Meaning and Behavior: An Empirical Study in Sociolinguistics

Author(s): Ira E. Robinson, James W. Balkwell and Dawn McNeal Ward

Source: Social Psychology Quarterly, Vol. 43, No. 2 (Jun., 1980), pp. 253-258
Published by: American Sociological Association
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Social Psychology Quarterly

1980,Vol. 43, No. 2, 253-258

Meaningand Behavior:An EmpiricalStudyin Sociolinguistics*

IRA E. ROBINSON
Universityof Georgia

JAMESW. BALKWELL

Universityof Georgia

DAWN McNEAL WARD

TrinityCollege

perspective,intendedmeaning is viewed as the key to human

From a realityconstructionist
social behavior. Although there is a vast literaturein social psychology on attitudes and
behavior,thereare relativelyfew studies of theinterplayof meanings,as understoodby reality
constructionists, and actions. The present note reports an investigation of the
meaning-behaviorrelationshipin the sexual domain. Meaning is ascertained by a method
involvingthe word associations elicited by threestimuluswords: "sex," "intercourse," and
"petting." The responses to these stimulus words are classified as "body-centered,"
or orientedto "love." For a sample
"person-centered,"orientedto "marriage-commitment,"
of n = 110 male and n = 135female college students,associations werefound to be clearly
related to gender. For the female subsample, the primacy of "love" vis-a-vis "marriagecommitment"was found to be stronglyrelatedto sexual experience.An importantcontingency,
however,seems to be the concreteness or abstractness of the behavioral label.

From Weber, Schutz, and Mead othersin thecourseofinteraction,

calling
varietiesof for a negotiationof the disagreements.
throughthe contemporary
symbolic interactionism,a recurrent Overtime,thereis a tendencyformean(that is,
is thekeyto ings to become intersubjective
themehas beenthatmeaning
humanaction. Because meaningis en- shared). Third, symbolicsystems,parsystems,are the vehisocial ticularlylinguistic
coded in language,a significant
whichmeaningscome to be
problemis to ascertainthe cles through
psychological
betweenlinguisticcodes of shared.And finally,once meaningshave
relationship
ofhumanbehavior. been investedwithaffect,theycome to
meaningand patterns
The purposesof thisresearchnote are, have normativeas well as descriptive
liketheirpredecessors
first,to introducea methodforthemea- significance-they,
of meaningthatinvolvesword in theongoingprocess,guideaction.It is
surement
associations,and, second, to illustrate to be emphasizedthat,in a certainsense,
between
howmeaningandbehaviorcan be investi- thereis a reciprocalrelationship
the
meaningand behavior,each affecting
gatedjointly.
For the presentpurposes,the orienta- other.
An adequatedelineation
oftheconnection based on the writingsof Weber
(1948), Schutz(1967), Mead (1934), and tionsamongmeaning, as understoodin
traditions,and
by fourmain the Weber-Schutz-Mead
others,can be summarized
points.The firstand mostbasic is that allied conceptssuch as attitude,belief,
humansocial behavioris carriedout in value,norm,need,etc., is notwithinthe
accordancewithintendedmeanings.Sec- scope of thisnote. Sufficeit to say that
ofcogmaybe contestedby meaningconnotesan organization
ond,thesemeanings
nitiveelements.This organizationmay
*We wish to thankJackBalswickand Karl B. have analyticallyseparable dimensions
withthefirstauthorin col- (Osgoodet al., 1957);butit is theconfigKing,who collaborated
foracWe also urationitselfthathas significance
lectingthedata used in thisinvestigation.
thehelpof NormanLayne tion.I
gratefully
acknowledge

andBarbaraKarcher,whoassistedthethirdauthor
in checking
ofourcodingprocedures.
thereliability
I Meanings
Deto Ira E. Robinson,
Addressall communications
as
are notto be equatedwithattitudes
partmentof Sociology, Universityof Georgia, thelatterare understood
by mostsocial psycholoAthens,GA 30602.
gists;however,it shouldbe notedthatsomeofthe

253

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254

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

QUARTERLY

Sexual behaviorand sexual meaning have the data necessaryforan adequate

have been chosenas the domainforthe test.2
presentinvestigation.
This choice has a
dual rationale:thereis substantial
differMETHOD
entiationamong actors withrespectto
sexualmeaningsand behavior,and other Measurementof Meaning
researchers have established certain The methodof meaningmeasurement
benchmarksthat will aid attemptsto used in thisstudywas essentiallya coninterpretthe resultsof the presentre- tentanalysisof wordassociations.Word
associationswereused undertheassumpsearch.
The literature
on sexual attitudesand tionthattheyare largelydetermined
by
behaviormakes it clear thatmales and the meaningsheld by the individualsin
females,throughdiffering.
processes of question.It is believedthatwordassociapsychosexualdevelopment,
cometo have tions are typicallylexical or semantic
different
meaningsfor sexual behavior. rather
thansyntactic
(cf.Bernstein,
1970);
it is plausibleto supposethat
Gagnon & Simon (1970), for example, therefore,
suggestthat,withincreasedheterosexual they tap the meaning-alternatives
most
availableto a respondent
in
experience,males move froma purely immediately
physicalmeaningcontextto one thatin- responseto a givenword.
The novel aspect of our measurement
cludes love, affection,
and perhapscommitment;
females,on theotherhand,typi- procedureis the elicitationof "response
cally move from a narrow love- chains." A stimulusword is presented,
commitment
is instructed
meaningcontextto one that and therespondent
to write
also includesphysicalpleasure.Ehrmann the firstfive words that come to mind.
(1965; 1968)and Reiss (1967)concurthat Such responsechainshave an aspectnot
responses,suchas those
female sexuality tends to be more foundin unitary
male sexualitymore to theOsgoodet al. (1957)scales. Thisis
"person-centered,"
secondary association, that is, earlier re"body-centered."
sponses suggestlater responses,which
refine
themeanings
intended
bytheearlier
HYPOTHESES
words.It has beensuggested
byRobinson
We hypothesize,
first,thatmales and & Foster(1969)that"responsechains"of
femalesdiffer
withrespecttothelinguistic thiskindchangeas patternsof meaning
meaningstheyattachto sexualconcepts. and patternsof behaviorchange.
The posited differences
are: males are
to
wordswerepresented
Threestimulus
more likely to attach body-centered the respondents:"sex," "intercourse,"
meanings;femalesare morelikelyto at- and "petting." The responses,as detach marriage-love-person-centered scribed above, were sequences of five
meanings.Second, we hypothesizethat words.A set ofcategorieswas developed
femaleswho have experiencedsexualin- to classifythesesequences,based on the
tercoursewill attachdifferent
meanings findings
ofpreviousstudiesandalso on an
than will femaleswho have not. Spe- overviewof the distributions
of the recifically,females become more body- sponsesobtainedin thisresearch.The incenteredwithincreasedheterosexualex- structions
giventothecodersweretolook
perience. The corresponding
(reversed) forindividualwords,butto ascertainthe
hypothesisformales will not be considered in thisresearchnote,as we do not
2

between
The data we have showno difference
groupsofmales.
and inexperienced
theexperienced
Writerssuchas Gagnon& Simon(1970),however,
proposedresolutionsof the "attitudesversusac- wouldsurelynotacceptthisas a disconfirmation
of
tions" controversy
are strongly
processimplicit
suggestiveof the thehypothesis,
becausethelearning
would be expectedto be much
meaning-behavior
relationship
as we conceive it. in the hypothesis
The modelof Fishbein& Azjen(1975)is especially moregradualthanthatwhichproducesmovement
suggestive
of theconceptionsketchedhere.For an towardsbody-centered
meaningsfor females.An
informative
reviewof the attitude-behavior
litera- adequatetestwouldrequirea sampleof somewhat
ture,see Schuman& Johnson(1976).
oldermales.

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MEANING AND BEHAVIOR

255

intendedmeaningsof those wordsfrom erageage ofmenin thesamplewas 19.4,

their context. For instance,the word thatofwomenwas 18.6.The samplewas
suburbanor urban(91%)
"feeling"was coded one way if it was predominantly
class (98%),thelatter
upper
or
middle
and
or
"leg"
as
words
such
chained with
"breast," anotherway if it was chained as measured by the Hollingshead
with words such as "love" or "sym- (Unpubl.)ISP. It shouldbe notedthata
forthe
pathy."Ourcategorieswillbe labelledas collegepopulationis appropriate
a
it
contains
as
investigation,
present
(2) bodyfollows: (1) person-centered,
and
and broad range of sexual orientations
centered,(3) marriage-commitment,
two sexualexperience.
(4) love.3To checkcodingreliability,
was
Experiencewithsexualintercourse
judges, one male and one female,were
dichotomy,
a
as
research
in
this
measured
from
chains"
the
"response
code
askedto
a randomlyselected sample of twenty our principalconcernbeingwiththe disbetween"experienced"and "inquestionnaires.One author had previ- tinction
ouslycodedthesedata,so itwas possible experienced." Likewise, our variables
associationsweremeaof agreement basedon linguistic
to computetheproportions
betweenpairsof thethreecoders.In all sured as dichotomies,our assumption
of beingthatassociationseitherexistor do
threecases, the observedproportions
agreementwere over .90, leadingus to not exist foreach individual-forexamconclude that our coding procedureis ple, eitherJohnJonesassociates "petadequatelyreliableforpresentpurposes. ting" with"love" or he does not make
thatassociation.It is arguablethatthese
dichotovariablesare not theoretically
Sampleand Data Collection
theyweremeamous;but,inthisresearch,
ad- sured as such. Gender, of course, is
The data are fromquestionnaires
to 110menand 135womenat dichotomous.
ministered
the Universityof Georgia. The sample
was not randomlyselected,but, in our StatisticalAnalysis
judgment,it is reasonablyrepresentative
andprobably Sinceall ourvariableseitherare natural
ofstudents
at thisuniversity
by our
The av- dichotomiesor are dichotomized
ofstudents
at similaruniversities.
procedures,the resultsof
measurement
intheform
ourresearchcan be presented
3 The category
used in thisstudyare of percentages and percentage difdefinitions
as follows.
ofinterest,
ferences.Foreachrelationship
Wordsincludedare thoseindiPerson-Centered:
the difpercentages,
present
will
we
betweenthe
interaction
catingpositiveinterpersonal
and
betweenthetwopercentages,
the impor- ference
individualsinvolved,wordssuggesting
as an elementin sex- thestandard
interaction
As an
tanceofemotional
errorofthedifference.
andthe example,thepercentage
commitment,
ual behavior.Wordsindicating
ofmalesmaking
word "love," are not includedin this category.
with
association
marriage-commitment
a
trust.
caring,giving,sharing,
Examples:affection,
was
"intercourse,"
word,
stimulus
the
indithose
included
are
Words
Body-Centered:
femalepercentage
circum- 19.6,thecorresponding
catingphysicalsensationsor environmental
stancesrelatedtosexualbehavior.Wordsexpressing was 58.0, the difference
being 38.4 (+
are notincluded.Gen- 6.1). The parenthesized
of sexualactivity
enjoyment
is the
quantity
erally,thiscategoryincludeswordsthatseem to
difference.
the
of
error
standard
emphasizethe purelyphysicalaspects of the activity.Examples:breast,bed, car, f**k,kiss.

Words included are those

Marriage-Commitment:

RESULTS
a courtship
processleadingto marriage,
indicating
a long-term
itself,or indicating
marriage
indicating
was thatmalesand
The firsthypothesis
Generally,this
social and economiccommitment.
withrespectto the meanincludeswordsthatseemto implya perma- femalesdiffer
category
between ingstheyhave forsexualconcepts,such
nentor relatively
relationship
permanent
involved.Examples:beingengaged, as "sex," "intercourse,"and "petting."
theindividuals
husband,wife,seriousrelationship.
marriage,
Males are expectedto be more bodyLove: Wordsincludedare thesingleword"love"
and itsderivatives.
Examples:love,loving,beingin centeredthan femalesin the meanings
theyhold.The firstrowofTable 1 reports
love, loved,lovingeach other.

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256

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

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QUARTERLY

relationshipsbetween gender(male or
female) and body-centeredresponses
(presentor absent)to each of the three
stimuluswords.As can be seen, the relationship
for"sex" is substantial,
butno
relationship
is evidentfor"intercourse"
or "petting."The otherpartof the hypothesisis thatfemalesareexpectedtobe
moreperson-centered,
moreorientedto
marriage-commitment,
and moreoriented
to loveinthemeanings
theyattachto sexual concepts.Rowstwo,three,andfourof
Table 1 reporttheresultspertaining
tothis
partof thehypothesis.
this
On thewhole,theevidencesupports
the single
secondpartof the hypothesis,
exceptionhavingto do withthecategory
of meaning, "marriage-commitment,"
and the stimulusword, "petting."This
stimulus
wordwas clearlytheleastsensitive of the threein revealinggenderdifferences.Indeed, were "petting"to be
all theobservedcorrelations
disregarded,
and
wouldbe in theexpecteddirections,
seven out of eightwouldbe statistically
significant.
Evidently,forboth men and
women,petting
connotespleasurebutnot
long-term
commitment.
The second hypothesiswas that the
meaningsfor sexual concepts held by
femaleswithoutsexual experiencewill
differfromthose held by femaleswith
sexualexperience.Ofthetwelvepertinent
relationships,
onlytwo were statistically
those withexperiencewere
significant:
more likelyto give person-centered
responses to the concept, "intercourse,"
and thosewithoutexperienceweremore
relikelyto give marriage-commitment
sponsesto theconcept,"intercourse."
Atthispoint,we wishto considera post
hoc variantof this second hypothesis,
which,as was statedabove,receiveslittle
supportfromthe data. Experiencewith
sexual intercourseapparentlydoes not
relateto whether
or nota collegewoman
forsexual
willhave love-related
meanings
to
concepts,nordoes itrelateconsistently
the presence or absence of marriagecommitment
meanings.Nevertheless,it
relatetotheprimacyoftheoneover
might
the other.Recall that the responsesto
stimuluswords were sequences of five
in theorderin whichthey
words,written
A "response
occurredto therespondent.

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MEANING AND BEHAVIOR

chain" mightrevealbothkindsof meaning,one kindbutnottheother,or neither

kind.Exceptinthelastcase, theresponse
chaincan be scoredforprimacy(love vs.
marriage-commitment).
We examinedthe
data forthosewomenwho providedlove
and/or
marriage-commitment
responsesto
the two stimuluswords,"sex" and "intercourse."(As notedabove, "petting"
simplydid not discriminate
among respondents.)In bothcases, thesewerethe
majority
ofthewomeninthesample,76%
and 80%, respectively.
For the stimulusword, "sex," there
was no differencein the primacyof
meaningbetweentheexperienced
andthe
inexperienced women. But for the
stimulus
therewas a
word,"intercourse,"
very pronounceddifference:love was
moreprimary
fortheexperienced
women,
marriage-commitment
was moreprimary
forthe inexperienced
women.These results are summarizedin Table 2. Evithecriticaldifference
inmeaning
dently,
is
in the primacyof love vis-a-vismarriage
but this difference
commitment,
applies
onlyto thebehaviorally
specificconcept,
"intercourse,"not to the behaviorally
vagueconcept,"sex."
DISCUSSION

257
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AND CONCLUSION

The purposeof thisresearchnote has

been to introducea methodforthe measurementof meaning,and to illustrate
a
way in whichmeaningand behaviorcan
be investigated
jointly.The area ofsexual
meanings
and behaviorwas chosenas the
concretefocusforresearch.It was found
that,on the whole,men and womendo
differ
inthemeanings
theyhaveforsexual
concepts,menbeingmorebody-centered,
women more person-love-marriagecommitment-centered.
Among women,
thosewho have experiencedsexualintercourseassociate "intercourse"primarily
withlove, secondarilywithmarriageor
thosewho have notexpericommitment;
enced intercourseassociate the concept
"intercourse"primarily
withmarriageor
commitment,
secondarilywithlove. The
of meaningto behaviorderelationship
pends,it appears,upon the level of abstractionof the linguisticcodes. For a
concrete,behaviorally
specificwordsuch

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258

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

QUARTERLY

as "intercourse," the relationshipis

An Introduction
to Theoryand Research.
Addison-Wesley.
Reading,Massachusetts:
sharplydefined;butforan abstractword
J. E., & W. Simon
such as "sex," the relationship
is much Gagnon,
1970 The Sexual Scene. New York:Aldine.
moretenuous.Eitherconcretemeanings Hollingshead,
A.
have clearereffectson behaviorthando
Un- "Two-factorindex of social position."
1957.
abstractmeaningsor concretemeanings publ. Mimeographed,
changemore readilyin responseto be- Mead, G. H.
1934 Mind,Self,and Society.Chicago:Univerhavioral changes than do abstract
sityof ChicagoPress.
meanings-orboth.
Osgood,C. E., C. J. Suci, & P. H. Tannenbaum

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