To delineate the effects of affective involvement and frequency of experience on cognitive discrimination of social stimuli, 60 Ss were asked to describe in as many ways as they could persons meeting each of six descriptions, the descriptions entailing both affect and frequency of experience. Ss then grouped those descriptions in a free-sorting task. Results indicated that positive affect and high frequency of contact had a significantly enhancing effect on the quantity of responding but that neutral affect exercised a significantly enhancing effect on the discriminational complexity of the responding. Implications of these results for three contradictory theoretical stances are discussed.
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