Cognitive complexity and salience of dimensions in person perception

Abstract

It is argued that most algebraic models of person perception have difficulty handling individual differences in practical applications. Carroll and Chang's individual differences multidimensional scaling model (INDSCAL) is shown to have certain desirable properties that make it ideal for work in person perception. The utility of the model is demonstrated by showing that cognitively complex and simple Ss differ predictably in the relative importance they attach to the dimensions underlying their perceptual judgments of people. In particular, it is shown that the perceptual judgments of the cognitively simple Ss are dominated by the affective dimension.