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Frequency of superordinate responses to a word association test as a function of age
y O U R N A L OF VERBAL L E A R N I N G AND VERBAL B E H A V I O R
1,378-383 (1963)
Frequency of Superordinate Responses to a Word Association Test as a Function of Age 1 DAVID S. PALERMO2 AND JAMES J. JENKINS University o] Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota Children's language is ordinarily assumed to be concrete as opposed to being a b s t r a c t in semantic content. On the basis of this assumption it might be expected t h a t children would use subordinate rather than superordinate words more frequently in their language. T h e latter hypothesis has received some support as reported b y Brown (1959, p. 248). A logical extension of this analysis, m a d e b y Flavell, Draguns, Feinburg, and B udin (1958), is t h a t superordinate responses to a word-association test are more " m a t u r e " responses and, therefore, are to be expected more frequently from normal adults than from younger Ss or schizophrenics considered to be less m a t u r e for developmental or p a t h o logical reasons. I n fact, W o o d r o w and Lowell (1916) reported that fourth- and fifth-grade children responded less frequently with superordinates to the words on the Kent-Rosanoff association test than adults tested b y K e n t and Rosanoff in 1910. Brown (1959) has a t t e m p t e d to account for the greater frequency of concrete subordinate words in children's vocabularies as contrasted to the greater frequency of abstract superordinate words in a d u l t vocabularies. H e has suggested that children are quite able to m a k e high-level abstractions 1 This investigation was supported by research grant MH-04286 from the National Institute of Mental Health, Public Health Service. This paper was presented at the 1962 meeting of the Psychonomic Society. David Wicklund and George Flamer aided in the collection and analysis of the data. 2 Institute of Child Development.
b u t that the more concrete subordinate terms are more frequently spoken to children, and used b y them, because concrete communications have greater utility. I n addition, he suggests t h a t differentiation of subordinates m a y be prerequisite to abstraction of superordinates. Some recent d a t a have contradicted the hypothesis that m a t u r i t y and the giving of superordinate responses go h a n d in hand. M i l g r a m (1961) has reported t h a t schizophrenic adults give significantly more superordinate responses than normal adults to the Kent-Rosanoff word list. I n an earlier report b y Palermo and Jenkins (1962) evidence was presented which indicated that fourth-grade children give a significantly greater number of superordinate responses than college students to the same test words. T h e present s t u d y reports upon the frequency of superordinate responding of children from grade four through college and indicates a more complex relationship between age and frequency of superordinate responding than was evident from either the W o o d r o w and Lowell comparisons or the earlier report of the present authors. METHOD Procedure. All Ss were given the Kent-Rosanoff free-association test of 100 words followed by a list of 100 additional stimulus words. Only the responses to the Kent-Rosanoff list will be considered here. In grades 4-6 fifty words were presented in each session. The sessions were ordinarily on consecutive school days, although for some classes a single day or a weekend intervened between sessions.
378
379
SUPERORDINATE WORD ASSOCIATIONS All other Ss were given the K e n t - R o s a n o f f list in one session. All tests were administered in the regular classroom by the Es. Instructions for administration of the test were developed from those used earlier by Russell a n d Jenkins (1934) with adults, a n d Goodenough (1942) with children. T h e instructions placed emphasis upon: (1) giving the first response produced by the stimulus word; (2) responding with only one word; (3) E's lack of concern with spelling; a n d (4) speed of responding. T h e Ss were told t h a t they would be timed a n d were requested to record the time it took t h e m to finish the test on the back of their booklet at the end of each session. T h e E indicated the time on the blackboard as each m i n u t e passed during the test. Following the instructions, Ss read the stimulus words a n d responded by writing their associations in the spaces provided. Each page contained 25 words. T h e frequency a n d percentage of superordinate responses for the males a n d females in each of the grade groups were tabulated. T h e behavioral definition for superordinate responses used by Jenkins a n d Russell (1960) was employed. In t h a t s t u d y a written test was given to 29 undergraduate students in introductory psychology which consisted of a set of 100 sentences of the form " is a m e m b e r of the class - - " Each sentence began with one of the Kent-Rosanoff stimulus words a n d each S completed the sentence with a single response. A superordinate response was defined as a n y sentence completion t h a t was given by 15 or more of the students taking the test. Subjects. T h e word association test was administered to 250 males a n d 250 females in each of the grades 4-8, 10, a n d 12 in the Minneapolis Public Schools~ a n d 500 males a n d 500 females in introductory psychology classes at t h e University of M i n n e sota. Preliminary testing indicated t h a t children in schools drawing from low socio-economic levels in grades 4-6 did n o t have sufficient facility in reading a n d writing skills to be used in the final sample. Therefore, the sample in these grades was limited to children attending schools which draw from middle and upper socio-economic levels. Following the data collection, each test was examined to determine whether it m e t criteria for inclusion in the final sample. T e s t forms were excluded from further analysis if: (1) the S h a d not 3 Gratitude is expressed to Dr. A r t h u r J. Lewis, Assistant Superintendent in Charge of E l e m e n t a r y Education, a n d Mr. Adner I. Heggerston, Assistant Superintendent in Charge of Secondary Education of the Minneapolis Public Schools for their assistance a n d cooperation in arranging for facilities a n d subjects.
completed the last five words on the first form given h i m ; (2) the same response w o r d appeared ten or m o r e times on a page of 25 items; (3) ten or more responses appeared which were also stimulus items on a page of 25 items; (4) the S was seen to be copying response words f r o m the blackboard or other classroom source during the test; or (5) responses to more t h a n 10% of the total set of words were "response faults." Response faults consisted of illegible or incomplete words, omissions a n d sentencelike continuations f r o m one response to the next involving four or m o r e consecutive responses. Alt h o u g h these criteria appear complex a n d arbitrary, their development was necessitated primarily by the behavior of the youngest Ss a n d they resulted in the rejection of a very small percentage of the total population tested. More t h a n the required n u m b e r of Ss was tested at each grade level. Final m e m b e r ship in the sample was based upon a r a n d o m selection of the n u m b e r specified from the total pool of tests. W h e n a test f o r m was rejected for one of the above reasons, a replacement was d r a w n at r a n d o m . RESULTS
Figure 1 presents the mean percentage of superordinate responses at each grade level for the total 39 stimulus words and for the 26 stimulus words to which at least five percent 25 24, 25
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22
2
21
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20
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~
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4
5
6
7
8
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College
GRADE
FI6. 1. M e a n percent superordinate responses by grade for the total 39 words a n d the 26 w o r d s to which 5% of a t least one of the groups responded wiLh the superordinate.
380
PALERMO
AND
of the population of one of the groups responded with a superordinate response. As reported previously (Palermo and Jenkins, 1962), the frequency of superordinate responses is greater in the fourth grade children than in college students. However, examination of the entire age range makes it clear that the relationship of this type of responding to age is not a simple linear one. Considering the total 39 words represented in the lower curve, there is an increase in superordinate responses from a mean of 14.79% in grade 4 to a mean .of 15.96~ in grade 6, followed by a steady decline thereafter to the college mean level of 10.00~o. In the case of the 26 stimulus words in the upper curve, there is a slight decline from the mean of 21.89% for the fourth grade to 21.79% for the fifth grade, followed by a rise to a mean of 23.40~ for the sixth grade and then, again, a steady decline to a mean of 14.60% for the college students. While the differences in absolute percentages are not extremely large, the consistency of these differences is impressive. Two-tailed sign tests were applied in comparisons of each adjacent grade group for the total 39 words and for those 26 words to which at least five percent of the population of one of the groups responded with a superordinate response. Comparisons of grades 5 and 6, 6 and 7, 7 and 8, and 10 and 12 all reach at least the .05 level of significance using the total 39 words. Comparisons of grades 5 and 6, 6 and 7, 7 and 8, 8 and 10, and 12 and college all reach at least the .05 level for words which yield at least 5 ~ superordinate responses. An analysis of curves for each individual word indicates that while the peak of responding may shift to the seventh or eighth grade for some individual words, only in the case of sickness-kealtk was there a complete reversal in the trend shown by the grouped data. The response of health to sickr~ess steadily increased with age. Figure 2 presents the mean percentage of superordinate responding for each grade group
JENKINS
for males and females separately. It may be seen that the males give a larger percentage of superordinate responses than do the females at all grades except the sixth where the mean percentage for the females is 16.04 i615.
~\ 14"
uJ
\v
II
\
\\\
I0
x
z
o
s
uJ
4 3
- -
Male --
Female
GRADE
FIC. 2. Mean percent superordinate responses by
grade for each sex group. and for the males 15.86. Over all 312 comparisons of males and females for each word at each grade level the females exceeded the males in only 99 cases or 32 percent. There was only one case, eagle-bird, in which the females consistently responded more frequently with the superordinate response. The data of the combined fourth and fifth grades of the present sample have been compared with the data obtained by Woodrow and Lowell in 1916 from a comparable group of 1000 fourth and fifth grade Minneapolis Public School children. Since Woodrow and Lowell did not use two of the 39 words (Bitter and Mutton) to which superordinates could be made according to the definition used here, the data are based upon only 37 words. The mean percentage of superordinate responses for the present sample was 15.12 as compared to 11.49% in 1916. In 28 of
S U P E R O R D I N A T E WORD ASSOCIATIONS
the 37 cases the children of the present sample gave a greater number of superordihate responses; the reverse was true in eight cases, and there was one tie. A two-tailed sign test applied to these data was significant at well beyond the .05 level of confidence. The same comparisons for the 22 stimulus words to which at least five percent superordinate responses were given yielded a mean percentage of 24.61~o for the present sample and 18.78~o for the 1916 sample. In 17 out of 22 cases the frequency of superordinate responding was greater in the present sample which was also significant at beyond the .05 level by a two-tailed sign test. In order to check upon this trend, a comparison was made of the frequency of superordinate responses given by the present sample and the 1916 sample on the basis of the definition used by Woodrow and Lowell. While they provide no specific definition, they did list the stimulus words and superordinate responses given with at least five percent frequency by either their sample or the sample of 1000 adults used by Kent and Rosanoff in 1910. Notice that this means that any superordinate data based upon these norms are "selected upward" for being of high frequency. Of the 35 possible superordinate responses to 29 stimulus words listed, the present sample gave the superordinate response more frequently in 23 cases, less frequently in 11 cases and there was one tie. A sign test of this difference reaches approximately the .05 level of significance with a two-tailed test. The mean percentage of superordinate responses to each of the stimulus words was 13.50 in 1961 and 8.70 in 1916. The adults of the 1910 sample gave a mean percentage of 17.05 superordinate responses to the same stimulus words. DISCUSSION It is clear from these data that a simple logical analysis of language which suggests that an increase in age or maturity results in an increase in the use of abstract as op-
381
posed to concrete semantic content is incorrect in so far as responses to a wordassociation test today are concerned. Responses classified as superordinates appear to increase to a maximum at the sixth grade and decline thereafter. Perhaps the relation of age or maturity to the use of superordinates suggested by Flavell and his associates (1958), applies to young children up to the sixth grade and is succeeded by some other process which leads to a decrease in such responses. I t is also possible that the sample selection necessary in the lower grades may have depressed the frequency of superordinate responses in the fourth and fifth grades. The authors are currently collecting data from children in grades 1-4 with an individual-oral test administration in order to determine the characteristics of the responses of younger children. The fact that males give more superordinate responses than females is difficult to explain. I t has frequently been reported (see McCarthy, 1954) that in most measures of language development females are generally more advanced than males. If superordinate responding is systematically related to level of language development and if females are more advanced than males, then females should give more superordinates than males before the sixth grade and fewer superordinates than males thereafter. The data do not give appreciable support to this interpretation. At present we cannot account for the data on sex differences. The data from the present study are in contrast to the developmental trends which may be inferred from the earlier normative studies. In the 1910 period adults gave more superordinate responses than children while in 1961 children gave more superordinate responses than adults. From 1910 to 1961 there has been a decrease in superordinate responding for adults [independently documented by Jenkins and Russell (1960)] but, during the same period there has been an increase in superordinate responding for chil-
382
PALER1VLO AND JENKINS
dren in grades four and five. While there may be many interpretations of these findings, the data may be accounted for in a simple fashion if it is assumed that (1) superordinate responding is curvilinearly related to linguistic development, rising to a peak during the earlier years and decreasing steadily thereafter, and (2) the rate of linguistic development is more rapid today and proceeds to a higher degree of sophistication than it did in 1910. If these assumptions are correct, it suggests that an extensive age sampling in the 1910 period would have shown a peak of superordinate responding at an age much closer to the adult level. The fourth- and fifth-grade sample would have been relatively low in this type of responding and the adult sample would have been relatively high. With the increasing linguistic sophistication of our culture, subsequent sampling would have indicated a movement of the peak of such responding backward toward younger ages so that in the 1961 sample the peak is found at the sixth grade, while the adult level of such responses has moved well beyond the peak and become relatively low. The first assumption receives some support from the relation observed between frequencyof-usage of response words and the developmental curve for the use of these responses as superordinates. Superordinate responding in the case of mutton-meat, spider-insect, butre,fly-insect, heavy-weight, and cabbage-vegetable does not reach a peak in frequency until the seventh or eighth grade even in the present sample. The responses in these particular cases tend to be much lower in frequency-of-usage according to the ThorndikeLorge Juvenile count (1944) than the other superordinates given by at least five percent of the Ss. Thus, even within the limited frequency range of responses, it is the higher frequency-of-usage superordinates which peak at the earlier ages. It seems reasonable to suppose, then, that higher density of linguis-
tic exposure and increased linguistic sophistication should act to move the peak for all superordinate responding backward to the earlier years. That today's children receive more intensive linguistic stimulation than the children of 1916 can scarcely be doubted when one considers radio, television, movies, and the rich variety of children's books and comics, but the norms furnish even more evidence. A general overview of all responses made by the fourth- and fifth-grade children today shows that they are much more similar to the responses of present-day adults than were the responses of the 1916 children to the 1910 adults (Jenkins, 1962). Though we cannot retrace our steps to the 1910 period and investigate our hypothesis rigorously, additional analyses of children's word associations may be made with the present hypotheses in mind. SU1VLlV[ARY
Frequency of superordinate responses of 250 males and 250 females in grades 4-8, 10 a n d 12, and 500 males and females in college on the Kent-Rosanoff word-association test were tabulated. Results indicated that the frequency of superordinate responses increased from grade 4 to 6 and then steadily decreased to the college level. Males tended to give more superordinate responses than females. Frequency of superordinate responses was greater in the fourth- and fifth-grade sample obtained than in a comparable sample in 1916. The data suggest that the logical analysis of language in terms of a simple relationship between the use of superordinates and level of maturity is not supported. REFERENCES BROWN, R. W o r d s and things. Glencoe, Illinois: Free Press, 1958. FLAVELL, J. H., DRAGUNS, J., FEINBURG, L. K., AND BtlDII~T,W. A. A microgenic approach to word association. J. abnorrn, soc. Psychol., 1958, 57, 1-7.
SUPERORDINATE WORD ASSOCIATIONS GOODENOUGH, FLORENCE L. The use of free association in the objective measurement of personality. In Q. McNemar and M. A. Merrill (Eds.) Studies in personality. New York: McGrawHill, 1942. Pp. 87-103. JENI~INS, J. J. Cultural and age differences in word associations. Paper read at Amer. Psychol. Assoc., St. Louis, Missouri, 1962. JENI~INS, J. J., AND RIJSSELL, W. A. Systematic changes in word association norms: 1910-1952. J. abnorm, soc. Psychol., 1960, 60, 293-304. KENT, GRACE H., AND ROSANO~, A. ~I- A study of association in insanity. Amer. J. Insanity, 1910, 67, 37-96, 317-390. McCARTHY, DOROTI~EA. Language development in children. In L. Carmichael (Ed.) Manual o] child psychology, 2nd ed. New York: Wiley, 1954. Pp. 492-630.
383
MILGRAM, N. Microgenic analysis of word associations in schizophrenic and brain-damaged patients. J. abnorm, soc. Psychol., 1961, 69., 364366. PALERMO, D. S., ANn JE~I~INS, J. J. Superordinates, "maturity" and logical analyses of language. Psychol. Repts., 1962, 10, 437-438. RUSSELL, W. A., AXD JENXlXS, J. J. The complete Minnesota norms for responses to 100 words from the Kent-Rosanoff test. Tech. Rept. No. 11, Univer. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1954. TI~OR~,-DIKE, E. L., AND LORGE, I. The teacher's word book o] 30,000 words. New York: Columbia Univer. Press, 1944. WOODROW, H., AND LOWELL, FRANCES. Children's association frequency tables. Psychol. Monogr., 1916, 22, No. 97. (Received September 18, 1962)
1,378-383 (1963)
Frequency of Superordinate Responses to a Word Association Test as a Function of Age 1 DAVID S. PALERMO2 AND JAMES J. JENKINS University o] Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota Children's language is ordinarily assumed to be concrete as opposed to being a b s t r a c t in semantic content. On the basis of this assumption it might be expected t h a t children would use subordinate rather than superordinate words more frequently in their language. T h e latter hypothesis has received some support as reported b y Brown (1959, p. 248). A logical extension of this analysis, m a d e b y Flavell, Draguns, Feinburg, and B udin (1958), is t h a t superordinate responses to a word-association test are more " m a t u r e " responses and, therefore, are to be expected more frequently from normal adults than from younger Ss or schizophrenics considered to be less m a t u r e for developmental or p a t h o logical reasons. I n fact, W o o d r o w and Lowell (1916) reported that fourth- and fifth-grade children responded less frequently with superordinates to the words on the Kent-Rosanoff association test than adults tested b y K e n t and Rosanoff in 1910. Brown (1959) has a t t e m p t e d to account for the greater frequency of concrete subordinate words in children's vocabularies as contrasted to the greater frequency of abstract superordinate words in a d u l t vocabularies. H e has suggested that children are quite able to m a k e high-level abstractions 1 This investigation was supported by research grant MH-04286 from the National Institute of Mental Health, Public Health Service. This paper was presented at the 1962 meeting of the Psychonomic Society. David Wicklund and George Flamer aided in the collection and analysis of the data. 2 Institute of Child Development.
b u t that the more concrete subordinate terms are more frequently spoken to children, and used b y them, because concrete communications have greater utility. I n addition, he suggests t h a t differentiation of subordinates m a y be prerequisite to abstraction of superordinates. Some recent d a t a have contradicted the hypothesis that m a t u r i t y and the giving of superordinate responses go h a n d in hand. M i l g r a m (1961) has reported t h a t schizophrenic adults give significantly more superordinate responses than normal adults to the Kent-Rosanoff word list. I n an earlier report b y Palermo and Jenkins (1962) evidence was presented which indicated that fourth-grade children give a significantly greater number of superordinate responses than college students to the same test words. T h e present s t u d y reports upon the frequency of superordinate responding of children from grade four through college and indicates a more complex relationship between age and frequency of superordinate responding than was evident from either the W o o d r o w and Lowell comparisons or the earlier report of the present authors. METHOD Procedure. All Ss were given the Kent-Rosanoff free-association test of 100 words followed by a list of 100 additional stimulus words. Only the responses to the Kent-Rosanoff list will be considered here. In grades 4-6 fifty words were presented in each session. The sessions were ordinarily on consecutive school days, although for some classes a single day or a weekend intervened between sessions.
378
379
SUPERORDINATE WORD ASSOCIATIONS All other Ss were given the K e n t - R o s a n o f f list in one session. All tests were administered in the regular classroom by the Es. Instructions for administration of the test were developed from those used earlier by Russell a n d Jenkins (1934) with adults, a n d Goodenough (1942) with children. T h e instructions placed emphasis upon: (1) giving the first response produced by the stimulus word; (2) responding with only one word; (3) E's lack of concern with spelling; a n d (4) speed of responding. T h e Ss were told t h a t they would be timed a n d were requested to record the time it took t h e m to finish the test on the back of their booklet at the end of each session. T h e E indicated the time on the blackboard as each m i n u t e passed during the test. Following the instructions, Ss read the stimulus words a n d responded by writing their associations in the spaces provided. Each page contained 25 words. T h e frequency a n d percentage of superordinate responses for the males a n d females in each of the grade groups were tabulated. T h e behavioral definition for superordinate responses used by Jenkins a n d Russell (1960) was employed. In t h a t s t u d y a written test was given to 29 undergraduate students in introductory psychology which consisted of a set of 100 sentences of the form " is a m e m b e r of the class - - " Each sentence began with one of the Kent-Rosanoff stimulus words a n d each S completed the sentence with a single response. A superordinate response was defined as a n y sentence completion t h a t was given by 15 or more of the students taking the test. Subjects. T h e word association test was administered to 250 males a n d 250 females in each of the grades 4-8, 10, a n d 12 in the Minneapolis Public Schools~ a n d 500 males a n d 500 females in introductory psychology classes at t h e University of M i n n e sota. Preliminary testing indicated t h a t children in schools drawing from low socio-economic levels in grades 4-6 did n o t have sufficient facility in reading a n d writing skills to be used in the final sample. Therefore, the sample in these grades was limited to children attending schools which draw from middle and upper socio-economic levels. Following the data collection, each test was examined to determine whether it m e t criteria for inclusion in the final sample. T e s t forms were excluded from further analysis if: (1) the S h a d not 3 Gratitude is expressed to Dr. A r t h u r J. Lewis, Assistant Superintendent in Charge of E l e m e n t a r y Education, a n d Mr. Adner I. Heggerston, Assistant Superintendent in Charge of Secondary Education of the Minneapolis Public Schools for their assistance a n d cooperation in arranging for facilities a n d subjects.
completed the last five words on the first form given h i m ; (2) the same response w o r d appeared ten or m o r e times on a page of 25 items; (3) ten or more responses appeared which were also stimulus items on a page of 25 items; (4) the S was seen to be copying response words f r o m the blackboard or other classroom source during the test; or (5) responses to more t h a n 10% of the total set of words were "response faults." Response faults consisted of illegible or incomplete words, omissions a n d sentencelike continuations f r o m one response to the next involving four or m o r e consecutive responses. Alt h o u g h these criteria appear complex a n d arbitrary, their development was necessitated primarily by the behavior of the youngest Ss a n d they resulted in the rejection of a very small percentage of the total population tested. More t h a n the required n u m b e r of Ss was tested at each grade level. Final m e m b e r ship in the sample was based upon a r a n d o m selection of the n u m b e r specified from the total pool of tests. W h e n a test f o r m was rejected for one of the above reasons, a replacement was d r a w n at r a n d o m . RESULTS
Figure 1 presents the mean percentage of superordinate responses at each grade level for the total 39 stimulus words and for the 26 stimulus words to which at least five percent 25 24, 25
~
22
2
21
a::
20
z
~
t5
c~
or II I0
4
5
6
7
8
I0
12
College
GRADE
FI6. 1. M e a n percent superordinate responses by grade for the total 39 words a n d the 26 w o r d s to which 5% of a t least one of the groups responded wiLh the superordinate.
380
PALERMO
AND
of the population of one of the groups responded with a superordinate response. As reported previously (Palermo and Jenkins, 1962), the frequency of superordinate responses is greater in the fourth grade children than in college students. However, examination of the entire age range makes it clear that the relationship of this type of responding to age is not a simple linear one. Considering the total 39 words represented in the lower curve, there is an increase in superordinate responses from a mean of 14.79% in grade 4 to a mean .of 15.96~ in grade 6, followed by a steady decline thereafter to the college mean level of 10.00~o. In the case of the 26 stimulus words in the upper curve, there is a slight decline from the mean of 21.89% for the fourth grade to 21.79% for the fifth grade, followed by a rise to a mean of 23.40~ for the sixth grade and then, again, a steady decline to a mean of 14.60% for the college students. While the differences in absolute percentages are not extremely large, the consistency of these differences is impressive. Two-tailed sign tests were applied in comparisons of each adjacent grade group for the total 39 words and for those 26 words to which at least five percent of the population of one of the groups responded with a superordinate response. Comparisons of grades 5 and 6, 6 and 7, 7 and 8, and 10 and 12 all reach at least the .05 level of significance using the total 39 words. Comparisons of grades 5 and 6, 6 and 7, 7 and 8, 8 and 10, and 12 and college all reach at least the .05 level for words which yield at least 5 ~ superordinate responses. An analysis of curves for each individual word indicates that while the peak of responding may shift to the seventh or eighth grade for some individual words, only in the case of sickness-kealtk was there a complete reversal in the trend shown by the grouped data. The response of health to sickr~ess steadily increased with age. Figure 2 presents the mean percentage of superordinate responding for each grade group
JENKINS
for males and females separately. It may be seen that the males give a larger percentage of superordinate responses than do the females at all grades except the sixth where the mean percentage for the females is 16.04 i615.
~\ 14"
uJ
\v
II
\
\\\
I0
x
z
o
s
uJ
4 3
- -
Male --
Female
GRADE
FIC. 2. Mean percent superordinate responses by
grade for each sex group. and for the males 15.86. Over all 312 comparisons of males and females for each word at each grade level the females exceeded the males in only 99 cases or 32 percent. There was only one case, eagle-bird, in which the females consistently responded more frequently with the superordinate response. The data of the combined fourth and fifth grades of the present sample have been compared with the data obtained by Woodrow and Lowell in 1916 from a comparable group of 1000 fourth and fifth grade Minneapolis Public School children. Since Woodrow and Lowell did not use two of the 39 words (Bitter and Mutton) to which superordinates could be made according to the definition used here, the data are based upon only 37 words. The mean percentage of superordinate responses for the present sample was 15.12 as compared to 11.49% in 1916. In 28 of
S U P E R O R D I N A T E WORD ASSOCIATIONS
the 37 cases the children of the present sample gave a greater number of superordihate responses; the reverse was true in eight cases, and there was one tie. A two-tailed sign test applied to these data was significant at well beyond the .05 level of confidence. The same comparisons for the 22 stimulus words to which at least five percent superordinate responses were given yielded a mean percentage of 24.61~o for the present sample and 18.78~o for the 1916 sample. In 17 out of 22 cases the frequency of superordinate responding was greater in the present sample which was also significant at beyond the .05 level by a two-tailed sign test. In order to check upon this trend, a comparison was made of the frequency of superordinate responses given by the present sample and the 1916 sample on the basis of the definition used by Woodrow and Lowell. While they provide no specific definition, they did list the stimulus words and superordinate responses given with at least five percent frequency by either their sample or the sample of 1000 adults used by Kent and Rosanoff in 1910. Notice that this means that any superordinate data based upon these norms are "selected upward" for being of high frequency. Of the 35 possible superordinate responses to 29 stimulus words listed, the present sample gave the superordinate response more frequently in 23 cases, less frequently in 11 cases and there was one tie. A sign test of this difference reaches approximately the .05 level of significance with a two-tailed test. The mean percentage of superordinate responses to each of the stimulus words was 13.50 in 1961 and 8.70 in 1916. The adults of the 1910 sample gave a mean percentage of 17.05 superordinate responses to the same stimulus words. DISCUSSION It is clear from these data that a simple logical analysis of language which suggests that an increase in age or maturity results in an increase in the use of abstract as op-
381
posed to concrete semantic content is incorrect in so far as responses to a wordassociation test today are concerned. Responses classified as superordinates appear to increase to a maximum at the sixth grade and decline thereafter. Perhaps the relation of age or maturity to the use of superordinates suggested by Flavell and his associates (1958), applies to young children up to the sixth grade and is succeeded by some other process which leads to a decrease in such responses. I t is also possible that the sample selection necessary in the lower grades may have depressed the frequency of superordinate responses in the fourth and fifth grades. The authors are currently collecting data from children in grades 1-4 with an individual-oral test administration in order to determine the characteristics of the responses of younger children. The fact that males give more superordinate responses than females is difficult to explain. I t has frequently been reported (see McCarthy, 1954) that in most measures of language development females are generally more advanced than males. If superordinate responding is systematically related to level of language development and if females are more advanced than males, then females should give more superordinates than males before the sixth grade and fewer superordinates than males thereafter. The data do not give appreciable support to this interpretation. At present we cannot account for the data on sex differences. The data from the present study are in contrast to the developmental trends which may be inferred from the earlier normative studies. In the 1910 period adults gave more superordinate responses than children while in 1961 children gave more superordinate responses than adults. From 1910 to 1961 there has been a decrease in superordinate responding for adults [independently documented by Jenkins and Russell (1960)] but, during the same period there has been an increase in superordinate responding for chil-
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PALER1VLO AND JENKINS
dren in grades four and five. While there may be many interpretations of these findings, the data may be accounted for in a simple fashion if it is assumed that (1) superordinate responding is curvilinearly related to linguistic development, rising to a peak during the earlier years and decreasing steadily thereafter, and (2) the rate of linguistic development is more rapid today and proceeds to a higher degree of sophistication than it did in 1910. If these assumptions are correct, it suggests that an extensive age sampling in the 1910 period would have shown a peak of superordinate responding at an age much closer to the adult level. The fourth- and fifth-grade sample would have been relatively low in this type of responding and the adult sample would have been relatively high. With the increasing linguistic sophistication of our culture, subsequent sampling would have indicated a movement of the peak of such responding backward toward younger ages so that in the 1961 sample the peak is found at the sixth grade, while the adult level of such responses has moved well beyond the peak and become relatively low. The first assumption receives some support from the relation observed between frequencyof-usage of response words and the developmental curve for the use of these responses as superordinates. Superordinate responding in the case of mutton-meat, spider-insect, butre,fly-insect, heavy-weight, and cabbage-vegetable does not reach a peak in frequency until the seventh or eighth grade even in the present sample. The responses in these particular cases tend to be much lower in frequency-of-usage according to the ThorndikeLorge Juvenile count (1944) than the other superordinates given by at least five percent of the Ss. Thus, even within the limited frequency range of responses, it is the higher frequency-of-usage superordinates which peak at the earlier ages. It seems reasonable to suppose, then, that higher density of linguis-
tic exposure and increased linguistic sophistication should act to move the peak for all superordinate responding backward to the earlier years. That today's children receive more intensive linguistic stimulation than the children of 1916 can scarcely be doubted when one considers radio, television, movies, and the rich variety of children's books and comics, but the norms furnish even more evidence. A general overview of all responses made by the fourth- and fifth-grade children today shows that they are much more similar to the responses of present-day adults than were the responses of the 1916 children to the 1910 adults (Jenkins, 1962). Though we cannot retrace our steps to the 1910 period and investigate our hypothesis rigorously, additional analyses of children's word associations may be made with the present hypotheses in mind. SU1VLlV[ARY
Frequency of superordinate responses of 250 males and 250 females in grades 4-8, 10 a n d 12, and 500 males and females in college on the Kent-Rosanoff word-association test were tabulated. Results indicated that the frequency of superordinate responses increased from grade 4 to 6 and then steadily decreased to the college level. Males tended to give more superordinate responses than females. Frequency of superordinate responses was greater in the fourth- and fifth-grade sample obtained than in a comparable sample in 1916. The data suggest that the logical analysis of language in terms of a simple relationship between the use of superordinates and level of maturity is not supported. REFERENCES BROWN, R. W o r d s and things. Glencoe, Illinois: Free Press, 1958. FLAVELL, J. H., DRAGUNS, J., FEINBURG, L. K., AND BtlDII~T,W. A. A microgenic approach to word association. J. abnorrn, soc. Psychol., 1958, 57, 1-7.
SUPERORDINATE WORD ASSOCIATIONS GOODENOUGH, FLORENCE L. The use of free association in the objective measurement of personality. In Q. McNemar and M. A. Merrill (Eds.) Studies in personality. New York: McGrawHill, 1942. Pp. 87-103. JENI~INS, J. J. Cultural and age differences in word associations. Paper read at Amer. Psychol. Assoc., St. Louis, Missouri, 1962. JENI~INS, J. J., AND RIJSSELL, W. A. Systematic changes in word association norms: 1910-1952. J. abnorm, soc. Psychol., 1960, 60, 293-304. KENT, GRACE H., AND ROSANO~, A. ~I- A study of association in insanity. Amer. J. Insanity, 1910, 67, 37-96, 317-390. McCARTHY, DOROTI~EA. Language development in children. In L. Carmichael (Ed.) Manual o] child psychology, 2nd ed. New York: Wiley, 1954. Pp. 492-630.
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MILGRAM, N. Microgenic analysis of word associations in schizophrenic and brain-damaged patients. J. abnorm, soc. Psychol., 1961, 69., 364366. PALERMO, D. S., ANn JE~I~INS, J. J. Superordinates, "maturity" and logical analyses of language. Psychol. Repts., 1962, 10, 437-438. RUSSELL, W. A., AXD JENXlXS, J. J. The complete Minnesota norms for responses to 100 words from the Kent-Rosanoff test. Tech. Rept. No. 11, Univer. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1954. TI~OR~,-DIKE, E. L., AND LORGE, I. The teacher's word book o] 30,000 words. New York: Columbia Univer. Press, 1944. WOODROW, H., AND LOWELL, FRANCES. Children's association frequency tables. Psychol. Monogr., 1916, 22, No. 97. (Received September 18, 1962)