CONDITIONED ATTRACTION, SIMILARITY, AND EVALUATIVE MEANING
Abstract
Recent S-R formulations have indicated that similarity between persons functions as a UCS and that interpersonal attraction is a classically conditioned evaluative response. The thesis of the present study is that similarity is a correlate of evaluative meaning and that the latter rather than the former is responsible for conditioning. The Staats conditioning procedure was used with trigrams as Cs and personality-trait adjectives as UCS. The UCS adjectives were previously rated on evaluation and similarity scales, and these variables were held constant across levels of each other is a 2 x 2 within Ss design. In support of the hypothesis, it was found that for 89 pretested Ss evaluation and similarity was highly correlated (.879) and that for the 16 Ss in the conditioning procedure an evaluative response to trigrams was influenced by evaluation (p < .005) but not by similarity (p > .20).
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 01, 1969
- Accession Number
- AD0696551
Entities
People
- Arthur Staats
- Richard B. Stalling
Organizations
- University of Hawaiʻi System