How verb tense affects the construal of action: the simple past tense leads people into an abstract mindset

Two experiments examined the influence of verb tense on how abstractly people construe action representations. Experiment 1 revealed that written descriptions of several daily events using the simple past tense (vs. simple present tense) resulted in actions and the action’s target being seen as less...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Carrera Levillain, Pilar, Muñoz Cáceres, María Dolores, Caballero González, Amparo, Fernández, Itziar, Aguilar Barriga, Pilar, Albarracín, Dolores
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2014
País:España
Institución:Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Repositorio:Biblos-e Archivo. Repositorio Institucional de la UAM
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.uam.es:10486/668447
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10486/668447
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Influence of verb tense
Action representations
Psicología
Descripción
Sumario:Two experiments examined the influence of verb tense on how abstractly people construe action representations. Experiment 1 revealed that written descriptions of several daily events using the simple past tense (vs. simple present tense) resulted in actions and the action’s target being seen as less likely and less familiar, respectively. In Experiment 2 participants wrote about a personal episode of binge drinking (using the simple past tense vs. simple present tense), and the resulting narratives were coded using the Linguistic Category Model (see Semin & Fiedler, 1991). Results revealed that events were described at a more abstract level when texts were written using the simple past tense (vs. simple present tense). The results are discussed in the context of other effects of verb form and in relation to construal level of events