GOOD AND BAD FOR SELF AND OTHER
EVALUATIVE MEANING PROCESSES IN SOCIAL COGNITION
Guido Peeters
K.U.Leuven
Paper presented at:
Agency and Communion in Social Cognition
Symposium at the 14th General Meeting of the E.A.E.S.P.
19th-23th July 2005, Wuerzburg, Germany
For a revised and extended draft of this paper, see: Peeters, G. (2007). Good and bad for self
and other: From structural to functional approaches of fundamental dimensions of social
judgment. Extended draft of presentations held at the Small Group Meeting 'Fundamental
Dimensions of Social Judgment: A View from Different Perspectives', Namur, June 7-9, 2007,
and at 'Trente Années de Psychologie Sociale avec Jean-Léon Beauvois: Bilan et Perspectives',
Paris, June 27-29, 2007.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Briefly after I had submitted a proposal for a presentation at the present EAESP meeting, I
received Bogdan Wojciszke's invitation to participate in his symposium. Apparently Bogdan's
and my ideas fit well together, for I could readily stick to my initial proposal and have it inserted
in his program. I have only slightly shifted emphasis from implications regarding stereotyping to
implications regarding the presentations of colleagues at the symposium. Hence, although
stereotyping is still an issue in the following presentation, it has been removed from the title.
The central topic of this symposium concerns the nature and implications of a duality of valued
concepts (categories, dimensions) underlying social cognitive information processing. They are
referred to as agency and communion. However, as indicated by Bogdan in the introduction of
the symposium, they have been implemented by different theorists working in different contexts
emphasizing different aspects, developing different explanations, and using different labels. In
the following I will discuss one of those implementations, being the duality of self-profitability
(agency) and other-profitability (communion), henceforth abbreviated as SP and OP.
1. Origin, Operationalization and Cross-cultural Application of SP and OP
In the late sixties I was facing the practical problem that the good-bad connotation of trait
adjectives could vary across contexts. Hence, in order to obtain evaluative impressions of targets
that would allow for valid comparisons between targets, I needed rating scale markers with goodbad connotations that would remain constant across contexts. Having inventoried a set of trait
adjectives to which judges had assigned constant good-bad values across contexts, it struck me
that those traits seemed to be primarily good versus bad for others dealing with possessors of the
traits rather than for possessors of the traits themselves. For instance, tolerant and intolerant may
be expected to involve good, respectively bad, consequences for others in the first place.
Consequences for the tolerant or intolerant people themselves may only follow indirectly in that
the others may reward the tolerance and punish the intolerance they have experienced. In the
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heydays of Thibaut and Kelley it was fashionable to pick up terms from economics to designate
analogous psychological contents. I still remember to have hesitated between (positive vs.
negative) "utility" or "profitability", but do not remember why "profitability" was selected. So
"good-bad for others" became + (positive) vs. - (negative) OP. Traits with variable good-bad
connotations across contexts (powerful, competent vs. their opposites) seemed primarily good
versus bad for the possessors of the traits themselves, and, for that reason, their good-bad values
were called + (positive) vs. - (negative) SP.
1.1. Operationalization of SP and OP
Quite some way has been gone with operationalizations of SP and OP (see Peeters, 1992). The
most straightforward operationalization may simply require judges to rate the degrees to which
traits involve good versus bad consequences for the possessors of the traits and for the others
dealing with the possessors (De Boeck, & Claeys, 1988; De Bruin, 1999). One main problem
with this direct method is that secondary +SP is confounded with primary OP, and secondary OP
with primary SP. For instance, generosity (primary +OP) is assumed to have positive
consequences for the self in that others reward generosity (secondary +SP); competence (primary
+SP is assumed to have positive consequences for others in that judges readily assume solidarity
rather than hostility between persons, in which case high competence may be beneficial to one's
fellows (secondary +OP). In order to catch primary SP and OP as well as possible, I have
ultimately arrived at the following indirect method.
The indirect method. Two steps are involved. As a first step, the direct method is used to select
sets of pure positive and negative SP and OP traits. These are traits that are judged extremely
positive or negative on one dimension and neutral on the other. For instance, "ambitious" has
been selected as pure +SP in that being ambitious is rated, on the average, as quite favorable for
the self but neither favorable nor unfavorable for others. In this way four sets of four or five pure
traits--also called key traits-- are selected. In Schema 1, American, Flemish and Italian sets of key
traits are presented. As to the Flemish key traits, there are "standard sets" from Peeters (1992),
which have been used in most of the studies, and parallel sets drawn from De Boeck & Claeys
(1988), which have so far been used in only one study (see below). As a second step, SP and OP
values of other traits are measured by asking judges to rate how well the traits belong to the
different (standard) sets of key traits. For instance, in order to determine the SP value of
"courageous", American judges were presented with the sets of -SP and +SP American key traits,
which were told to be two "trait families". Then the judges were asked to indicate on a rating
scale whether "courageous" belonged rather to the one or rather to the other trait family. In this
way normative trait lists or "dictionaries" have been constructed with SP and OP values of
American (Peeters, 2001a), Flemish-Dutch (Peeters, 1997) and Italian (Peeters, Amatulli, &
Serino, 1998) trait adjectives.
Recently, Bos (2005) has used the same indirect method to determine SP and OP values
associated with nouns (persons). Although the method seemed workable for nouns, it seemed less
so than for adjectives. The reason is probably that when judges are asked to estimate how well a
noun fits a particular set of key traits, they may check how well the traits describe the noun.
Thereby they may not only attend to SP and OP values, but also to irrelevant idiosyncratic
meaning contents carried by the traits and the noun. Those idiosyncratic meanings may be
ignored when the judges do not consider how well a particular noun is described by the key traits,
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but how well a particular trait would fit in with the family of key-traits "as another member of
the trait family". Hence a better method for determining SP and OP values of noun stimuli, also
used by Bos, may require judges to describe the noun using a limited number of traits they may
select from the traits listed in the dictionary. SP and OP values of the noun are obtained by
computing the average SP and OP values of the selected traits. Nevertheless, the agreement
between both methods was high, Bos reporting correlations amounting to .96 for OP and to .87
and .52 for SP, whereby the lower correlations for SP may be due to smaller variances.
1.2. Comparison with an Alternative Operationalization
Meanwhile a different operationalization of SP and OP was developed by Wentura,
Rothermund, & Bak (2000). They first selected a set of positive and a set of negative trait
adjectives and then divided both sets into SP, OP and a non-classifiable rest category by asking
judges to classify the selected adjectives into (a) traits having direct consequences for the person
(possessor of the trait) him/herself, (b) traits having direct consequences for persons of the
environment, and (c) not classifiable. Wentura and colleagues applied this procedure to German
adjectives, 27 of which matched Dutch adjectives from the Flemish-Dutch dictionary (Peeters,
1997). The agreement for SP and OP values was very high.
In the "dictionary" SP and OP values assigned to traits ranged between 100 (most negative) to
900 (most positive) with 500 as a neutral middle. SP and OP values of the Dutch matches
(methodisch, theoretisch, terughoudend) of three non-classifiable German traits (systematisch,
theoretisch, zurückhaltend) averaged respectively 557 and 512, which is near to the neutral
middle.
For seven +OP traits from the German list (rücksichtsvoll, freundlich, treu, gastfreundlich,
tolerant, einfühlsam, ehrlich) average SP and OP values of Dutch matches (fijngevoelig,
vriendelijk, trouw, gastvrij, tolerant, gevoelig, eerlijk) amounted respectively to 553 (quite
neutral SP) and 774 (quite positive OP), while for 10 -OP traits (grausam, heimtückisch,
jähzornig, betrügerisch, gemein, geizig, streitsüchtig, rabiat, aggressive, intolerant) the averages
of Dutch matches (wreed, vals, opvliegend, bedrieglijk, gemeen, gierig, twistziek, brutaal,
agressief, onverdraagzaam) amounted to 460 (quite neutral SP) and 231 (quite negative OP). For
six German +SP traits (scharfsinnig, ausdauernd, intelligent, vergnügt, klug, glücklich) averages
of Dutch matches (scherpzinnig, volhardend, intelligent, vrolijk, sluw, gelukkig) amounted to 652
(SP) and 609 (OP),while for two -SP traits (ohnemächtig, unfähig) averages of Dutch matches
(zwak, onhandig) amounted to 202 (quite negative SP) and 445 (quite neutral OP).
In spite of unavoidable errors due to the impracticability of perfect translation, the agreement
between the two operationalizations of SP and OP is high. Some reservations regarding
somewhat less convincing outcomes for SP may be abandoned if it is taken into account that the
German list includend "selbstsicher" (+SP) and "träge" (-SP), of which the Dutch matches
(zelfzeker, traag) were among the SP key traits relative to which SP values in the dictionary were
determined. Those key traits were not included in the dictionary and so they were not involved in
the above comparisons. Altogether, the convergent outcomes argue for the validity of both
operationalizations. In the following, SP and OP values have been drawn from the "dictionaries"
based on the indirect method described in section 1.1.
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1.3. Comparing SP and OP Values of Stereotypes across Language-Culture Communities
Some years ago I determined SP and OP values of 108 national stereotypes (Peeters, 1993).
Most of the stereotypes were drawn from American publications and consisted of frequencies of
traits attributed by Americans to various nationalities at different points in time. The traits were
translated in Dutch and submitted to Dutch speaking Flemish judges who were asked to provide
SP and OP ratings following the above indirect method. Actually it is on the basis of these ratings
that the Flemish-Dutch "dictionary" of SP and OP values of traits (section 1.1) was constructed.
Using the "dictionary", the SP (or OP) value of a stereotype was obtained by computing the
weighted average of the SP (or OP) values of the traits involved, each trait being weighted by its
relative frequency. The results showed some surprising outcomes.
One surprising outcome was that SP values of stereotypes regarding the same nation were very
stable over time, while OP values could show strong fluctuations. For instance, OP values of
German and Japanese stereotypes formulated by Americans dropped dramatically when the
U.S.A. entered the second world war and raised again immediately after the war was over, but SP
values continued to be positive all the time. Apparently, stereotypes expressing negative
communion reflect, possibly temporary, states of conflict. This was confirmed by Phalet and
Poppe (1997) who found significant negative correlations between "morality" (communion)
values of 54 national stereotypes and (territorial and economic) conflict between the stereotyped
and respondent nations. Competence (agency) values of the stereotypes were found to correlate
significantly with perceived (political and economic) power but not with conflict. The relative
instability of -OP over time may be explained in that an adaptive function of the negative
communal value of stereotypes would be the justification of competitive action (Fiske, Cuddy,
Glick, & Xu, 2002). So the negative valence of OP holds just as long as the action may require.
Anyway, there are good arguments to expect perceived agency to be more stable than perceived
communion. This was recently confirmed by an analysis of SP (agency) and OP (communion)
values of descriptions of the Prophet Mohamed drawn from Christian schoolbooks covering a
time-span of nearly a century (Bos, 2005). Bos observed significantly more variability of OP than
of SP. Comparison with an apparently much more positive description from an Islamic source
yielded no difference for SP, the greater positivity being entirely a matter OP. The same author
also found greater constancy of SP than of OP assigned to the same character from a comic strip
across different scenes. Finally, the greater stability of SP than of OP seems also reflected by
behavioral orientations relative to stereotyped SP and OP target groups according to the "BIAS
Map" (Cuddy, Fiske, & Glick, this symposium). Taking into account that "warm" corresponds
to +OP and "cold" to -OP, admired and pitied groups, which share +OP, elicit active facilitation
(helping), and hated and envied groups, which share -OP, elicit active harm (attack). Taking into
account that "competent" corresponds to +SP and "incompetent" to -SP, admired and envied
groups, which share +SP, elicit passive facilitation (association), and pitied and hated groups,
which share -SP, elicit passive harm (exclusion). This means that OP elicits active, rather
episodic, actions such as helping and attacking that do not last, but can be repeated, which results
in a fluctuating action pattern. SP elicits more passive, rather permanent states such as association
and exclusion that may be constant for a long time.
Another surprising outcome at the time concerned the contrast between positive national
stereotypes (of own and friendly nations) and negative national stereotypes. As expected, the
negative stereotypes were predominantly marked with -OP. However, the positive stereotypes
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seemed marked with +SP rather than with +OP. This outcome may no longer surprise in the light
of past and present research of other participants in this symposium, particularly research
connecting agency with positive self-evaluation (Wojciszke, 2005) and social utility (Dubois,
2003)--see also Abele-Brehm (this symposium). However, at the time it was a surprise to me,
and I had a suspicion that it might be an artifact due to imperfect translations of stereotype
contents from English to Dutch. In order to check my suspicion I used the American, Italian, and
Flemish-Dutch "dictionaries", described in section 1.1, and determined SP and OP values of the
original "American" version of stereotypes and of Italian and Flemish-Dutch translations of the
stereotypes. In this way American, Italian and Flemish-Dutch SP and OP values were obtained
for 16 stereotypes held by Americans about eight nationalities at two points in time and reported
by Child & Doob (1943). Each stereotype consisted of a fixed list of 20 traits (actually 21, but
one trait "intellectual" was accidentally dropped from the analysis) with percentages of American
participants that assigned the traits to the stereotyped nation. Using the percentages as weights,
American, Italian, and Flemish-Dutch SP and OP values of the 16 stereotypes were computed as
described above. For the sake of presentation, the SP and OP values were transformed to a scale
with a potential range from -100 (most negative) over 0 (middle) to 100 (most positive). The
results are presented in Table 1. Most of the outcomes are positive. The American SP values are
systematically higher than the Flemish and Italian SP values, and the American OP values are
higher than the Flemish but lower than the Italian OP values. This indicates that determining SP
and OP values of stereotypes on the basis of translations of the stereotypes into another language
may involve a systematic error, which argues against using the obtained outcomes as absolute
measures of SP and OP. However, relative SP and OP values of stereotypes in comparison with
each other showed high agreement between the original and translated stereotypes. As shown in
Table 1, correlations range from .94 to .98, and even correlations between the two translated
versions (Flemish and Italian) are still very high (.85 and .94).
Apparently relative positions of stereotype descriptions within the SP and OP dimensions are
preserved when the descriptions are translated into another language and SP and OP values of the
translations are determined using norms established within the other language-culture
community. Apart from the practical relevance of this outcome, it raises the question why
translation errors would not detract more from the constancy of relative SP and OP values. An
obvious explanation may be that translation errors are like random errors that cancel out each
other. The validity of this explanation has been tested using SP and OP values of 120 traits from
the American "dictionary" (Peeters, 2001a) and of the Italian translations of the traits (Peeters,
Amatulli, & Serino, 1999). Correlations between values of original American and of translated
Italian versions of the traits, computed across n = 120 traits, amounted to .71 for SP and to .82 for
OP. These correlations are quite high and indicate that original SP and OP values are well
preserved when traits are translated. However, they are expected still to increase when
correlations are not computed across n = 120 traits, but across n = 60 average values of groups of
k = 2 traits. Table 2 shows that, contrary to the expectation, the correlations do not increase.
Even, when the number of combined traits is gradually increased up to k = 12, the correlations
tend to fluctuate and even to decrease rather than to show a steady increase. An obvious
explanation may be that when traits are randomly aggregated, not only errors but also positive
and negative values outweigh each other making that the mean OP or SP values of the aggregates
regress to the overall mean. This would result in reduced correlations because of decreased
variability. In agreement with this rationale, variability of SP and OP values of aggregates
involved in Table 2 is really inversely related to the size (k) of the aggregates. The ranges of SP
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and OP values of aggregates decrease to about 50% (if k = 5) up to 26% (if k = 12) of the range
for single traits (k = 1). It is worth mentioning that this observation holds for random aggregates
but not for natural aggregates that are stereotypes. For stereotypes correlations increase indicating
that random translation errors cancel each other.
2. Theoretical Foundation of the Universal Status of SP and OP
(and of Agency and Communion by Extension)
It became soon apparent that SP and OP could be matched with existing concepts regarding
specific evaluative dimensions underlying social cognition corresponding to the present agency
and communion. Meanwhile, good arguments have been advanced suggesting the universal
character of those dimensions (e.g., White, 1980; Ybarra, this symposium). The present
interpretation of the dimensions as "good-bad for self" and "good-bad for other" may contribute
to add some theoretical foundation to the empirical universality. Indeed, SP and OP have been
related to linguistic and cognitive universals such as the distinction between entities and relations
as basic cognitive units, and the possibility to conceive of entities in three ways corresponding to
pronouns of the first (I), second (you) and third person (he, she it) (Peeters, 1983). Specifically,
the concepts of "self" and "other" that underlie SP and OP have been matched with the first and
second person. This means that the +SP value of a trait such as "competent" implies that the
possessor of the trait may view the trait as "good to me", and the +OP value of a trait such as
"generous" implies that the possessor of the trait could view the trait as "good to you". The
distinction between "you" and "me" being universal, it may not surprise to find a universal
substratum underlying the categories "good to you" and "good to me". Obviously universality
may not only be hypothesized for SP and OP but also for theories such as the Agent/Recipient
Theory (ART) (Wojciszke, this symposium) that are based on the concepts self and other, at
least if self and other are conceived as I and you.
2.1. Processing Information in the Self-Other versus Third-Person Way
Apparently, the universal character of agency and communion, conceived as SP and OP, may
be given a sound theoretical basis by stating that they are processed conceiving of perceived
stimulus persons in the first and second person. However, what does "processing in the first and
second person" mean, and how is it distinguished from "processing in the third person"? . At a
first glance, one may argue that it is just a matter of use of words such as the pronouns me, you,
he or she. However, words belong to the surface structure of language, while cognitive
processing operates on the underlying deep-structural "meaning" level. Since Chomsky (1965),
linguists have searched, largely in vain, to bridge the gap between deep and surface structures,
e.g., by the construction of "transformational grammars" that would enable to transform the one
into the other following formal rules. The point is not only that there are no simple one-to-one
relationships between surface and deep structural units, but that surface-structural units such as
pronouns may not be appropriate to describe the deep-structural units.
Pronouns belonging to the surface structure, I have arrived at defining the deep-structural
distinction between first, second and third person in terms of the ways in which a perceiver can
deal with reflexivity and non-reflexivity of relational information (e.g., Peeters, 2004).
Processing relations in the first and second person means that information value is accorded to
the reflexive versus non-reflexive status of a particular relation. For instance, consider the
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relation "helping out of trouble". Given the information that John helps X out of trouble, a
perceiver who processes in the first and second person would wonder in the first place whether X
is John himself or an other person. If X turns out to be an other person, the perceiver may expect
John to be a generous and helpful person scoring high on communality. If X turns out to be John
himself, John may be perceived as independent and self-confident scoring high on agency. It is
possible, however, that the perceiver is only interested in John's competence to solve particular
problems. For instance, if the troubles in question are troubles with solving mathematical
problems, the perceiver may conclude that John is a competent mathematician. In that case, it
does not matter whether X is John himself or another person, which means that the distinction
between reflexivity and non-reflexivity of the relation "helping out of trouble" is ignored.
The present deep-structural definition of first, second, and third person as ways of dealing with
reflexivity has led to procedures enabling to measure the extent to which subjects process
information either in the self-other way (taking reflexivity into account) or in the third-person
way (ignoring reflexivity). In this way it has been found that the self-other way leads to
personalized representations involving dispositional trait attributions, and the third-person way to
depersonalized representations as in natural sciences. When processing information perceivers
often stick to one way without being aware of the other way. Particularly information regarding
interpersonal relationships tends to be processed unilaterally in the self-other way. However,
expertness in a particular domain (e.g., music) has been found to stimulate the third-person way
of processing interpersonal relations when the relations are presented in the context of the
experts' domain of expertise (relationships between musical performers). This could be explained
in that the so-called "third person" functions as a sort of cognitive dummy that can be filled with
whatever personal or impersonal content one wants (Benveniste, 1966). In this way it is not only
particularly suited to handle specialized expert knowledge, but, being free of the universal
constraints associated with reflexivity and non-reflexivity, it is also suited to construct culturespecific conceptual frameworks such as Western natural sciences (Peeters, 2004).
2.2. Application to the Dual Status of Competence
The duality of self-other and third-person ways of processing is relevant for understanding the
dual status of competence put forward by Ybarra (this symposium). On the one hand there is
the "universal understanding of the taskability domain" (Ybarra). It may be conceived as an
undifferentiated concept of competence reflecting "self-profitability" and as such being processed
in the self-other way. Indeed, competence is unconditionally associated with "good for self" but
not unconditionally with "good for others". Hence terms denoting high competence may
communicate "good for self", indeed, but not invariably "good for others", as is illustrated by the
subtle lexical distinctions between the meanings of wise, intelligent, shrewd, astute, sly, crafty,
and cunning. On the other hand there are specific competencies processed in the third-person way
such as the mathematical competence in the above example. They correspond to Ybarra's culturespecific exemplars of the taskability domain. In this way, the distinction between self-other and
third-person ways of processing offers a theoretical foundation of Ybarra's duality of primary
universal and secondary culture-specific concepts of competence. Moreover it enables to connect
that duality with a variety of other dualities in social cognition that are underlain by the duality of
self-other anchored and third-person anchored processes (for a recent review, see Peeters, 2004).
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3. Connecting SP and OP with Related Concepts
3.1. Behavioral Concomitants of Evaluation: Approach-Avoidance
There is a long-standing tradition to connect general "good-bad" evaluation with approachavoidance tendencies of the evaluating subject relative to the evaluated object. This means that
evaluation is conceived of in accordance with a spatiotemporal model, which is, moreover, a
dynamic "locomotory" model (for an alternative static model of evaluation stressing presenceabsence rather than approach-avoidance, see Peeters, 1995). A similar model certainly makes
sense from an evolutionary perspective (Martin & Levey, 1987) but it also involves particular
constraints. One basic constraint is that, as long as space is not handled metaphorically, an actor
can only approach or move away from an "other" object, but not from him/herself. It follows that
the connection of evaluation with approach-avoidance can be expected to be limited to OP, not
involving SP. This hypothesis has been confirmed by Wentura et al. (2000) for simple motor
approach-avoidance responses and by Peeters, Cornelissen, & Pandelaere (2003) for socialbehavioral approach and avoidance. However, Peeters (2001b; Peeters et al., 2003) found also
approach-avoidance behaviors associated with SP in certain conditions suggesting that the
selective association of approach-avoidance tendencies with OP may belong to the actor
perspective taken by the perceiver. A perceiver taking the perspective of an observer would
associate approach-avoidance tendencies with SP as well. Meanwhile, further research has
confirmed this hypothesis (Peeters, 2003).
An interesting question may be how the latter outcomes regarding approach-avoidance
concomitants of evaluation are related to the behavioral concomitants reported by Cuddy, Fiske
& Glick (this symposium). In order to answer that question we should compare Cuddy et al.'s
behaviors (see section 1.3) with the behaviors I used to operationalize social approach-avoidance.
Actually my operationalization was based on a factor analysis of likelihood ratings of 12 social
behaviors of a hypothetical target person relative to several "others" representing a variety of
combinations of SP and OP (Peeters, 2001b). The behaviors were drawn from the literature on
aggression, prosocial behavior and social distance. One factor accounted for 66% of the variance
and was interpreted as a bipolar approach-avoidance dimension. Assumed approach behaviors
(loading between .90 and .77) were: wanting the other as a friend, wanting the other as
acquaintance, allowing the other to use his/her (the perceiver's) belongings, helping the other,
wanting the other as a life-partner, wanting to collaborate with the other, indirectly helping the
other by attending people to his/her need of help. Assumed avoidance behaviors (loading
between -.84 and -.65), were: avoiding the other, thwarting the other preventing him or her from
achieving his or her goals, ridiculizing the other, scolding the other, beating the other. It may be
evident that the "approach" behaviors reflect both the active (helping) and passive (associating)
variants of Cudy et al.'s facilitation behavior, and that the "avoidance" behaviors reflect both the
active (attacking) and passive (excluding) variants of Cudy et al.'s harming behavior. Considering
that +OP and +SP are both associated with "facilitation behavior", and -OP as well as -SP with
"harming behavior", Cudy et al.'s data seem consistent with the outcomes from conditions in my
studies where participants acted as observers estimating behavioral dispositions of a target person
relative to an other on the basis of how the target viewed that other, rather than to estimate their
own behavioral dispositions relative to the other on the basis of their own impressions formed of
that other.
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3.2. Evaluation according to Osgood's Semantic Differential
The connection of SP and OP with the semantic differential has been discussed elsewhere
(Peeters, 1986). A main point is that the procedure applied by Osgood and his colleagues
necessarily leads to an apparently general evaluative dimension and one or more non-evaluative
dimensions. The evaluative dimension of the semantic differential is represented by a mixture of
(a) "directly evaluative" adjectives (good, positive, etc.) that communicate only agreement or
disagreement with an evaluative standard of "approachability" without specifying the nature of
the standard, and (b) descriptive adjectives that are "indirectly evaluative" by interaction with the
context. The latter adjectives communicate descriptive features (sweet, agreeable, etc.) that
happen to be positive (approachable) across a wide variety of current contexts. Their evaluative
meaning can be defined as OP, being understood that, in agreement with section 2.1, the selfother anchored way of processing information, to which OP belongs, generates a personalized
"animistic" discourse in which impersonal objects are (metaphorically) dealt with as if they
would be persons (honest wine, friendly house, generous sunshine...). The so-called nonevaluative dimensions (potency, activity, combined into dynamism) concern features that are
evaluative as well, but with valences that vary across current contexts. In this respect they
correspond to SP.
3.3. Evaluation according to Peabody's Tetradic Model
According to Peabody (1985), trait meanings are organized in accordance with descriptive
dimensions, particularly the dimensions "tight-loose" and "assertive-unassertive". Trait adjectives
that communicate extreme dimensional values carry negative valences connected with the ideas
"too tight, too loose, too assertive, too unassertive". More moderate "optimal" values carry
positive valences. In this way, each descriptive dimension is represented by a series of "tetrads"
being sets of four traits such as in the rows with traits in Table 3(a), which represent the
dimension "tight-loose", and in Table 3(b), which represent the dimension "assertiveunassertive".
Examination of the traits suggested the hypothesis that trait valences advanced by Peabody
were systematically related to OP and SP values in the ways indicated in Tables 3(a,b).
Specifically, The positive valences associated with "optimally loose" and "optimally unassertive"
would reflect +OP, and those associated with "optimally tight" and "optimally assertive" would
reflect +SP. As to negative valences, the valences associated with "too tight" and "too assertive"
would reflect -OP, and those associated with "too loose" and "too unassertive" would reflect -SP.
In order to test these hypotheses, the 36 traits presented in Tables 3(a and b) were translated in
Dutch and presented to four Flemish judges (PhD students). As the judges were quite fluent in
English, each trait was accompanied with the original English term between parentheses. The
judges rated each trait on SP and OP on scales ranging from -3 to +3 following the indirect
method described above and using the standard sets of Flemish-Dutch key traits presented in
Schema 1. The SP rating scale contrasted the -SP set (-3) with the +SP set (+3) and the OP scale
contrasted the -OP set (-3) with the +OP set (+3). Although only four judges were involved, the
ratings were reliable, Cronbach alpha amounting to .86 for SP and .85 for OP. An additional
reliability check was provided by having the procedure repeated with another group of four
judges (PhD students) and using the alternative parallel sets of key traits presented in Schema 1.
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This time Cronbach alpha amounted to .93 for both SP and OP, and the correlations (over N = 36
traits) between the new and former values (averaged across the judges) amounted to .94 for SP
and .90 for OP. Apparently the average SP and OP ratings were reliable indicators of SP and OP
values of the traits. The obtained values are presented in Tables 3(a,b). As shown in the tables, SP
and OP values were contrasted in a way consistent with the hypotheses.
The confirmation of the hypotheses has several interesting implications.
First, Peabody's concept of "evaluation" cannot be equated with "evaluation" as it has been
operationalized by the semantic differential. Indeed, as explained above, the "evaluation" of the
semantic differential is a matter of OP, but not of SP, while Peabody's "evaluation" is a
conglomerate of both OP and SP.
Second, the tetrads were designed in order to separate descriptive aspects of judgments
(impressions, stereotypes) from evaluative aspects. If a perceiver describes a target as aggressive
rather than peaceful, and, at the same time, as forceful rather than passive, it would mean that the
perceiver views the target as quite assertive (descriptive level) but evaluatively neutral, the
negative valence of aggressive being neutralized by the positive valence of forceful. However
this rationale does not hold if aggressive represents -OP and forceful +SP. There is not only the
problem of comparing apples and oranges, but, at least in some studies, the combination of -OP
with +SP has been found to result in more extreme negative evaluations (e.g., Peeters, 1992;
Vonk, 1996, but not in De Bruin & Van Lange, 199a, 199b and Peeters, 2004b), .This means that,
at least in certain conditions, the impression formed of a target described as aggressive and
forceful may be very negative rather than neutral.
Third, it is possible now to reinterpret Peabody's findings regarding stereotypes in terms of SP
and OP. For instance, Peabody found that northern nations were stereotyped as tight, while
southern nations as loose. This means that the positive side of Northerners is perceived as +SP,
and the negative side as -AP. In addition, both north and south European nations were found to be
perceived as quite assertive, which means +SP. Altogether, this means that all European nations
are perceived as quite +SP, the northern nations even more than the southern nations, but the
southern nations are more unconditionally perceived as +OP. Considering that SP and OP values
have been connected with social motivational value orientations (Peeters, 1983), the northerners'
stereotype can be characterized as most individualistic, leaning towards competition, and the
southerners' stereotype as individualistic as well, but less than the northerners, and leaning
towards cooperation. In terms of stereotype content types (Phalet & Poppe, 1997; Fiske et al.,
2002), this means that northern stereotypes reflect the "winner" type, and the "sinful" rather than
the "virtuous" winner type (Phalet & Poppe, 1997) or, in terms of Fiske et al. (2002), prejudices
marked by admiration and envy. The southern stereotype reflects the "virtuous winner" type,
though less a winner than in the northern stereotype, which may correspond to prejudices that, if
they deviate from admiration, become paternalistic rather than envious.
3.4. From Individual Profitability to Social Utility
In this section I discuss the connections of SP and OP with the concepts of social utility and
desirability developed by Beauvois and Dubois and investigated by many French colleagues I
will refer to as the French School. Unfortunately most of the research of the French school has
10
been published in French, but recent English sources are Dubois (2003, and this symposium),
and Dubois & Beauvois (2005). In this approach, "social utility" of a trait has been conceived as
"potentially good-bad for society", being assumed that the possessor of the trait is a member of
society. In this respect "social" utility of a trait might be called "societal" utility. It is
distinguished from "social desirability" conceived as "good-bad for the other individual involved
with the possessor of the trait in an interpersonal relationship". As to the content of the traits
involved, "social utility" covers SP, and "social desirability" covers OP (Dubois, this
symposium). This means that what is good (versus bad) for the self would also be good (versus
bad) for society. However, what is good (versus bad) for the individual other one deals with is not
necessarily so for society. A smart person who is able to achieve his or her goals and to make a
successful career is assumed to have a great potential of social utility, which a nice and friendly
baby has not. The nice and friendly baby is not marked with social utility but with "social
desirability". In this way one and the same person (Churchill?) can be detested as a bully and, at
the same time, be liked as a competent leader, a blessing to society.
While the French school seems to have departed from a societal perspective, I conceived SP
and OP departing from an individual-oriented perspective. SP of a trait means "good-bad for the
individual possessor of the trait", and OP means "good-bad for the individual other who is
dealing with the possessor of the trait". However, when running research, I obtained some results
that might fit the societal perspective better than the individual-oriented perspective. For instance,
in a study yet mentioned (Peeters, 1993), I was surprised to find positive national stereotypes
marked by +SP rather than +OP. As explained above, I initially looked for an explanation in
terms of artifacts due to translation errors. However, this explanation being dismissed (section
1.3), a plausible explanation may be that positive stereotypes of nations are marked by social
utility rather than by individual-oriented profitability.
Another unexpected finding was that when perceivers were informed that "A (dis)likes B", they
did not attribute +(-)OP or (dis)likableness to B. At least they did not so when perceived or
assumed reciprocation of the (dis)liking relation by B was controlled by the experimenter. Instead
perceivers attributed more +SP to B if B was liked than if B was disliked. (Peeters, 1983). In line
with the adage that "power is sexy", agency seemed to outrival communion as an attractive
attribute of others. Thus taking the societal perspective one could argue that A (dis)likes B
because of B's high (vs. low) potential of social utility. However, that wasn't my rationale.
Considering that the amount of agency associated with liking the self exceeded by far the amount
associated with being liked by an other, I explained also the latter agency as a form of
"profitability to the self". Specifically I considered that it was most profitable to the self if one
was able to get him/herself liked by others, even by others one dislikes. Indeed, it would mean
that one could obtain favors without having the cost of doing favors in return. At the same time,
being disliked by the others one likes would involve negative profitability because one might do
favors to others without getting anything in return.
The latter example illustrates how easy it is to construe societal and individual-oriented
explanations accounting for the same data. It may indicate that the old psychological distinction
between interpersonal and intergroup perspectives (Tajfel, 1978) applies to agency as well. As a
matter of fact, it is not difficult to imagine that a high agency potential cannot only be used for
the benefit of society but for the own benefit as well. Thus agency may be looked at from both
the perspective of societal utility and the perspective of individual profitability. Both perspectives
11
may converge in that what's good for society is (often) also good for the self. Actually further
research may be planned to trace possible differences. Perhaps it will be found that particular
traits or aspects of agency are perceived as more profitable to the self than utile to society, while
the reverse may hold for other traits.
The duality of societal and individual perspectives may apply to OP as well. The literature on
social dilemmas contains ample evidence that individuals are not always willing to use their
social utility potential for the benefit of society but that they often give priority to the own
individual profit. Which choice they make may be a matter of communion, which means: of OP,
or social desirability. Hence I suggest not to have communion (OP, social desirability) confined
to the individual-oriented perspective but to consider a societal variant as well. In sum,
considering also the inverse relationship between the OP value of stereotypes and perceived
conflict with the stereotyped target (see section 1.3), communion may be associated with
perceived prosocial versus antisocial intentions. Thereby intentions associated with some specific
communal traits may be perceived as more relevant for society than for other individuals, while
intentions associated with other specific communal traits may be perceived as most relevant for
other individuals involved in interpersonal relationships with the possessors of the traits. In this
respect, Trafimow & Trafimow's (1999) Kantian distinction between traits reflecting perfect
duties (honest, loyal) and traits reflecting imperfect duties (friendly, charitable) may be apply. A
wild but tempting hypothesis may be that the perfect-duty traits reflect more societal communion
than the imperfect-duty traits, the latter reflecting more the individual-oriented communion.
Indeed, in comparison with the information that a person is friendly and charitable, the
information that a person is honest and loyal may be perceived as a better indicator that the
person will use his or her agentic potential in a way that is beneficial to society as a whole.
Friendliness and charity, then, would be associated more with a perceived disposition to use one's
agentic potential in a way that is beneficial to the individuals one encounters such as neighbors, a
beggar in the street, and so forth.
12
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14
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------AMERICAN (from Peeters, 2001)
+SP: ambitious, independent, persuasive, powerful
-SP: ambitionless, dependent, naive, unmethodical
+OP: friendly, generous, sympathizing, tolerant
-OP: discriminating, greedy, selfish, unreliable
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------ITALIAN (from Peeters, Amatulli, & Serino, 1998).
+SP: brillante (brilliant), diplomatico (diplomatic),
intelligente (intelligent), punctuale (punctual)
-SP: esitante (hesitating), ignorante (ignorant), presuntuoso (presumptuous),
timido (shy)
+OP: disponibile (available), generoso (generous), sensibile (sensitive),
affidabile (trustworthy)
-OP: aggressivo (aggressive), autoritario (authoritarian), egoista (egoist),
insensibile (insensitive)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------FLEMISH-DUTCH (Standard sets from Peeters, 1992)
+SP: machtig (powerful), ambitieus (ambitious),
zelfverzekerd (self-confident), praktisch (practical), vlug (quick)
-SP: zwak (weak), ambitieloos (ambitionless), schuchter (shy),
onhandig (clumsy), traag (slow)
+OP: verdraagzaam (tolerant), edelmoedig (generous), gevoelig (sensitive),
betrouwbaar (reliable), vertrouwend (trusting)
-OP: onverdraagzaam (intolerant), zelfzuchtig (selfish), gevoelloos
(insensitive), onbetrouwbaar (unreliable), achterdochtig (suspicious)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------ALTERNATIVE FLEMISH-DUTCH (Parallel sets drawn from De Boeck & Claeys (1988).
+SP: zelfstandig, wil iets bereiken, spitsvondig, leergierig, heeft
inzicht
-SP: onzeker, vlug ontgoocheld, met zichzelf in de knoop, verstrooid,
inspiratieloos
+OP: behulpzaam, vergevingsgezind, rechtvaardig, zacht, meevoelend
-OP: afbrekend, niet medevoelend, koel uit de hoogte, vindt andere mensen
vaak niet de moeite waard, houdt ze op een afstand
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Schema 1. Sets of positive and negative SP and OP key traits from the American, FlemishDutch and Italian language-culture communities
15
Table 1
SP and OP values of 16 stereotypes (rows) from Child & Doob (1943) based on SP and OP
judgments of the original stereotype traits by native American judges (AMER), of Flemish-Dutch
translations of the traits by native Flemish judges (FLEM), and of Italian translations of the
traits by native Italian judges (ITAL).
---------------------------------------------------------------Stereotyped
Nations
SP values
OP values
------------------
------------------
AMER.
AMER.
FLEM.
ITAL.
FLEM.
ITAL.
------------------------------------------a
b
c
d
e
f
---------------------------------------------------------------AMERICA 1938
41
30
35
23
07
29
1940
42
29
36
26
09
31
ENGLAND 1938
42
29
36
26
09
32
1940
41
28
35
26
09
31
1938
33
22
28
17
03
20
1940
37
24
33
22
07
26
GERMANY 1938
35
26
28
13
01
21
1940
37
26
30
17
04
24
1938
33
24
22
12
-02
14
1940
33
21
25
18
03
18
1938
31
23
19
07
-06
12
1940
33
24
23
13
00
17
1938
21
14
15
10
00
13
1940
22
13
16
14
03
16
1938
25
20
15
-02
-09
10
1940
20
17
06
-06
-11
06
FRANCE
ITALY
JAPAN
POLAND
RUSSIA
---------------------------------------------------------rab = .95
rde = .98
rac = .96
rdf = .94
rbc = .85
ref = .94
----------------------------------------------------------
16
Table 2
Correlations of average values (SP or OP) of n groups of k randomly selected American traits
obtained from native American judges with the average values of Italian translations of the traits
obtained from native Italian judges.
-----------------------------------------------------------SP
OP
----------------- --------------k=1
n=120
.71
.82
k=2
n=60
.67
.82
k=3
n=40
.66
.77
k=4
n=30
.63
.82
k=5
n=24
.58
.81
k=6
n=20
.63
.75
k=8
n=15
.25
.68
k=10
n=12
.71
.83
k=12
n=10
.42
.86
---------------------------------------------------------------Note. k = number of traits per group;
n = number of groups
17
Table 3(a)
Traits representing the descriptive dimension "tight-loose" with general valence according to
Peabody (1985), expected and obtained OP and SP values, and results of contrast analysis testing
the agreement between the expected and obtained contrasts.
--------------------------------------------------------------TOO
OPTIMALLY
OPTIMALLY
TOO
TIGHT
TIGHT
LOOSE
LOOSE
--------------------------------------------------------------stingy
inhibited
grim
distrustful
severe
inflexible
choosy
thrifty
self-controlled
serious
skeptical
firm
persistent
selective
generous
spontaneous
gay
trusting
lenient
flexible
broad-minded
extravagant
impulsive
frivolous
gullible
lax
vacillating
undiscriminating
--------------------------------------------------------------VALENCE
Peabody:
-
OP*
expected: obtained: -1.43
+
+
-
0
+0.43
+
+1.71
0
-0.29
SP**
expected: 0
+
0
obtained: +0.36
+0.68
+0.21
-0.93
--------------------------------------------------------------*OP contrast: F(1,24) = 67.56 p < .0001 MSE = 0.52
**SP contrast: F(1,24) = 06.84 p < .016 MSE = 1.32
----------------------------------------------------------------
18
Table 3(b)
Traits representing the descriptive dimension "assertive-unassertive" with general valence
according to Peabody (1985), expected and obtained OP and SP values, and results of contrast
analysis testing the agreement between the expected and obtained contrasts.
--------------------------------------------------------------TOO
OPTIMALLY
OPTIMALLY
TOO
ASSERT.
ASSERT.
UNASSERT.
UNASSERT.
--------------------------------------------------------------aggressive
conceited
forceful
self-confident
peaceful
modest
passive
unassured
--------------------------------------------------------------VALENCE
Peabody:
-
+
+
-
OP*
expected:
obtained:
-1.88
0
+0.38
+
+1.75
0
-0.38
SP**
expected: 0
+
0
obtained: +1.12
+2.62
-0.62
-2.50
--------------------------------------------------------------*OP contrast: F(1,4) = 13.14 p < .0015 MSE = 0.21
**SP contrast: F(1,4) = 480.29 p < .0001 MSE = 0.05
----------------------------------------------------------------
19