Linguistic Bases of Social Perception

Abstract

Target persons were videotaped while engaged in an interview. A text analysis program was used to ascertain the frequency with which they employed negative emotion words, positive emotion words, words reflecting cognitive operations, self-referents, presenttense verbs, negations, and unique words in their verbalizations. Judges viewed the videotapes and evaluated the target persons on a number of social perception dimensions. The language dimensions accounted for significant and substantial proportions of the variance in impressions of the target persons beyond that explained by traditionally studied person perception variables such as physical attractiveness, nonverbal expressiveness, and facial maturity. The results indicate the critical role that language plays in social perception and interaction.