The structure of perceived qualities of situations

• Published in: European journal of social psychology Vol. 35; no. 6; pp. 705 - 723
• Main Authors: Edwards, John A., Templeton, Angela
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chichester, UK John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 01.11.2005; Wiley; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Subjects: Biological and medical sciences; Cognition; Evaluation; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Goals; Negotiation; Objectives; Participation; Perception; Perceptions; Psychology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Situation appraisal; Situations; Social attribution, perception and cognition; Social psychology; Human; Evaluation; Social perception; Language; Negativism; Positivity; Attribution; Structural analysis
• ISSN: 0046-2772; 1099-0992
• DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.271

Situations can be seen as having attributes or qualities in much the same way as people have traits. The structure of people's perceptions of these situation qualities was explored. A comprehensive list of adjectives that might describe situations was generated, and people rated situations using samples of the words. Across several samples of words and participants and several analytic methods, four factors show up regularly (positivity, negativity, productivity, and ease of negotiation). In a second study, it was shown that these factors predict the way in which people freely sort situations. The conceptual nature of these factors and of situation qualities is discussed, with particular emphasis on how people's goals and perceived outcomes influence their perceptions of situations. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.