The purpose of this research study was to determine whether the semantic differential could measure in the college population the variation in meaning of selected masculine and feminine concepts as a function of sex difference.

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Graduate

Thesis (Ed. D.)--West Virginia University, 1998. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains ix, 244 p. : ill. (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references.

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The purpose of the present study was to examine 1) the effect of achievement information on evaluations of males and females, 2) male and female expectations of discrepancies between their opposite sex and themselves in evaluating achievement.

The basic problem of this study Is whether or not the semantic differential attitude instrument may be used to measure attitude Intensity. The method of determining this is to use an instrument which is known to measure attitude Intensity in conjunction with the semantic differential and determine whether or not a significant correlation exists between the two.

In several experiments, masked repetition priming in the lexical decision task was greater when prime validity, defined as the proportion of repetition versus unrelated primes, was high (.8 vs. .2), even though primes were displayed for only 45 or 60 ms. A similar effect was also found with masked semantic primes. Prime validity effects are not predicted on a lexical entry-opening account of masked priming nor are they consistent with the use of prime validity effects as a marker for the consciously controlled use of primes. Instead, it is argued that episodic traces are formed even for masked primes, are available as a resource that can aid word identification, and are generally more likely to be recruited when their validity is high. However, prime validity effects did not obtain when targets varied markedly from trial to trial in how easy they were to process. Here, it appears that trial-to-trial discrepancies made the lexical decision task more difficult, causing an increase in prime recruitment, at least when prime validity was low. Consistent with this claim, prime validity effects emerged when these trial-to-trial discrepancies were minimized. / Graduate

The purpose of this investigation was to assess the validity of utilizing the same semantic differential test as a measure of social evaluation for persons of different ages. The semantic differential, a rating technique by which judgments of stimuli are made on seven-interval bipolar descriptive continua called "scales", currently receives widespread usage as a measure of attitudes toward aging and the elderly. However, a lack of semantic stability across stimuli and across subjects, known, respectively, as "concept-scale" and "subject2 scale" interaction, has been found to occur with the technique in various areas of research. That such a lack of stability might occur across stimuli and/or subjects of different ages is suggested by the existence of . di fferences between people of different ages which affect both the appearance and functioning of the individual. These differences derive from the biological aging process, the life cycle process, and the social change process. This study investigated whether such cross-age differences are of sufficient severity to cause people of different ages to be perceived as different classes of stimuli and/or to perceive others as different populations of subjects. Ratings of eight videotaped stimulus models were made by 60 younger (aged 22 to 32) and 60 older (aged 60 and older ) volunteer subjects on a semantic differential test composed of 38 scales. The stimulus models, consisting of four younger and four older adults, were non-actors, unknown to the rating subjects, and presented for one minute in a standardized visual format and without sound. Of the 38 scales used, seven were selected as reference scales from earlier studies, 30 were suggested by a volunteer "generating" sample of 30 younger and JO older subjects, and one (young/old) was included as a check on the perceived ages of the stimulus models. Scale scores were factor analyzed to establish the underlying factor structure of social evaluation and to ascertain whether it rema1ned stable across stimulus model and subject age levels. Four separate factor analyses were performed -- younger stimulus models/younger subjects, younger stimulus models/older subjects, older stimulus J models/older subjects, and older stimulus models/younger subjects -- permitting comparisons between the factor matrices for concept-scale and subject-scale interaction. Three factors were defined by each of the four separate factor analyses of the scales. Factors A and B were found by two different methods of assessing factor similarity (inspection and coefficients of congruence) to be highly similar across both stimulus model and subject age levels; Factor C (a weakly defined factor) was found to be similar only for the older stimulus models across subject age levels. An examination of the scales heavily loaded on each factor for all relevant factor matrices resulted in the interpretation of Factors A, B, and C as reflecting Interpersonal Ability, Instrumental Ability, and Propriety, respectively. This study resulted in findings bearing upon three interrelated areas. First, the data suggest that: 1) older and younger adults constitute qualitatively approximately the same class of stimuli, and 2) older and younger adults constitute qualitatively approximately the same population of subjects. That is, perceptions were based on the same underlying dimensions of meaning regardless of age. Second, the data suggest that two major dimensions of social evaluation are Interpersonal Ability and Instrumental Ability. Comparisons of these two attitudinal dimensions with dimensions from other semantic differential studies revealed striking similarity. Third, the finding of stable scales and replicable dimensions suggests the appropriateness of constructing a cross-age semantic differential for social evaluation. Consequently, a 15-scale Cross-Age Semantic Differential for the measurement of social evaluation was proposed.