The Effect of Context on the Production of Hostile Associates to Ambiguous Verbal Stimuli

Abstract

Six groups of 50 subjects each produced word-associates to 12 stimulus words which are subject to both a hostile and a non-hostile interpretation. For 3 of the 6 groups, the stimulus words were preceded by either a 1, 2, or 3 word hostile context, while for the 3 other groups, the stimuli were preceded by a 1, 2, or 3 word neutral context. The results showed that increasing context length for both hostile and neutral contexts served to produce more different responses. The hostile context was found to be effective in increasing the number of hostile responses in proportion to the length of the context. The results were interpreted to mean that hostile context exercises a selective effect in resolving the ambiguity of stimulus words which are ambiguous with respect to hostility, and that this effect is dependent upon the evocation of appropriate representational responses.