ABSTRACT
This chapter considers some of the factors that may affect the manner in which judgments are reported and attempts to demonstrate the importance of taking the effects into account when interpreting research on attitude and belief processes. Effects upon the language used to report one’s responses along a category scale have been the subject of intensive research and theory in the areas of psychophysics and social psychology. The effect of past experience on response language may be particularly pronounced when the judgments to be reported are evaluative, since subjects are more likely to differ from one another in the quality of stimuli they typically encounter in their everyday lives. According to the present interpretation the effects may not necessarily be the result of differences in the underlying judgments of stimuli when presented in different contexts, but rather they may be attributable to differences in the language used to report these judgments.
