I think I am doing great but I feel pretty bad about it: affective versus cognitive verbs and self-reports.
Four experiments were conducted to examine the effect of responding to self-report items framed with either a cognitive verb (think) or an affective verb (feel). Participants' open-ended self-descriptions were significantly more negative when they responded to a feel prompt than when they responded to a think prompt (Experiments 1 and 2). This effect persisted and influenced scores on a subsequent measure of self-esteem (Experiment 2). Substituting the verb think for feel in the Rosenberg self-esteem scale resulted in significantly higher reported self-esteem for female participants but not for male participants (Experiments 3 and 4). The research contributes to the literature demonstrating the subtle effects of word choice on responses to self-report items.
Ball State University, Muncie, IN, USA 00t0holtgrav@bsu.edu.
Thomas
T
Holtgraves
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012649:Self Concept; D057566:Self Report; D013850:Thinking; D055815:Young Adult
communication; emotion; gender differences; question wording; self-esteem; social cognition