The misattribution of relations in similarity judgments of person concepts.

We demonstrate an effect of the valence of a relation between person concepts on subsequent similarity judgments. In Experiment 1, the assertion of a positive relation between person concepts (e.g., The plumber protected the housewife.) increased their perceived similarity, whereas the assertion of a negative relation (e.g., The plumber alienated the housewife.) decreased their perceived similarity. In Experiment 2, positive relations (e.g., The plumber protected the housewife.) increased the perceived similarity of two unrelated person concepts (e.g., editors and taxi drivers), and negative relations decreased the similarity of unrelated persons. Experiment 3 ruled out a task demand explanation by showing that the effect is specific to similarity judgments. Results suggest that relations between person concepts are misattributed to the similarity of any two subsequently judged persons.