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Perspectives on Abstract Concepts: Cognition, language and communication
Edited by Marianna Bolognesi and Gerard J. Steen
[Human Cognitive Processing 65] 2019
► pp. 121–144

Chapter 6
Determinants of abstractness and concreteness and their persuasive effects

The writing guideline to avoid abstractness and to use concrete language instead has a long and well-deserved reputation. Nevertheless, it is not clear what constitutes concrete language. In this chapter we report two studies. The first investigates the determinants of concreteness and abstractness using a rating task. The results show that for all word classes sensory perceptibility is an important component and that the determinants specificity and drawability/filmability vary with word class. In the second study, we used the insights from study 1 to manipulate a text from the National Budgeting Institute (Nibud) that addresses adolescents from different educational levels. The results only show effects of educational level on comprehension and persuasive power; no effects of concreteness were found. The studies raise issues about the validity of the writing guideline to be concrete.

Keywords: abstractness, comprehension, concreteness, determinants, persuasion
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Study 1: Determinants of concreteness and abstractness
    • 2.1Method
      • 2.1.1Word list
      • 2.1.2Participants and procedure
      • 2.1.3Results
    • 2.2Conclusion and discussion
  • 3.Study 2: Effects of concreteness
    • 3.1Introduction
    • 3.2Method
      • 3.2.1Materials
        • Original version
        • Abstract version
        • Concrete version
        • Concrete version with detailed examples
      • 3.2.2Participants and design
      • 3.2.3Instruments
      • 3.2.4Procedure
      • 3.2.5Statistical analysis
    • 3.3Results
      • 3.3.1Text appreciation
      • 3.3.2Persuasive impact
      • 3.3.3Comprehensibility
      • 3.3.4Other measures
    • 3.4Conclusion and discussion
  • 4.General discussion
  • Acknowledgment
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 6 June 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.65.07hus
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