Construct polysemy and the virtues of acquaintances

Empirical evidence and theoretical arguments seem to support the hypothesis that, on average, people assign aquaintances to the positive poles of constructs 62% of the time; these studies have focused on the mean proportion of positive judgments when collapsed across acquaintances and constructs. The present study examined the distribution of these virtues among acquaintances and constructs. Results indicated that: (a) closer acquaintances were assigned to the positive poles of constructs more frequently than comparatively distant acquaintances; (b) subjects assigned positive qualities to closer acquaintances more frequently on constructs with fewer alternative meanings, whereas the opposite relation was observed for distant acquaintances. These findings suggest that people are oriented toward formulating an unambiguous construction of the virtuous disposition of their closer acquaintances.