reported by Carroll et al (1962), and the results reported by Kjeldergaard (1962), suggest that there may be a principle of least conceptual effort operating in the free-asssociation situation. This least-conceptual-effort principle is analogous to the least-effort principles that have been shown to apply to other forms of behavior (e.g., Bartlett, 1958, p. 31 ff.…”

“…In the yarious analyses in the present study there was no significant list effect on nonA responses, although there were~effects on A responses. On the other hand, although MP instructions and Me format did increase nonA responses, they did not affect A scores.~l the other hand, Kjeldergaard (1962) indicated that MP instructions elicited more A responses than d.id FA instructions; the data he discussed, however, were from §.s who received both FA and MP instructions, w it h FA first. other data (r(/ynne, 1963) suggest that there may be complex practice effects underlying the divergence between our data and Kjeldergaardfs.…”

Word Association: Variables Affecting Popular-Response Frequency

“…These findings also imply that most-people instructions do not necessarily suggest A responses to~s. Kjeldergaard (1962) drew a parallel between the effects of instructing~s to give antonyms and instructing them to respond as most people would. He found that antonym-set instructions tended to increase the production of popular responses (over the number given under FA conditions) in much the same way as did Jenkins' (1959) most-people instructions.…”

Logical learning theory: A teleological alternative in the field of personality

“…f"*^ĥ d W tSh ( Rhlk 1977 pp 7481) Pnn.it.ve so«e-IS world wide sbaM give pause to those who would sgg Î S cultere bound Eastern thought, if anything, places mofe^n^^J?"" f"*^r easoMDg than does Western tSught (see Rychlak, 1977, pp 74-81) Pnn.it.ve so«eties have also been shown to be heavily dialectwal .n their myths and everyday am-ceptKms readily produce opposite meanings to stimulus words in a word-association task (Karowski & Schachter, 1948, Kjeldergaard, 1962, Supola, Walker, & Kolb, 1955 Oppositionality of meaning has been shown to be a semantic rather than simply a syntactic or lexical feature of words (Brewer & Lichtenstein, 1974, Crossman & Eagle, 1970 Studies have found that antonymy makes rapid recognition of difference possible without the lnvolyed semantic processing required of nonantonymic word-painngs (Hampton & Taylor, 1985, Schyaneyeldt, Durso, & Mukherji, 1982 In studies on transfer of leaming, oppositionality has been shown to facihtate acquisition across lists (Weiss-Shed, 1973, Wickens & Cermack, 1967 Empincal support for dialectical reasoning can be found in the work of Lamiell and his colleagues (see Lamiell, Foss, Larsen, & Hempel, 1983, Lamiell, Foss, Tnerweiler, & Leffel, 1983 Lamiell challenged the associationistic approach to impression formation m which the assumption IS made that the context of meaning whereby such judgments are rendered is due to the calculated memory traces of past inputs (frequency-contiguity thesis) When actually tested on this point, Lamiell's subjects did not behaye in a quasi-cybernetic fashion in the style of associatiye network theory, but rather they created the context of meaning by judging the possibilities m the present circumstances of impression formation and reasoning to the opposite of such likelihood to arnye at a dialectical dimension within which the final decision is rendered The subject does not simply calculate past impressions, amying at a statistical estimate akin to an actuanan, but defines an oppositionally framed dimension and then arrays the target person m this ldiothetic range of jHissibilities…”