Webster, D. M., Kruglanski, A. W., & Pattison, D. A. (1997). Motivated
language-use in intergroup contexts: Need for closure effects on the
linguistic intergroup bias. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
72, 1122-1131.
Two experiments examined the impact of the motivation for cognitive closure on the abstractness of linguistic communications in intergroup contexts. Participants described positive and negative behaviors attributed to either an in-group or an out-group member. Individuals high (vs. low) in need for closure exhibited greater linguistic abstraction when describing positive behaviors of in-group members and negative behaviors of out-group members. These differences disappeared for descriptions of negative behaviors of out-group members. The discussion relates these results to the interface of motivation, language, and social cognition.
