The Influence of Claim Wordings on Intuitive Truth Perception

This PhD project will take place in the domain of experimental social psychology and will study how formal aspects of messages spread beliefs about groups. Group differences can be described in many different ways. To illustrate, consider the following three sentences: “Old folks are wise”, “Old folks are wiser than young folks”, and “Young folks are less wise than old folks”. All three sentences, or comparative formats, convey the message that old folks are wise. Yet, the first sentence states this claim as an implicit difference (since the target is compared with an implicit reference group), while the second and third sentence state this claim as an explicit difference (the reference group is explicitly mentioned). Furthermore, one can also use different comparators (more vs less) and role assignments (target vs reference group) to word a claim. The two main aims of this project will be to identify 1) when and why people feel that groups may be described in a given manner, and 2) how that manner shapes how readers and listeners understand these claims. These are important, yet understudied questions about the impact of comparative formats. Hypotheses will be based upon insights from social and cognitive psychology, philosophy, and linguistics. The experiment will be the preferred method to study our research questions. In addition, a novel communication chain approach will be used to study these questions. In this way, this project will help expand our understanding of how stereotypes spread through the choice of comparative formats.