Semin and Krahé draw inappropriate conclusions from their two studies. The correlation between semantic similarity and assumed relatedness may well be spurious and should not be interpreted causally. Their finding that semantic similarity estimates are not influenced by the period of observation whereas, according to Epstein and Teraspulsky, the assumed relatedness of behaviours is influenced, points to the inappropriateness of Semin and Krahé's claims. Epstein and Teraspulsky's psychometric hypothesis accounts for the available findings more easily than Semin and Krahé's semantic mediation hypothesis.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AllportG. W.OdbertH. S. (1936). ‘Trait‐names: A psycho‐lexical study’, Psychological Monographs, 47: No.211.
2.
BorkenauP.OstendorfF. (1987a). ‘Retrospective estimates of act frequencies: How accurately do they reflect reality?’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52:626–638.
3.
BorkenauP.OstendorfF. (1987b). ‘Fact and fiction in implicit personality theory’, Journal of Personality, 55:415–443.
4.
CattellR. B. (1943). ‘The description of personality: Basic traits resolved into clusters’, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 38:476–506.
5.
EpsteinS.TeraspulskyL. (1986). ‘Perception of cross‐situational consistency’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50:1152–1160.
6.
FunderD. C. (1987). ‘Errors and mistakes: Evaluating the accuracy of social judgment’, Psychological Bulletin, 101:75–90.
7.
JacksonD. N.ChanD. W.StrickerL. J. (1979). ‘Implicit personality theory: Is it illusory?’, Journal of Personality, 47:1–10.
8.
JacksonD. N.StrickerL. J. (1982). ‘Is implicit personality theory illusory? Armchair criticism versus replicated empirical research’, Journal of Personality, 50:240–244.
9.
KahnemanD.TverskyA. (1973). ‘On the psychology of prediction’, Psychological Review, 80:237–251.
10.
MirelsH. L. (1976). ‘Implicit personality theory and inferential illusions’, Journal of Personality, 44:467–487.
11.
NisbettR. E.KundaZ. (1985). ‘Perception of social distributions’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48:297–311.
12.
SeminG. R.KrahéB. (1988). ‘Explaining perceived cross‐situational consistency: intuitive psychometrics or semantic mediation?’, European Journal of Personality, 2:239–252.
13.
TverskyA. (1977). ‘Features of similarity’, Psychological Review, 84:327–352.
14.
TverskyA.KahnemanD. (1983). ‘Extensional versus intuitive reasoning: The conjunction fallacy in probability judgment’, Psychological Review, 90:293–315.
