Less is not more

Less is not more Vera Hoorens & Eddy Van Avermaet Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Theoretical framework and hypotheses When people describe differences between two groups or individuals (X and Y), they may say that X possesses a characteristic more than Y or that Y possesses the characteristic less than X. We examined whether these logically equivalent statements are also psychologically equivalent. Do people evaluate them equally and do people agree or disagree as much with each of them? These questions are important because if (X > Y) and (Y Y) and (Y < X) may provide speakers with a simple tool for impression management. Methodologically, it has implications for the development of questionnaire that use comparative questions or statements. Various studies suggest that (X > Y) and (Y Y) and (Y Y) provoking more favorable responses than (Y < X) statements. Study 1 Study 1 tested how people evaluate (X > Y) and (Y Y) or how the inferior gender was less good than the superior gender (Y Y) statement (M = -0.06, SD = 0.91) than to a (Y Y) statement (M = 0.08, SD = 0.73) than to the speaker of a (Y < X) statement (M = -0.72, SD = 0.91), F(1,96) = 27.31, p < .001. In Study 1, then, participants responded more favorably to the (X > Y) statement and to the individual who had made it than to the (Y < X) statement and its source. However, Study 1 was limited in that the statement was always about one single desirable characteristic so that the generalizability of its results remained to be shown. Study 2 Study 2 examined whether people differentially agree with (X > Y) and with (Y < X) statements. Belgian Dutch-speaking student participants (234 women, 86 men, aged 17 to 24) responded to a ‘survey on views of men and women’. The questionnaire consisted of 104 comparative statements. Half of the statements were of the type (X > Y), half were of the type (Y Y) statements (M = 3.81, SD = 0.34) than with (Y < X) statements (M = 3.43, SD = 0.36), F(1,318) = 92.6, p < .001. This effect of statement did not depend on the statements’ stereotype-consistency nor on the valence of the statements that these statements described. Study 2 thus replicated and extended the findings of Study 1. Conclusion Statements of the type (X > Y) and the type (Y Y) statements and to the individuals who make them than to (Y Y) than with (Y Y) to (Y Y) than with (Y Y) described the target desirably, and when the comparison dimension was unfavorable, so that (X > Y) described the target undesirably (Study 2). In the methodological domain, our work suggests that it may be fruitful to examine the effect of various types of comparative wordings on respondents’ questionnaire scores. In the domain of person perception, it shows that how people describe others affects how readers and listeners view them. In the domain of persuasion, our findings suggest that messages of the (X > Y) type may be more convincing than messages of the (Y < X) type. References Beike, D.R., & Sherman, S.J. (1998). Framing of comparisons in research and practice. Applied and Preventive Psychology, 7, 161-180. Higgins, E. (1977). The varying presuppositional nature of comparatives. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 6, 203-222. Hodges, S.D., & Hollenstein, T. (2001). Direction of comparison in typicality judgments. Social Cognition, 19, 601-623. Houston, D.A., Sherman, S.J., & Baker, S.M. (1989). The influence of unique features and direction of comparison on preferences. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 25, 121-141. Keywords Comparativesstatus: publishe