Rubini, Kruglanski (1997) Brief encounters ending in estrangement

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology1997, Vol. 72, No. 5, 1047-1060

Copyright 1997 hy [he American Psychological Association, Inc.O022-35I4/97/S3.00

Brief Encounters Ending in Estrangement: Motivated Language Use andInterpersonal Rapport in the Question-Answer Paradigm

Monica RubiniUniversity of Bologna

Arie W. KruglanskiUniversity of Maryland, College Park

Three experiments explored need-for-closure effects in the question-answer paradigm. In ExperimentI, participants under high (vs. low) need for closure selected more abstract interview questions. InExperiments 2 and 3, such questions elicited more abstract answers—answers that causally implicatedthe object (vs. the subject) of the sentence and that prompted a less positive perceived rapportbetween the interviewer and the interviewee. These findings are discussed in reference to the roleof motivation in language and the possible interpersonal consequences of motivated language use.

Sociolinguists and pragmaticists of language have long notedthe manifold interpersonal implications of everyday discourse(e.g., Lakoff, 1990). Language can be used for diverse strategicpurposes, for example, to create interpersonal distance (e.g.,through the use of formal expressions), to allow the powerlessto save face (e.g., by couching one's commands as requests)or to highlight another's dependence on oneself (e.g., by volun-teering to perform services for him or her). Somewhat lessinnocuously, language may create or exacerbate conflict (be-tween individuals or groups) by means of inflammatory rhetoricand delegitimizing oratory that disinhibits aggression and sanc-tions violence. A salient case in point is the assassination ofIsraeli Prime Minister Izhak Rabin by a fanatic apparentlygoaded into murderous action by incendiary epithets of Rabin'sradical opponents (Wulf, 1995). Contrary to the adage then,just like "stick and stones," words too can inflict harm, evenif indirectly. This is hardly surprising. After all, words havemeanings that often carry significant implications for ways per-sons may think, feel, or act toward others. Accordingly, one'schoice of lexicon may well impact the course of one's relationswith relevant interlocutors.

Somewhat more subtle is the possibility that words can exertsocially meaningful consequences through their level of abstrac-tion. Maass and her colleagues (see Maass & Arcuri, 1992, for areview), for example, have demonstrated a linguistic intergroupbias (LIB), denned as the tendency for positive in-group andnegative out-group behaviors to be described in relatively ab-stract terms and negative in-group and positive out-group behav-iors in relatively concrete terms. Although not the only reasonfor its emergence, the LIB may also serve an in-group protec-tiveness function: Because abstract depictions suggest that the

Monica Rubini's work on this project was supported by a FulbrightVisiting Scholar Fellowship. Research was supported by National Sci-ence Foundation Grant SBR-9417422 and by National Institute of MentalHealth Research Scientist Award KO5 MH01213 to Arie W. Kruglanski.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to MonicaRubini, Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Educazione, Universita' degli Studidi Bologna, via Zamboni 34, 40126 Bologna, Italy, or to Arie W. Krug-lanski, Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park,Maryland 20742.

behavior reflects stable characteristics of the actor whereas con-crete descriptions suggest that the behavior is atypical and situa-tionally prompted, the LIB helps viewing the in-group in positiveterms and the out-group in negative terms (Maass, Milesi, Zab-bini, & Stahlberg, 1995; Rubini & Semin, 1994).

The foregoing discussion may overestimate somewhat thedegree to which language use is strategic, functional, and adap-tive. It might be none of the above if it is instigated by motivesunrelated, or even contrary, to the speaker's explicit aims in thesituation. This might result in utterances with unintended socialconsequences, like the infelicitous slips of tongue made famousby Freud (1923/1957). Indeed, our major interest in the presentpaper was to investigate possible unintended interpersonal con-sequences of linguistic abstraction prompted by an epistemicmotivation known as the need for cognitive closure (Kruglan-ski & Webster, 1996; Webster & Kruglanski, in press) and basedon an apparent abstraction bias in speakers' pronouncements.The unique nature of the need for closure and its relevance toabstraction are described below.

The Need for Cognitive Closure

The need for closure has been defined as a desire for a definiteanswer on some topic, any definite answer as opposed to confu-sion or ambiguity (Kruglanski, 1989, 1990). This motivationtoward closure is considered proportionate to the perceived ben-efits of possessing, or the costs of lacking, closure. For instance,a potential benefit of cognitive closure may be the opportunityto avoid effortful information processing. Similarly, a cost oflacking closure may be the effort required to process informationto resolve uncertainty or dispel confusion. Therefore, the needfor closure should be heightened under conditions that renderinformation processing difficult or unpleasant. Such conditionsmay often reside in the processing context. For example, pro-cessing information in a noisy environment may be laborious.Alternatively, continued processing may be costly when it im-plies the missing of a decision deadline or when it occurs undertime pressure (Kruglanski & Freund, 1983; Kruglanski & Web-ster, 1991). Other conditions capable of inducing a closure moti-vation may relate to the individual's mental or physical state.For example, a person may find processing aversive or difficult

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1048 RUBINI AND KRUGLANSKI

if he or she is mentally fatigued (Webster, Richter, & Kruglanski,1996). Finally, individuals exhibit stable individual differencesin the degree to which they value closure (Webster & Kruglan-ski, 1994). These differences may derive from a variety ofsources, including cultural norms (Hofstede, 1980) or a per-sonal history of rewards for self-assurance and secure opinionson various topics.

The Permanence Tendency Under Need for Closure

Need for closure may induce a bias in favor of permanent(vs. transient) knowledge, that is, a tendency to hold on to, orfreeze on. past knowledge and to safeguard future knowledge.In other words, the permanence tendency involves a preferencefor knowledge less likely to require future revisions. This mayimply a bias toward abstract knowledge that affords cross-situa-tional consistency and obviates the need to reconsider one'sknowledge from one social context to the next. Somewhat re-lated, the need for closure may prompt an abstractness biasbecause abstract notions are less readily tied to concrete events;this would make them less susceptible to falsification, hencepromising greater permanence of knowledge. Indeed, results ofpast research suggest that the tendency to use abstract terms isaugmented under heightened need for closure. Thus, Mikulincer,Yinon, and Kabili (1991) found the "need for structure," analternate term used to denote the need for closure (for discus-sion, see Dijksterhuis, Van Knippenberg, Kruglanski, & Schaper,1996; Kruglanski, Atash, DeGrada, Mannetti, Pierro, & Webster,in press) to be positively correlated with stable and global(hence general or abstract) attributions for failure as assessedby the Attributional Style Questionnaire (Seligman, Abramson,Semmel, & Von Baeyer, 1979). In the same research, high- (vs.low-) need-for-structure individuals who worked on unsolvableproblems were more likely to attribute failure to global causesand exhibited impaired subsequent performance on an unrelatedtask.

In a different paradigm, Boudreau, Baron, and Oliver (1992)asked participants to communicate their impressions of a targetto an individual either more or less expert on a given topic thanthemselves. Boudreau et al. assumed that confrontation with anexpert would increase concerns about judgmental validity andlower the need for closure, whereas confrontation with a nonex-pert would raise the need for closure in the interest of clear-cut,easy-to-summarize messages. Indeed, their results revealed thatparticipants expecting to communicate their impressions to anonexpert increased the proportion of global trait labels in theirdescriptions, whereas participants expecting to communicatetheir impressions to an expert used a lower proportion of globaltrait labels. Finally, Webster, Kruglanski, and Pattison (in press)found that participants under heightened need for closure incor-porated more abstract terms in their descriptions of positive andnegative behaviors performed by in- and out-group members,although this tendency was particularly pronounced for positivein-group and negative out-group behaviors. These trends heldregardless of whether the need for closure was assessed as anindividual-difference variable (Webster et al., in press, Study1) or was manipulated situationally by means of ambient noise(Websler et al., in press, Study 2) .

Motivated Abstraction and Interpersonal Rapport

Of particular interest is the possibility that motivated biastoward linguistic abstraction may significantly impact interper-sonal rapport between interlocutors. A hint as to how this mightcome about may be derived from research by Semin, Rubini,and Fiedler (1995), conducted within the question-answer par-adigm. In that work, the level of linguistic abstraction was as-sessed by using a method developed by Semin and Fiedler(1988) on the basis of a distinction between four grades ofabstraction. The most concrete level consisted of descriptiveaction verbs (DAVs), such as "A hits B," portraying specificobservable events in objective terms. Interpretive action verbs(IAVs) are next in degree of abstraction as they refer to largerbehavioral classes such as "A hurts B." Note that somewhatlike the DAVs, the IAVs refer to particular behavioral events yet,unlike the DAVs, they incorporate an evaluative or interpretiveelement (e.g., it is possible to hurt someone in various ways,hitting being merely one). State verbs (SVs) are consideredeven more abstract than IAVs because they refer to enduringpsychological states that transcend specific situations, for exam-ple, '"A hates B," even though they maintain a reference to aspecific target (i.e., B). Adjectives constitute the most abstractterms as they generalize beyond a specific situation, object,behavior, or reference person, for example, "A is aggressive.'7

Semin et al. (1995) varied whether causal questions put toresearch participants (members of an Italian Catholic movementor the Italian Communist Party) were formulated with action orstate verbs. Questions formulated with action verbs were morelikely to elicit answers in which the causal agent was the subject(vs. object) of the question. By contrast, causal questions formu-lated with SVs were more likely to elicit answers in which thecausal agent was the question object (vs. subject). Consider aquestion formulated with an action verb, say, "Why did you goto see the film Sense and Sensibility?" On the basis of Seminet al.'s (1995) findings, we predicted such a question would belikely to elicit answers of the sort "I felt I needed a break" or"I read several good reviews about it," which locate causalityin the sentence subject. Consider now a question formulatedwith an SV, say "Why did you like Sense and Sensibility?"Semin et al.'s (1995) findings suggest that such a question ismore likely to elicit answers of the sort' 'The film is wonderfullydirected and acted," or "It is wonderfully revealing about 19th-century British society," that is, answers that implicate the sen-tence object (the film, or its various aspects) as the causal agent.

Semin et al.'s (1995) additional finding of interest was thatquestions formulated with action verbs, that is, less abstractly,tended to invite correspondingly less abstract answers than didthe more abstract questions formulated with SVs. It is possiblethat the level of abstraction in the questions drives reciprocalabstraction in the answers.

The present research explored further both the antecedentsand the social consequences of linguistic abstractness. On theantecedent side, our purpose was to investigate whether thegreater tendency toward abstraction under heightened need forclosure heretofore found in behavioral descriptions of in-groupand out-group members (Webster et al., in press) would repli:

cate in the question-answer paradigm. On the basis of priorwork, we hypothesized that persons under a high need for clo-

MOTIVATED LANGUAGE USE 1049

sure would tend to phrase their questions in a more abstractmanner than would persons under a low need for closure.

Of greater interest, we aimed to investigate the possible impli-cations of the level of abstraction in the question for the interper-sonal rapport between the questioner and the answerer. Seminet al.'s (1995) results suggest that the higher the abstractnesslevel, the lesser should the answerer's tendency be to respondin a self-revealing manner, that is, to frame the answers aroundthe subject of the question (i.e., her or himself). Because self-revelations may often beget feelings of intimacy and closenesstoward one's conversational partner (Busse & Birk, 1993; Jour-ard, 1971; Tolstedt & Stokes, 1984), reducing them by usingabstraction may lessen their occurrence or intensity, thus creat-ing the sense of social distance or estrangement. Furthermore,abstractness (in questions or answers) may beget social distanc-ing directly, over and above its impact through self-revelation.After all, abstractness is tantamount to generalization, that is, theuse of category labels that transcend the individuating specifics,possibly leading to depersonalization.

Combining the foregoing notions, we hypothesized that per-sons under high (vs. low) need for closure would tend to phrasetheir question more abstractly and that this, ultimately, wouldlower the perceived intimacy or create greater feelings of es-trangement between the answerers and the questioners. To ex-plore those ideas, we conducted three experiments. In the first,we looked at the level of abstractness in questions selected bypersons under high versus low need for closure. In Experiment2, we used questions selected by high- and low-need-for-closureparticipants to see whether they would elicit differential degreesof self-revelation, abstractness, and felt intimacy from respon-dents. Finally, our Experiment 3 examined jointly the choice ofquestions and their effects in a setting affording free interac-tion between high- and low-need-for-closure questioners andrespondents.

Experiment 1

The purpose of our first experiment was simply to test thenotion that, when cast in a role of potential interviewers, partici-pants under high need for closure would select questions formu-lated at a higher abstractness level than would participants underlow need for closure. This prediction follows directly from thenotion that the need for closure evokes a tendency toward perma-nence, which in turn instills a preference for abstract versusconcrete expressions (Kruglanski, 1996; Kruglanski & Webster,1996). As noted earlier, research by Webster et al. (in press)confirmed this notion in experiments in which participants' taskwas to describe the behaviors of in-group and out-group mem-bers. The present experiment attempted to conceptually replicatethis finding in an interview-like context as a first step towardexamining the potential impact of motivated abstraction on ensu-ing interpersonal rapport.

The need for closure was manipulated situationally by meansof ambient noise (cf. Kruglanski & Webster, 1991; Kruglanski,Webster, & Klem, 1993). The experimental task consisted ofrank ordering a list of eight questions formulated at the fourlevels of abstractness described in Semin and Fiedler's (1988)linguistic category model described above. The ranking criterionthat participants were asked to apply was their likelihood of

using the different questions in the context of a real interviewwith a college student.

Four interview topics were included: academic major, musicalpreference, best friend, and boy-girlfriend. For each topic, parti-cipants rank ordered eight questions, two at each level of ab-straction. The experimental design was 2 (ambient noise: noisyvs. quiet) x 4 (interview topic: major, musical preference, bestfriend, girl-boyfriend; between-subjects) x 2 (question's ordi-nal position: Question 1 vs. Question 2; within subjects).

Method

Participants

Forty-nine female and 31 male students in Introductory Psychologyat the University of Maryland participated in the study to fulfill a courserequirement. All participants were randomly assigned to experimentalconditions.

Developing the Question List

Prior to commencement of the experimental session, a list of eightalternative causal questions for each interview topic was developed. Thiswas aided by the comprehensive list of English verbs and adjectivescategorized by level of abstractness that was developed by Semin(1993).

The questions were formulated in accordance with the four linguisticcategories contained in the linguistic category model, two questions pereach linguistic category. The most concrete questions were formulatedat the level of DAVs (e.g., "Why do you listen to your favorite mu-sic?"); the questions at a subsequent level of abstractness used IAVS(e.g., "Why do you spend time on your favorite music?"); next in levelof abstractness were questions formulated with SVs (e.g., Why do youenjoy your favorite music?"); the most abstract questions used adjec-tives (e.g., "Why is your favorite music appealing to you?'1). Ourunderlying assumption was that the linguistic repertoire enables the useof different terms to express roughly the same meaning. Granting thisdiversity, a heightened need for closure should prompt the choice ofmore abstract question phrasings over the more concrete ones.

Experimental Session

Participants were tested in groups of 4 to 6 persons. On arriving atthe experimental laboratory, participants were informed that the studywas to investigate the type of questions used when conducting interviewson various topics. They were then given a single-page questionnairecontaining the eight alternative questions, the order of which was ran-domly varied across participants.

Manipulating the Need for Closure

Need for closure was manipulated by means of environmental noise.The experimental session was conducted in a relatively small room thatcontained chairs set in a circle. A computer attached to a dot matrixprinter was placed on a table in a corner. After explaining the aim ofthe study and the question-ranting task, the experimenter in the noisycondition mentioned that she needed to print a lengthy statistical outputand asked whether the participants would terribly mind if the printerwas working while they were going about their task. All participantsagreed. The printer was turned on as participants began the question listfor the first interview topic. The printer created considerable noise thatpersisted throughout the experiment. In the quiet condition, the printerwas inactive at all times and was not specifically referred to by theexperimenter.


Dependent Measures

Rank-ordering task. For each interview topic, participants rank or-dered the questions from one to eight in accordance with the likelihoodof using them in a real interview with a college student. Tb calculate anindex of abstractness, we reversed the rank-order scores and used asimple monotonic weighting scheme in which the weights of 1, 2, 3,and 4 were assigned respectively to questions containing DAVs, TAVs,SVs, and adjectives and divided this by the sum of the eight rank-ordering scores (36). The resulting index varied positively with levelof abstractness (the higher this index, the greater the abstractness). Forexample, the most abstract score could be achieved if the participantassigned the highest ranks, ranks 1 and 2, to the two adjective questions;ranks 3 and 4 to the two SV questions; ranks 5 and 6 to the two IAVquestions; and ranks 7 and 8 to the two DAV questions. The least abstractscore could be attained if the participant assigned the highest ranks tothe two DAV questions and so on. According to this scheme, the potentialscores on this index could range from 3.05 at the high end to 1.94 atthe low end of the abstractness continuum.

Postexperimental questionnaire. At the end of the experiment, parti-cipants responded to several items about the rank-ordering task: Theyrated their confidence with respect to their rank-ordering decisions, dieamount of thought required by the task, and its difficulty. These itemswere meant to assess manifestations of the need for closure (cf. Kruglan-ski, Webster, & Klem, 1993). Furthermore, participants rated the per-ceived reasonableness of the questions and their degree of comfort inthe experimental situation; these items were meant to assess whetherour task was perceived as natural and reasonable versus artificial oresoteric. All responses were given on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from1 (not at all) to 7 (extremely).

Table 1Average Ranks of Questions According to the Likelihoodof Use, as a Function of Linguistic Categoryand Ambient Noise (Experiment 1)

Results

Manipulation Checks

Responses to the three items meant to assess the state-likemanifestations of the need for closure were significantly corre-lated (Cronbach's a — .70). As a consequence, we averagedthe scores of these measures to obtain an overall need-for-clo-sure index. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) performed onthis measure revealed, as expected, a significant main effectof situational need for closure F(\, 79) = 41.49, p < .001.Participants who performed their task in the presence of theprinter-generated noise had significantly higher scores on the(state-like) need-for-closure index (M = 4.45, n = 40) than didparticipants who completed the task in quiet surroundings (M= 2.85, n = 40).

ANOVAs on participants' responses to items concerning thereasonableness of the questions and participants' comfort in theexperimental situation did not reveal any significant effects. Ingeneral, participants found the questions relatively reasonable(M = 2.96 on a scale in which 1 = very reasonable and 8 =not at all reasonable) and the experimental situation relativelycomfortable (M = 2.45 on a scale in which 1 = very comfort-able and 8 = not at all comfortable).

Abstractness Data

We examined the rank-order data to test the hypothesis thatparticipants in the noise condition would exhibit an abstractnessbias in questions they saw themselves as likely to use in thecontext of a real interview. These data are displayed in Table

Ambient noise

Noise conditionQuiet condition

n

4040

DAV

3.522.70

Linguistic

IAV

6.433.96

category

SV

5.605.96

ADJ

2.485.40

Note. Lower numbers indicate higher likelihood of use. DAV = de-scriptive action verb; IAV = interpretive action verb; SV = state verb;ADJ = adjective.

1. Inspecting the average rank-order data at each level of ab-stractness, we found that participants in the noise conditionranked the DAV questions as less likely to be used (M = 3.52)than did participants in the quiet condition (M = 2.70). Theyalso ranked the IAV questions as less likely to be used (M =6.43 ) than did participants in the quiet condition (M = 3.96). Bycontrast, participants in the noise condition ranked the adjectivequestions as more likely to be used (M = 2.48) than did partici-pants in the quiet condition (M = 5.40).

Our method for converting the rank scores to an overall ab-stractness index was described earlier. A 2 x 4 ANOVA per-formed on the abstractness data with ambient noise and inter-view topic as between-subjects variables yielded only a maineffect of ambient noise, F ( l , 79) - 119.64, p < .001. Asexpected, participants in the noise condition (M = 2.78) exhib-ited a greater preference for abstractness than did their counter-parts in the quiet condition (M = 2.39).

Discussion

Overall, the results of Experiment 1 are consistent with thehypothesis that participants under high need for closure (in-duced by noise) tend to select questions at a higher level oflinguistic abstraction than do participants under a relativelylower need for closure (e.g., those in the quiet condition). Theseresults are encouraging because they replicate in a different(i.e., the question-selection) paradigm the findings of Webster,Kruglanski, and Pattison (in press) that affirmed the link be-tween need for closure and linguistic abstraction. Webster et al.(in press) found that participants under high need for closure(manipulated by means of noise or assessed by using an individ-ual-difference measure) tended to describe the behaviors of tar-get persons in more abstract terms than did participants underlow need for closure. Now we have observed a similar tendencyin question selection, which suggests that the relation betweenneed for closure and linguistic abstraction is robust and general-izes across modality of linguistic expression (i.e., descriptiveas well as interrogative).

However, would the differences in abstractness of selectedquestions obtained in Experiment 1 evoke differential linguisticand affective responses from persons at whom those questionswere directed? Note that the relation between abstractness levelin the question and affect evoked in the respondents was notinvestigated heretofore. As for linguistic reactions, recall that


Semin, Rubini, and Fiedler (1995) found that the more (vs.less) abstract causal questions evoked answers implicating theobject (vs. the subject) of the question as the causal agent andprompted reciprocal answers at a higher level of abstraction.Would the more abstract questions selected by our participantsunder noisy versus quiet conditions (i.e., under high vs. lowneed for closure) impact the respondents' answers similarly?

Two issues arise in this connection. First, although partici-pants in the noise condition selected, overall, questions at ahigher level of abstraction than did those in the quiet condition,their question selections overlapped in that both included intheir most preferred category the SV questions. The differencebetween the two conditions resided in the tendency of partici-pants under noise to include in their most preferred categoryadjectives but not IAVs and the tendency of participants underno noise to include IAVs but not adjectives. However, in viewof the overlap on state verb questions, it is important to askwhether the differences in abstraction level that did manifestthemselves as function of the need for closure would suffice toevoke differential linguistic and affective reactions from respon-dents. Second, Semin's et al.'s (1995) research varied abstrac-tion level across IAVs and SVs exclusively. It is therefore im-portant to ascertain whether the kinds of response differencesthat emerged in their research would also appear where thehigh-abstraction questions are formulated with adjectives. Theseissues were addressed in Experiment 2, described below.

Experiment 2

Participants were interviewed by a confederate who posedquestions identified by Experiment 1 participants in either thenoise or the no-noise condition as the most likely ones to beused in a real interview. The design of the study was a 2 (linguis-tic category of the questions: L-W-SV vs. SV-adjective ques-tions) X 2 (participants' gender) X 4 (conversation topic: aca-demic major, favorite music, best friend, boy-girl friend) facto-rial design. The first two variables varied between participants,and the third varied within participants.

Following Semin, Rubini, and Fiedler (1995), we predictedthat participants presented with the relatively abstract questionswould provide relatively more abstract responses than wouldparticipants who answered the relatively concrete questionsMoreover, they were expected to provide answers that wouldimplicate as the causal agent the logical object of the questions(i.e., the conversation topic); in contrast, participants who an-swered the relatively concrete questions were expected to pro-vide explanations focused on the logical subject of the questions(i.e., on themselves) as the causal agent.

Of greater interest was whether the latter participants, that is,those expected to focus their answers on themselves, wouldconclude that they had a more personal and friendly interactionwith the interviewer than would participants who were expectedto give answers focused primarily on the conversation topic.

Method

Participants

Twenty-four male and 27 female undergraduates in introductory psy-chology courses at the University of Maryland took part in the study infulfillment of a course requirement.

Procedure

Question lists. Recall that in Experiment 1 participants in the noisecondition generally tended to prefer questions at a higher level of ab-stractness. More specific, participants in the noise condition rank orderedthe DAV and the IAV questions as less likely to be used and the adjectivequestions as more likely to be used. In the present study, from each ofthe noise conditions of Experiment 1 (i.e., noise and quiet conditions)and for each of the four conversation topics (major, favorite music, bestfriend, and girl-boy friend), we selected the two questions for whichscores revealed the highest average perceived likelihood of use in areal interview and the highest frequency of inclusion between the twoquestions most likely to be used. In the no-noise condition, for eachconversation topic these questions included one IAV question and oneSV question. In the noise condition, again across the four conversationtopics, those questions included one SV question and one adjectivequestion. Overall, the two lists (based on the noise and the no-noiseconditions, respectively) consisted of eight questions each (i.e., twoquestions per conversation topic, see Appendix).

Experimental Session. On arrival, participants were greeted by theexperimenter and escorted to the experimental room, where a confederatewas waiting. The study, the instructions stated, was designed to gatherinformation about ways in which people talk about life-relevant topics.The confederate was introduced as a college student who had previouslytaken part in the same study and who for extra credit had personallydeveloped the questions the participants would be asked subsequentlyto answer. The instructions further stated that the interview would beaudio-taped to allow the study of communicative style. Participants werereminded that an interview is a one-sided affair and that their task wasmerely to answer questions. The experimenter then left the room, andthe interview began.

Male participants were interviewed by a male confederate, and femaleparticipants were interviewed by a female confederate. After introducingher or himself, the confederate asked three introductory questions, whichwere the same across the two experimental conditions. These were thefollowing: "What is your name?" "Where do you come from?" "Doyou have brothers or sisters?" The confederate then proceeded to askthe eight critical questions that differed appropriately across the twoconditions. The question sequence was kept constant across participants:The experimenter first asked the two questions related to the major, thenthe questions concerning participants' favorite music, then those aboutthe best friend, and, finally, the two questions about the girl-boyfriend.At the end of the interview, the confederate left, and the experimenterreturned and asked the participant to fill out a brief questionnaire.

Postexperimental Questionnaire

Participants rated the extent to which they found the interview situa-tion comfortable and the interview questions reasonable. Furthermore,for each conversation topic, they rated the extent to which they perceivedthat they had revealed more information about themselves or about thetopic of conversation. These ratings were recorded on 7-point scalesthat ranged from I {revealed very much about myself) to 7 (revealedvery much about the topic—that is, my major, favorite music, bestfriend, girl-boyfriend).

Additional measures tapped the participants' perceptions of their inter-action with the interviewer: More specific, participants rated the extentto which they perceived the interview as personal, the extent to whichthey had a friendly interaction with the interviewer, and the extent towhich they were prepared to complete another experimental task withthe same person. Participants responded to these questions on 7-pointscales that ranged from 1 (not at all) to 7 (very much). After theycompleted the questionnaire, participants were fully debriefed and thepurpose of the study was explained to them.


Coding System for the Linguistic Dependent Variables

The predicates contained in the participants' answers were coded byusing the linguistic category model (Semin & Fiedler, 1988) and ac-cording to the aforementioned categories of DAVs, IAVs, SVs, and adjec-tives. Predicates were also coded with respect to the causal agent impliedin the sentence (i.e., the respondent him or herself vs. the conversationtopic). Two independent judges, unaware of conditions, performed thecoding. The intercoder agreement was 89%. Disagreements were re-solved by discussion. The frequency with which each linguistic categoryappeared in the participants' answers and the frequency with whichthe sentence's subject (i.e., the participant) versus the object (i.e., theconversation topic) was the implied causal agent in those answers consti-tuted the main linguistic dependent variables.

Results

Perceived Comfort and Reasonableness of Questions

A 2 (question type: more vs. less abstract) X 2 (gender)ANOVA performed on the two items tapping participants' per-ception of comfort in the interview situation and of the ques-tions' reasonableness failed to yield significant effects. Overall,participants reported relatively high degrees of perceived com-fort (M = 2.82) and perceived the questions put to them asrelatively reasonable {M = 1.90).

Answers' Abstractness

On the basis of the findings of Semin, Rubini, and Fiedler(1995), we expected that participants exposed to relatively ab-stract questions would, reciprocally, cast their answers at ahigher level of abstractness than would participants exposed torelatively concrete questions. To test this hypothesis, we calcu-lated an overall abstraction index by using a simple monotonicweighting scheme that used 1,2, 3, and 4 to weight the frequencyof the four relevant linguistic categories (i.e., DAVs, IAVs, SVs,and adjectives) and dividing this by the total number of predi-cates used. The resulting score is akin to an ordinal scale, indi-cating the degree of abstractness involved in language use (fordiscussion, see Semin & Fiedler, 1988).

A 2 (question type) X 2 (gender) X 4 (topic of conversation)ANOVA, with the first two variables acting as between-subjectsvariables and the third as a within-subjects variable, was per-formed on these data. It yielded the predicted, question typemain effect, F ( l , 46) = 113.88, p < .001, indicating that theoverall level of abstractness in the answers varied positivelywith abstractness of the questions (for abstract questions, M -3.13, n = 25; for concrete questions, M - 2.32, n = 25). Thisfinding replicated in the present context the results of Semin,Rubini, and Fiedler (1995). Of lesser theoretical relevance, atopic main effect, F(3,138) = 4.49,p < .01, appeared, indicat-ing that the answers' level of abstractness varied as a functionof the interview topic with the participant's major promptingthe most concrete answers, and boy-girlfriend prompting themost abstract answers.

Personal Versus Topic-Related Information: The CausalOrigin Implicit in the Answers

On the basis of the findings of Semin, Rubini, and Fiedler(1995), we also hypothesized that the causal origin implicit in

the answers would vary as function of the questions' level ofabstractness. We specifically expected that the relatively abstractquestions (e.g., "Why is this music appealing?") would elicitanswers implicating the logical object of the questions as thecausal origin of the questions' predicates, whereas relativelyconcrete questions (e.g., "Why do you listen to this music?")would elicit answers identifying the logical subject of the ques-tion as the causal origin.

To test this assumption, we performed a 2 (question type) X2 (participant's gender; between-subjects) X 2 (causal agent:logical subject vs. logical object) X 4 (topic of conversation;within-subject) ANOVA on the arcsine-transformed proportionsof the predicates that implicated the logical subject of the ques-tions and the logical object of the questions, respectively, as thecausal agent of the answers (the arcsine transformation wasperformed to normalize the proportions and to remove the de-pendencies between the cells). This analysis yielded a causalagent main effect, F( 1,49) = 218.50,/? < .001, (logical subject,or respondent, M = 1.16, n = 23; logical object, or topic ofconversation, M = 2.11, n = 27) that was due to the fact that,overall, terms implying the topic of conversation as the causalorigin were the most prevalent. Of greater theoretical interest,a significant two-way interaction appeared between the questiontype and the causal agent variables, F{\, 49) = 88.70, p <.001. As shown in Table 2, this interaction was due to the factthat where the questions were relatively abstract, the differencebetween the proportion of predicates causally implicating thelogical object of the questions and the proportion causally impli-cating the logical subject of the question was much larger thanin conditions in which the questions were relatively concrete.As expected, then, phrasing one's questions in relatively abstractterms biases the answers toward the logical object of the ques-tion. This finding replicates, in a novel context, the findings ofSemin et al. (1995).

Perceived Rapport With Interviewer

A major way in which the present research extends beyondthat of Semin, Rubini, and Fiedler (1995) is that it consideredthe possible interpersonal implications of linguistic abstraction.More specific, we hypothesized that the greater tendency in theabstract versus concrete question condition to invoke in one'sanswers the object of the question or the greater tendency touse abstraction reciprocally in one's answers would encourage

Table 2Arcsine Transformed Proportions of Predicates as a Functionof Question Type and Causal Agent (Experiment 2)

Question type

Relatively concrete questionRelatively abstract questions

(IAV-SV)(SV-ADJ)

Causal

Logicalsubject

M

1.440.88

n

2526

agent

Logicalobject

M n

1.78 252.42 26

Note. TAV = interpretive action verb; SV = state verb; ADJ = adjective.


the perception that the interview was less personal or friendly.Several items included in the postexperimental questionnaireaimed to assess this hypothesis. One of these inquired whetherthe participant perceived his or her disclosures during the inter-view as personal rather than object related. Participants an-swered the question "How much information did you revealabout yourself and about your major, favorite music, best friend,girl-boyfriend?" Answers were recorded on 7-point bipolarscales that ranged from 1 (revealed very much about myself)to 7 (revealed very much about my major, favorite music, bestfriend, boy-girlfriend). An ANOVA performed on these resultsrevealed no significant effects. If the interviews indeed elicitedfrom our respondents differential amounts of personal disclosureas a function of the questions' level of abstraction, this did notseem to register in participants' awareness.

Our less direct indexes tell a somewhat different story. Spe-cifically, participants exposed to the relatively concrete questionsperceived the style of the interview as more personal than didthose exposed to the relatively abstract questions. The relevantquestionnaire items were worded as follows: "To what extentdid you find the present interview to be personal or imper-sonal?" "To what extent did you have a friendly interactionwith the interviewer?" "To what extent would you be willingto complete another experimental task with the same studentwho interviewed you?'' Answers were recorded on 7-point bipo-lar scales appropriately anchored by 1 (personal, very friendly,rather not, respectively) and 7 (impersonal, very unfriendly,very much, respectively). After appropriate score reversals forthe third item (originally scored in direction opposite to theformer two), we computed correlations between responses tothese items. These correlations were all positive and significant(rs ranged from .48 to .62, p < .001, in the different cells ofthe design), hence these responses were combined to form anoverall index of perceived positive rapport with the interviewer.A 2 (question type) X 2 (gender) between-subjects ANOV\performed on these data yielded only a main effect of questiontype, F ( l , 50) = 22.71, p < .001, which was due to the factthat the concrete questions (M - 1.92) elicited the perceptionof a more positive rapport with the interviewer than did theabstract questions (M = 3.43).

Discussion

The two experiments reported thus far accomplished a num-ber of preliminary objectives. Experiment 1 established that thepresence of environmental noise, resulting in a heightened needfor closure, may lead potential interviewers to select questionsphrased at a higher level of abstractness. This finding conceptu-ally replicated the results of Webster, Kruglanski, and Pattison(in press), which confirmed the relationship between need forclosure and abstractness in an intergroup paradigm. Experiment2 demonstrated, moreover, that the abstractness differential inquestions selected under noise versus no-noise conditions is ofsufficient magnitude to elicit varying reactions from respon-dents. Tn a conceptual replication of the findings of Semin,Rubini, and Fiedler (1995), we found that when questions werephrased at a relatively concrete (vs. relatively abstract) level,the answers (a) were reciprocally more concrete, (b) tended tocausally implicate the subject of the sentence (i.e., the respon-

dent) rather than its object (i.e., the interview topic). Mostimportant, phrasing questions in relatively concrete versus ab-stract terms tended to encourage a more positive perceived rap-port with the interviewer on part of the interviewee. To be spe-cific, it tended to elicit the perception that the interview stylewas more personal and that the interviewer was friendlier, hencethe kind of person one would not mind meeting again.

Given the encouraging findings of our first two experiments,we proceeded in Experiment 3 to investigate the entire putativechain, commencing with relatively low need for closure andending with more positive interpersonal rapport, this time byusing a paradigm wherein highversus low-need-for-closure in-terviewers interacted freely with highversus low-need-for-clo-sure interviewees. Unlike Experiment 1, rather than selectingquestions from a list, the interviewers in Experiment 3 spontane-ously generated them on their own. Unlike Experiment 2, more-over, the interviewees were not presented with questions knownto differ in their level of abstractness but rather reacted to what-ever queries their interviewers chose to pose. A secondary objec-tive of Experiment 3 was to conceptually replicate our previousfindings with a different operational definition of the need forclosure. Whereas in Experiment 1, the need for closure wasmanipulated by means of noise, Experiment 3 used an individ-ual-difference measure of this motivation. Finally, unlike Experi-ments L and 2, both of which took place in the United States,Experiment 3 was carried out in Italy, in an attempt to examinethe generality of our findings across different cultural settings.

Experiment 3

An Italian version of Webster and Kruglanski's (1994) Needfor Closure Scale (NFCS) (Pierro et al., 1995) was used topreselect participants high or low on this motivation. Each par-ticipant was randomly assigned the role of either an intervieweror an interviewee. The interviewer was instructed to develop alist of questions to be put to a person in a getting-acquaintedsituation and to pose those questions to the interviewee who, inturn, would answer them.

The design of the study was 2 (dispositional need for closure:high vs. low) X 2 (interactional role: interviewer vs. inter-viewee). In accordance with the results of Experiment 1, weexpected interviewers high on the need for closure to formulaterelatively abstract questions and interviewers low in the needfor closure to formulate relatively concrete questions. We alsoexpected interviewees paired with high-need-for-closure inter-viewers to give relatively abstract answers and intervieweespaired with low-need-for-closure interviewers to give relativelyconcrete answers. Furthermore, we expected that intervieweeshigh on need for closure would couch their answers in moreabstract terms.

Interviewees paired with high-need-for-closure interviewerswere expected to causally implicate in their answers more oftenthe logical object of the question. Finally, because of the higherlevel of abstraction expected to characterize the interaction ofinterviewees and interviewers high on the need for closure andbecause interviewees whose interviewers were high versus lowon the need for closure were expected to causally implicate intheir answers more often the logical object of the question ratherthan its subject (i.e., themselves), we expected interactions in


which either the interviewer or the interviewee or both werehigh on the need for closure to be rated by participants as lessfriendly than interactions in which neither party was high onthis motivation.

Method

Participants

Seventy-eight female students in Introductory Social Psychology atthe University of Bologna, Italy, participated in the experiment.

Preselection on Need for Closure Scores

Two months before the experimental session, 325 students in Introduc-tory Social Psychology at the University of Bologna completed the Italianversion (Pierro et a!., 1995) of the 42-item NFCS (Webster & Kruglan-ski, 1994), which was designed to assess stable individual differencesin the need for cognitive closure. The Italian version of the scale (Pierroet al., 1995) has demonstrated that the NFCS has adequate internalconsistency (Cronbach's a = .86) and test-retest reliability. Participantsscoring in the upper 25% of the score distribution were classified ashigh in the need for closure, and those scoring in the lower 25% wereclassified as low in this need. These two groups constituted the eligiblesample of participants in the experiment. Several weeks following theadministration of the NFCS, participants were contacted by telephoneand invited to volunteer for a study on linguistic communication.

Procedure

Experimental session. The participant assigned the interviewer rolewas scheduled to arrive at the experimental room 20 min. prior to theinterviewee. She was told that the study would examine language useby people in getting-acquainted situations. In accordance with this, shewas to develop a list of questions and subsequently to use it in the courseof an interview she was to conduct with another college student. Shewas not expected to adhere rigidly to her question list, the instructionscontinued, and she could pose any other question that came to mindduring the course of the interview. The conversation topics suggestedto participants were those previously used in Experiments 1 and 2,namely, major, favorite music, best friend, and girl-boyfriend.

The interviewer was further asked to avoid questions potentially an-swerable by a simple "yes" or "no," and was told she could use verbsand adjectives to formulate her queries. Finally, she was provided withfour examples of interpersonal questions formulated at the four levelsof abstractness identified in the linguistic category model (Semin &Fiedler, 1988). Although she was not overtly requested to pose causal (or"why") questions, this was tacitly suggested because the four samplequestions were all of this genre.

Ten minutes were allotted to the question-development phase. On thecompletion of this session, the participant assigned to the intervieweerole was brought into the experimental room and introduced to theinterviewer. She was informed that the study would examine the linguis-tic communication of people in a getting-acquainted situation and thatthe other participant had already prepared a set of questions for her toanswer. Both participants were made aware that the interview would beaudio-taped to facilitate the subsequent study of linguistic patterns. Priorto commencing the interview, an experimenter turned on the tape re-corder and left the room. Participants were instructed to summon herback once the interview was over

Postexperimental questionnaire. At that time, both participants (i.e.,the interviewer and the interviewee) responded to a brief questionnaire.Two of its items were designed to assess state-like manifestation of theneed for closure: The interviewer rated how much thought was required

to formulate the questions, and the interviewee, how much thought wasrequired to answer them. Both participants were also asked to rate, intheir opinion, how long the interview lasted. In previous research (seeKruglanski & Webster, 1996, for a review), such items reliably differen-tiated between participants with (situationally induced or dispositional)high versus low need for closure. High-need-for-closure individuals havetypically rated their tasks as requiring less thought and less time tocomplete.

Additional items, similar to those of Experiment 2, inquired into bothparticipants' sense that the interviewee had revealed information focusedon herself versus the object of the conversation. Participants also com-pleted three measures tapping their perceptions of the quality of theirinteraction. The interviewer rated the extent to which her conversationwith the interviewee had been personal, and the interviewee rated howpersonal her answers to the questions were. Finally, both participantsrated the extent to which their interaction was friendly and to whichthey were willing to undertake another task with the same partner.

Results

Manipulation Checks

The two items tapping state-like manifestation of the needfor closure read as follows: "How much thought was requiredto formulate your questions/answers?" "How long, in youropinion, did the interview last?" In both cases, answers wererecorded on 7-point scales anchored appropriately by 1 (verylittle thought) and 7 (very much thought) and ( 1 ) very longand 7 (not at all long), respectively. Responses to these itemswere highly intercorrelated in both the interviewer and inter-viewee conditions (rs ranged from .61 to .48, p < .001) andwere therefore averaged. The relevant data are summarized inTable 3.

The interviewee's and interviewer's state-like manifestationsof the need for closure were uncorrelated in the different cellsof this design (rs ranged from .10 to .30, ns, in all cases).Two separate two-way ANOVAs were performed on the state-manifestations data with interviewer's and interviewee's dispo-sitional need for closure as the independent variables. One ofthese ANOVAs treated the interviewer's state-like manifestationof the need for closure as the dependent variable; the otherANO\A treated the interviewee's state-like manifestations ofthe need for closure as the dependent variable. The first analysisyielded only one significant main effect, namely that of theinterviewer's dispositional need for closure, F( i, 38) = 17.65,

Table 3Interviewer's and Interviewee's State-Like Manifestations ofthe Need for Closure as a Function of Their DispositionalNeed for Closure (Experiment 3)

Interviewer's need for closure

Interviewee'sneed for

Low High

closure

LowHigh

Interviewee

4.505.64

Interviewer

4.134.67

Interviewee

5.115.64

Interviewer

5.916.18

Note. Ixiwer numbers correspond to greater manifestation of the needfor closure.


Table 4Abstraction Level of Questions and Answers as a Functionof the Interviewer's and Interviewee's DispositionalNeed for Closure (Experiment 3)

Interviewee's needfor closure

LowHigh

Answers

2.062.56

Interviewer's

Low

Questions

1.952.28

need for closure

High

Answers Questions

2.27 2.582.64 2.65

Note. Lower numbers indicate lower linguistic abstractness.

p < .001, suggesting that the interviewer's state-like manifesta-tion of the need for closure was appropriately affected by herdispositional need for closure. The second analysis yielded onlya significant main effect of the interviewee's dispositional needfor closure, F(\, 38) = 5.94, p < .03, suggesting that theinterviewee's state-like manifestation of the need for closurewas also affected in the expected way by her dispositional needfor closure.

Level of Linguistic Abstraction in Questions andAnswers

The coding system used in Experiment 2 was adopted. Boththe interviewers' questions and the interviewee's answers werecoded according to the linguistic category model (Semin &Fiedler, 1988). The intercoder agreement was 87%. Disagree-ments were resolved by discussion. The relevant abstraction dataare displayed in Table 4.

A 2 x 2 x 2 repeated-measure ANO\A with the interviewer'sand interviewee's dispositional need for closure (high vs. low)as between-subjects variables and questions versus answers asa within-dyad variable was performed on the abstraction scores.The ANOVA yielded a main effect of interviewer's need forclosure, F ( l , 35) - 16.43, p < .001, and also an intervieweeneed for closure main effect, F(\, 35) = 15.67, p < .001.These two main effects imply that both the interviewer's andthe interviewee's need for closure influenced the abstractnesslevel of both questions and answers. As shown in Table 4, theabstractness level of both questions and answers was higherwhen interviewer's or interviewee's need for closure was high.The interviewer's effects on the abstractness of questions andanswers are consistent with the results of Experiments 1 and 2,respectively. Recall that in Experiment 1 high need for closureled to the selection of questions at a higher abstractness leveland that in Experiment 2, questions selected by participants highon the need for closure elicited answers higher in abstractness.Furthermore, the fact that interviewees high on the need forclosure produced answers that were higher in level of ab-stractness is consistent with the postulated positive relation be-tween need for closure and abstractness (cf. Boudreau et al.,1992; Mikulinzer et al., 1991; Webster et al., in press). Ofparticular interest is the finding that the interviewee's need forclosure impacted the questions' level of abstractness. It is possi-ble that the abstractness of the interviewees' answers influenced

the abstractness of subsequent questions posed by theinterviewers.

An interaction between interviewer's need for closure andquestions versus answers also emerged, F ( l , 35) - 7.72, p <.02, owing mainly to the fact that the influence of the interview-er's need for closure was more pronounced for the abstractnessof the questions than of the answers. Finally, a marginal interac-tion appeared between the interviewee's need for closure andquestions versus answers, F(1, 35) = 3.18, p = .08, owing tothe fact that the impact of the interviewee's need for closurewas more pronounced for the abstractness of the answers thanof the questions. These trends are not particularly surprising inthat the interviewer had direct control over the questions sheproduced but only an indirect impact on the interviewee's an-swers. Similarly, the interviewee had direct control over heranswers but only an indirect influence over the interviewer's(subsequent) questions.

Implicit Causality in the Answers

On the basis of the results of Experiments 1 and 2, we ex-pected that when the interviewer was high on the need for clo-sure, her questions would elicit answers implicating mainly thegrammatical object of the questions (i.e., the interview topic)rather than the grammatical subject (i.e., the respondent her-self). However, these tendencies may be appropriately moder-ated by the interviewee's dispositional need for closure, in thatan interviewee high on the need for closure may produce an-swers focused more on the object versus the subject of thesentence. As a result, dyads in which both the interviewer andthe interviewee are low on the need for closure should produce(a) the greatest preponderance of answers causally implicatingthe sentence's subject and (b) the smallest preponderance ofanswers causally implicating the sentence's object. Similarly,dyads in which both the interviewer and the interviewee arehigh on the need for closure should produce (a) the greatestpreponderance of answers causally implicating the sentence'sobject and (b) the smallest preponderance of answers causallyimplicating the sentence's subject, with the mixed cells, that is,cells in which the interviewer and the interviewee differed ontheir need for closure, falling in the middle.

Mean arcsine proportions of predicates used in the answersand causally implicating the sentence's object and the sentence'ssubject are displayed in Table 5. As can be seen, the data pattern

Table 5Arcsine Transformed Proportions of Predicates Used inAnswers as a Function of Causal Agent and Interviewer's andInterviewee's Dispositional Need for Closure (Experiment 3)

Dyadic composition

Causal agentimplicit in predicate

Subject Object

Low interviewer-low interviewee 8 1.54 1.60Low interviewer-high interviewee 9 1.31 1.83High interviewer-low interviewee 11 1.35 1.79High interviewer-high interviewee 11 1.29 1.84


in Table 5 closely conforms to the foregoing predictions. A 2X 2 X 2 repeated measures ANOVA with interviewer's andinterviewee's dispositional need for closure as between-subjectvariable and causal agent (sentence's subject vs. sentence's ob-ject) as a within-subjects variable performed on these resultsyielded only one significant main effect, F(l, 35) = 12.35, p< .01 due to the theoretically uninteresting fact that the answersmostly implicated the sentence's object rather than the senten-ce's subject. However, a planned comparison among the twoextreme cells of the design, that is, the cell in which both theinterviewer and the interviewee were high on the need for clo-sure versus both being low, yielded a significant difference inthe predicted direction, F(1, 17) - 4.62, p < .05. As expected,in cases in which both the interviewer and the interviewee werehigh on the need for closure the interviewee's answers causallyimplicated the sentence's object more than they did the senten-ce's subject, and this tendency was reversed in cases in whichboth interlocutors were low on the need for closure.

Participants' Perception of Self Versus Topic ofDisclosure

As in Experiment 2, no significant effect emerged in analysesof participants' perception of the degree to which informationdisclosed in the interviewees' answers was personal versus ob-ject-related.

Evaluation of the Interviewer—Interviewee Interaction

If high need for closure effects the formulation of questionsat a higher level of abstractness, if, furthermore, this leads toreciprocally abstract answers and ones focused more on thelogical object (vs. subject) of the sentence, and if linguisticabstractness and object focus foster feelings of estrangementand depersonalization, then both the interviewers' and the inter-viewees' need for closure should be related to such feelings.

To explore this possibility, we asked, following the procedureof Experiment 2, interviewers and interviewees to rate the extentto which their conversation with their partner was personal orimpersonal and friendly or unfriendly; we also asked them toindicate their willingness to meet the partner in the future. Inall cases, responses were recorded on 7-point scales anchoredappropriately at the ends. As in Experiment 2, these ratings werepositively and significantly intercorrelated (rs ranged from .41to .44, p < .01, in the interviewer condition and from .43 to.62, p < .001, in the interviewee condition), hence they wereaveraged to form an index of perceived rapport with one's part-ner. These data are presented in Table 6. A two-way ANOVAwith the interviewer's and the interviewee's dispositional needfor closure as independent variables and the interviewer's per-ceived rapport with the interviewee as the dependent variableyielded a main effect of interviewer's need for closure, F(ly

38) = 25.66, p < .001. As expected, interviewer's high versuslow on the need for closure perceived the rapport with the inter-viewee as less positive {M = 3.14 vs. M = 1.84, respectively;higher figures indicate less positive perceived rapport). An effectof the interviewee's need for closure was also revealed, F ( l ,38) = 5.59, p < .03, owing to the fact that interviewers inter-acting with interviewees high versus low on the need for closure

perceived the rapport with these persons as less positive (M —2.85 vs. M = 2.28, respectively).

A second two-way ANOVA with the interviewee's and theinterviewer's dispositional need for closure as the independentvariables and the interviewee's perceived rapport with the inter-viewer as the dependent variable also yielded a main effect ofthe interviewee's need for closure, F ( l , 38) = 5.43, p < .03,owing to the fact that high-need-for-closure interviewees per-ceived the rapport with the interviewer as less positive (M =2.15) than did low-need-for-closure interviewees (M = 1.58).A main effect of the interviewer's need for closure was alsofound, /•"( 1, 38) = 7.36, p < .01, owing to the fact that inter-viewees who interacted with high-need-for-closure interviewersperceived the rapport as less positive (A/ = 2.17) than didinterviewees who interacted with low-need-for-closure inter-viewers (M = 1.49).

Because the interviewer's and the interviewee's ratings ofperceived rapport with each other were significantly correlated(r = .54, p < .001) we performed two analyses of covariance,one on the interviewer's ratings with the interviewee's ratingsas a covariate and the second on the interviewee's ratings withthe interviewer's ratings as a covariate. Analysis of the inter-viewers' ratings yielded a significant effect of the interviewer'sdispositional need for closure, F(\f 34) - 20.64, p < .001. Theinterviewee's need-for-closure effect was rendered nonsignifi-cant, suggesting that it was mediated by its influence on theinterviewee's perceived rapport ratings. Analysis of the inter-viewee's ratings yielded only a significant effect of the covariate(the interviewer's ratings of rapport with the interviewee), F( 1,38) = 9.84, p < .01, suggesting that both the interviewer's andthe interviewee's need-for-clo sure effects were mediated by theirimpact on the interviewer's ratings. By and large then, both theinterviewers* and the interviewees1 dispositional need for clo-sure had the predicted (direct or mediated) effects on thesepersons' and their partners' perceived rapport with each other.

Discussion

The results of Experiment 3 confirmed our hypotheses. In aconceptual replication of Experiment 1, we found that interview-ers high on the need for closure tended to formulate questionsat a higher level of abstractness than did low-need-for-closureinterviewers. Tt is of interest that the abstractness of the questionsdepended also on the respondents' need for closure. We pre-sumed that high-need-for-closure respondents' tendency to an-swer in abstract terms may have elicited reciprocal abstractnessfrom the interviewers1 subsequent questions. Our results indicatealso that whereas the interviewers' need for closure impactedmore the abstractness of the questions, respondents' need forclosure impacted more the abstractness of the answers. Thisonly makes good sense because the questions (but not the an-swers) are under the interviewer's control, whereas the answers(but not the questions) are under the respondent's control.

Of particular relevance, respondents in dyads in which theinterviewers were high on the need for closure tended to givemore abstract answers as well as answers more likely to causallyimplicate the logical object of the sentence, thus they focusedmore on the conversation topic rather than on the respondentsthemselves. These results conceptually replicated those of Ex-


Table 6Mean Ratings of the Evaluations of the Interaction as a Function of the Interviewer's andInterviewee's Dispositional Need for Closure (Experiment 3)

High need-for-closure interviewerLow need-for-closure interviewer

Low need-for-closurerespondent

High need-for-closurerespondent

Low need-for-closurerespondent

Note. Lower numbers indicate a more positive evaluation.

High need-for-closurerespondent

Evaluation of interaction

By interviewerBy interviewee

M

1.671.42

n

88

M

2.001.56

n

99

M

2.731.76

n

1111

M

3.552.64

n

1111

periment 2 in showing that questions formulated at a higherabstraction level (i.e., those asked by high-need-for-closure in-terviewers) tend to elicit answers that are also more abstract andpredominantly focused on the question's object versus subject.

Of greatest interest, perhaps, and consistent with the resultsof Experiment 2, dyads in which either the interviewer or theinterviewee was high on the need for closure tended to be char-acterized by either one or both interaction partners being per-ceived as less personal and friendly and tended less to elicit awillingness to meet one's partner in the future. Consistent withthe findings of Experiment 2, however, neither the interviewers'nor the respondents' need for closure seemed to affect partici-pants' perceptions of the degree to which the information di-vulged during the interview was of a personal nature.

General Discussion

The Present Research

The present series of experiments presents a coherent pattern:Experiment 1 found an abstractness bias manifested by individu-als whose need for closure was elevated by ambient noise. Spe-cifically when asked to select questions for a hypothetical inter-view, those individuals tended to choose items characterized bya higher level of abstractness than did their low-need-for-closurecounterparts. Experiment 2 additionally showed that questionsof individuals under heightened need for closure elicited differ-ent reactions from respondents than did those of individuals lowon need for closure. The former questions evoked more abstractanswers and ones more likely to causally implicate the logicalobject (vs. subject) of the statement. In other words, answerselicited by questions originally formed by individuals under highversus low need for closure tended to refer more to the topicof the conversation (the sentence's object) rather than to therespondent (i.e., the sentence's subject). Finally, respondentsexposed to questions formulated by individuals under high (ver-sus low) need for closure tended to perceive the interaction itselfas less personal and friendly.

A major drawback of Experiments 1 and 2 was their relativelyartificial context: In both studies, the interview questions wereselected from a preexisting pool of items, possibly unrepresenta-tive of spontaneous queries "live" interviewers might pose.Furthermore, in Experiment 1, the interview was hypothetical

rather than actual, and, in Experiment 2, the interviewer's partwas played by confederates who rigidly adhered to a questionlist rather than naturally interacting with respondents. Therefore,Experiment 3 was designed to overcome these problems bytesting our notions in a more natural and unconstrained settingin which interviewers and respondents carried out a relativelyfree interaction. Experiment 3 also aimed to conceptually repli-cate Experiment 1 by operationalizing the need for closure as anindividual-difference (rather than situational) variable. Finally,Experiment 3 tested the external validity of our analysis bycarrying out the investigation within a different social and lin-guistic context (namely, in Italy).

In a sense, Experiment 3 pieced together, and empiricallyintegrated, the results of its two predecessors. The question-formulation phase under high need for closure mirrored Experi-ment 1. Respondent's reactions to questions formed under differ-ent need-for-closure levels echoed Experiment 2. The results ofour last, and critical, study confirmed what our previous resultshave merely intimated, namely, a chain of events triggered bythe arousal of a particular epistemic motivation and culminatingwith injection of a specific interpersonal atmosphere into aninteracting dyad.

It is apparent that the desire for abstract knowledge mayappropriately affect the use of language in interpersonal con-texts, which in turn may subtly imbue the tenor of unfoldingrelations between interaction partners. Linguistic abstractionmay create a barrier and a sense of detachment between colocu-tors; it may also encourage a shift in focus from the respondent(or the sentence's subject) to the conversation topic. This mayfurther deindividuate the interaction, consequently attenuatingthe respondent's sense of personal involvement in the dialogue.Asking why a respondent likes a given piece of music (i.e.,phrasing a question in terms of an SV) or why he or she foundit appealing (i.e., phrasing it in terms of an adjective), both ofwhich reflect a relatively high level of abstraction, invites an-swers about the musical piece as such. By comparison, askingwhy a respondent attended a given concert (i.e., using an IAVat a relatively low level of abstractness) invites an answer infor-mative about the respondent (e.g., one disclosing somethingabout his or her motivations, moods, or personal schedules).

We admit that the precise mediating mechanisms of the pres-ent findings were only imperfectly hinted at in the present exper-


iments. Thus, in Experiment 2 it was not entirely clear whetherthe reduced perceived friendliness and personability of the inter-action was prompted by the reciprocal abstractness of answerselicited by abstract questions, the answers' greater object focus,or both. If abstractness contributes to the development of asense of distance between conversation partners, it remains tobe clarified why it does so. An intriguing possibility in thisregard is that abstractness connotes the speaker's lack of help-fulness or caring as it requires greater interpretative effort onthe listener's part (Higgins & McCann, 1984).

It is additionally possible that, in Experiment 3, the reducedperceived friendliness and personability was directly broughtabout by participants' need for closure. For instance, such needmight have focused the participants narrowly on the task, reduc-ing their attention to more personal (or socioemotional) aspectsof the interaction. It is finally possible that high-need-for-closurepersons are generally less friendly or personable (perhaps be-cause of their greater task orientation; cf. De Grada, Kruglanski,Mannetti, & Pierro, 1996). The teasing apart of these possibili-ties will have to await further research in which actual communi-cations to and from high- and low-need-for-closure interactantsare experimentally controlled. If need-for-closure effects on per-ceived friendliness of interaction are direct rather than linguisti-cally mediated, they should obtain in those circumstances aswell. If they are linguistically mediated, however, they shouldbe eliminated under those circumstances. Note, at any rate, thatthe possibility of direct need-for-closure effects on perceivedquality of the interaction does not explain the results of Experi-ment 2 in which the respondents' need for closure was notsystematically varied. These results notwithstanding, recall thatin Experiment 2 questions at different levels of abstractnesswere found to elicit the predicted perceptions of interactionfriendliness and personableness from respondents.

Finally, the possibility that what we (as well as Semin et al.,1995) treated as differences in level of abstractness reflectsinstead difference in verb types or parts of speech must beconsidered. Thus, action verbs and state verbs may differ inways other than abstractness, as may adjectives versus verbs ingeneral. In fact, prior relevant research (McArthur, 1972;Brown & Fish, 1983) viewed differences in attributed causalityin terms of intrinsic properties of verb types (action verbs lead-ing primarily to person attributions, state verbs leading predomi-nantly to stimulus attributions) rather than in terms of ab-stractness differences. One could argue, then, that our ab-stractness effects may actually arise from specific properties ofverbs and adjectives rather than from the nonspecific abstractiondimension on which they can all be ordered. Note, however,that (a) there seems to be little theoretical reason to expect arelation between need for closure and the tendency to use differ-ent verb types or adjectives, whereas the relation between needfor closure and abstractness derives from an explicit theoreticalrationale (the permanence principle considered earlier); (b) inat least one study (Mikulincer et al., 1991), the relation betweenneed for closure and transsituational stability (that abstractnessmay psychologically represent) was obtained by means of amethodology completely unrelated to verb effects (and restingon distinctions between stable attributional categories of ' 'taskdifficulty" or "ability" versus the unstable ones of "luck" and"effort'1). Nonetheless, it would seem important to tease apart

possible part-of-speech (verbs or adjectives) effects from ab-stractness effects possibly by varying levels of abstractnesswithin linguistic categories (Hampson, John, & Goldberg,1986). At least so far, however, the most parsimonious explana-tion of the present body of results seems to be the notion thatan epistemically motivated abstractness or object focus com-bined to create a particular interpersonal climate among mem-bers of a dyad.

Implications for Motivated Language Use

The present research differs in an important regard from pre-vious work on motivated language use. Whereas prior relevantdiscussions of the topic (cf. Austin, 1962; Brown & Levinson,1987; Clark, 1979; Hilton, 1995; Krauss & Fussel, 1996;Schwarz, Strack, Hilton, & Naderer, 1991) focused on intention-ality in discourse (e.g., Searle's, 1979, "illocutionary forces"),that is, on goals interlocutors may consciously adopt, the presentstudies tapped a process occurring largely outside of awarenessand having a subtle rather than a straightforward relation to thespeakers' communicative intentions. In their broad outline, theseintentions may have remained constant regardless of the partici-pants' need for closure. For the interviewers, these may havebeen the goals of finding out about the interviewees' opinions,attitudes, or preferences in various domains; for the interview-ees, the goal may have been that of "providing pertinent infor-mation" on these topics. Yet need for closure may have unwit-tingly affected the manner in which these intentions were inter-preted and implemented. Because of the abstractness bias inknowledge they were seeking or formulating, participants underhigh need for closure may have ended up communicating verydifferent things to one another. In a sense then, the epistemicmotivation for closure may have imbued the speakers' communi-cative intentions with specific meaning, hence narrowing downwhat finding out or providing information may have been takento imply. Such motivational influence may, therefore, qualify asprecommunicative and extrinsic to the explicit communicationcontext as such. Along these lines, our participants were proba-bly quite unaware of any bias in their phrasing choices towardabstractness or concreteness and of what may have promptedsuch bias and how it may have affected their evaluations andaffect in the experimental situation. None of such possibilitieswere mentioned by any of our research participants during theextensive debriefing sessions conducted in the United States orItaly, rendering it highly unlikely that participants were awareof these connections.

In this sense too, the present findings add to the growing bodyof recent work on unconsciously motivated cognitive processesand actions (for reviews, see Bargh & Gollwitzer, 1994;Bargh & Barndoilar, 1996). Whereas in the latter research, goalswere activated situationally by means of semantic priming, inpresent work they were either chronically present (e.g., in parti-cipants dispositionally high on the need for closure) or contextu-ally induced through the participants' experience (of noise)elevating the perceived costs of lacking closure. Bargh's goal-priming research as well as the present studies converge on theconclusion that regardless of their activation mode, unconsciousmotivational states may exert powerful influence on individuals'actions and the social consequences of them.


Social Implications of Language Use in the Question-Answer Paradigm

Finally, but not least important, the present results both gener-alize and extend previous insights regarding language use inthe question-answer paradigm. Specifically, prior research hasestablished that the level of linguistic abstraction inherent in thequestion cues corresponding abstraction in the answer and af-fects the implied causal origin of the event disclosed in theanswer. Abstractness of statements, in turn, has been demon-strated to induce expectancies of future repeatability, a phenom-enon at the root of the LIB (Fiedler, Semin, Finkenauer, &Berkel, 1995; Maass & Arcuri, 1996; Webster et al., in press).Furthermore, the implied causal origin of events, mediated bylinguistic perspective, is relevant to the actor-observer differ-ences in internal versus external attributions (Semin & Fiedler,1989; de Poot & Semin, 1995). However interesting, all theforegoing effects belong among the cognitive implications oflanguage use. By contrast, the present research found evidencethat linguistic abstractness and implied causal focus that ab-stractness strivings might induce influence not only cognitionsper se but also the unfolding interpersonal rapport in the inter-viewer-interviewee dyad. Thus, an intriguing causal chainseems to be initiated by the interviewers' elevated need forclosure, culminating in a linguistically mediated interpersonalclimate that comes to govern their relations with the respondents.As need for closure is inducible by a wide variety of situationalconditions, including fatigue, alcohol intoxication, time pres-sure, or task dullness (for a review, see Kruglanski & Webster,1996; Kruglanski, 1996), its linguistically mediated effects oninterpersonal rapport may be quite widespread and hence ofconsiderable interest.

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Appendix

List of the Questions Used in the Two Experimental Conditions (Experiment 2)

Interpretive action verb and stateverb questions State verb and adjective questions

Why do you spend time on your favoritemusic? (IAV)

Why do you enjoy your favorite music? (SV)

Why did you decide on your major? (IAV)Why do you like your major? (SV)Why do you share with your best friend? (IAV)Why do you like your best friend? (SV)

Why do you confide in your boy-girlfriend?(IAV)

Why do you like your boy-girl friend? (SV)

Why do you enjoy your favorite music? (SV)

Why is your favorite music entertaining toyou? (ADJ)

Why do you like your major? (SV)Why is your major interesting to you? (ADJ)Why do you like your best friend? (SV)Why is your best friend appealing to you?

(ADJ)Why do you trust your boy-girlfriend? (SV)

Why is your boy-girlfriend attractive toyou? (ADJ)

Note. IAV = interpretive action verb; SV = state verb; ADJ = adjective.

Received April 25, 1996Revision received November 27, 1996

Accepted November 27, 1996

Rubini, Kruglanski (1997) Brief encounters ending in estrangement

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