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Maximum contrast between self and others in personal judgement: A repertory grid study
Author(s) -
AdamsWebber J.,
Davidson D.
Publication year - 1979
Publication title -
british journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.536
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8295
pISSN - 0007-1269
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8295.1979.tb01725.x
Subject(s) - psychology , repertory grid , categorization , salience (neuroscience) , judgement , social psychology , personal construct theory , contrast (vision) , cognitive psychology , linguistics , political science , law , philosophy , artificial intelligence , computer science
Frank (cf. Berlyne, 1971) operationally defines the ‘strikingness’ (salience) of an event as its relative frequency ( pi ) times its informational content (log 2 1/p i ). This index reaches its maximum value when p i = 1/e (approximately 0.368). It was shown that when subjects are asked to categorize themselves and others in terms of bipolar dimensions, e.g. calm‐excitable, they tend to assign other persons to different poles than the self about 37 per cent of the time. It was suggested, in light of Frank's hypothesis, that people may organize their personal judgements in such a way that perceived differences between themselves and others, considered as a whole, will stand out maximally as ‘figure’ against a general background of similarities.