steph-w / backfiring-words

Words that backfire

Backfiring words, or It goes without saying.

Wegner et al. (1991)

Headline of candidates: "John is affiliated with the mafia" & "Is John affiliated with the mafia?" > "John is not affiliated with the mafia." > "John is celebrating his birthday."

Slight effect of reporter reliability (Washington Post vs. National Enquirer)

Three explanations:

1. Pragmatic: Why have written this if it wasn't contentious?
2. Negation processing requires processing the affirmative (a la Clark)

Gruenfield and Wyer (1992)

"Peter's IQ is over 100."

• Semantics: > 100
• Pragmatics: > 100 but just barely
• Depends on prior

Replicate Wegner et al. (1999)

• Measured how much do you believe "JFK was a good guy."

• Said "JFK was not a bad guy."

• Measured "JFK was a good guy."

• "Republican countrymen are part of country clubs."

Item effects??

Our approach

Goal:

1. Make these inferences in everyday conversation.
2. Manipulate the context to show that these inferences can be pushed around.
3. Model this.

2 x 2: QUD x Speaker

1. QUD1: Out of the blue: "Jim is not stealing your rent checks." is only informative if it is in question (so Jim is not a great guy)
2. QUD2: (reasonable to say negation): Alternative question where the response is reasonable (a la Geurts, 1995: "I see you're chewing on your pencil. Have you recently stopped smoking?")
3. QUD3: Explicit question. "Is Jim stealing my rent checks?" (Should be like QUD1)
4. QUD4: Explicit accusation. "I think Jim is stealing my rent checks."

Speakers

1. Truthful and informative
2. Truthful, but uninformative
3. Untruthful

Sally is talking with her roommate William about their other rooommate Jim. Sally says to William: "Jim is not stealing your rent checks."

Sally and Jim are dating and living together. They have a third roommate William. One day, Jim is out of the house and Sally says to William: "Jim is not stealing your rent checks."

Sally and Jim were dating and living together, but they just broke up. They have a third roommate William. One day, Jim is out of the house and Sally says to William: "Jim is not stealing your rent checks."

Different classes of sentences

• Political
  • "Republican congressman belong to elitist country clubs."
• Scientific
  • "Oxygen in the United States is safe to breathe."
  • "Going outside is good for mental health."
  • "Exercise is good for your muscles."
  • "Smoking "
• Objects
  • "iPhones have custom ringtones."
• Natural kinds
  • "Plants grow with sunlight."
• Events
  • "Dropping sugar in water causes it to dissolve."
• Historical events
  • "The upcoming presidential election will take place in November."
• Social categories
  • "Boys play sports."
  • "Girls like dolls."

Dependent measures

• How important is this information?
• How much do other people believe in this?
• What % of the population do you think agree with this?

Negations

Modeled on Wegner et al. (1991) but not necessarily political or tied to newspaper.

• "Cows don't have Beta T-19 in their bones."
• Auto-denials: "I didn't do it." without a QUD.
• Auto-denials: "Tom didn't do it." without any accusing Tom.

[Presupposition Triggers] (http://www-01.sil.org/linguistics/glossaryoflinguisticterms/WhatIsAPresuppositionTrigger.htm) e.g. "too", "now"

Modeling

1. Nixon example: Is it QUD raising or is it inference about common ground?