Faculty Mentor(s)
Dr. Benjamin Meagher, Psychology
Document Type
Poster
Event Date
4-12-2024
Abstract
The concept of hospitality has been in human culture for thousands of years. However, despite its historical significance, hosting has mostly been overlooked in scientific studies. Although a scale for measuring hospitality was recently developed (Meagher et. a, 2022), it draws from philosophical and theological accounts of hospitality. The current study instead investigates the associations held by the general population regarding the concept of a good host, relative to a good visitor and a good person. Following the procedure used by Samuelson et. al (2014), two studies investigate what attributes are most prototypical of a good host.
In Study 1, 300 participants were recruited through an online panel, and were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: good host, good visitor, or good person. In each, participants were asked to "write down the characteristics and attributes of a good [host/visitor/person]?" and to generate ten words. After collapsing synonymous responses, we found a larger overlap between host and visitor as compared to host and person. This highlights the importance of place (i.e., home) in determining these social roles' central qualities.
In Study 2, a new sample of participants rated the terms generated from the first study on their prototypicality, using a Likert scale. The prompt given: "how characteristic is each term of a good [host/visitor/person]," ranging from "almost never" to "almost always." We used a paired samples t-test to investigate the conceptual overlap between these social roles, seeing if unique terms were rated as more or less prototypical than overlapping terms.
Taken together, these two studies will provide a better understanding of the overlap between the concepts of a good host, a good visitor and a good person, thereby helping to reveal which characteristics are most prototypical of the role of a good host.
Recommended Citation
Repository citation: Kennedy, Tyler; Parsons, Tasia; and Zago, Lauren, "What Makes a Host Unique? A Prototype Analysis" (2024). 23rd Annual A. Paul and Carol C. Schaap Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2024). Paper 49.
https://digitalcommons.hope.edu/curca_23/49
April 12, 2024. Copyright © 2024 Hope College, Holland, Michigan.
