Making a Good (Bad) Impression: Examining the Cognitive Processes of Disposition Theory to Form a Synthesized Model of Media Character Impression Formation

Abstract

For more than a century, social psychologists have examined the result of impression formation, and its impact on other factors. These analyses were based primarily on personal exchanges between real people. Today, we encounter people via mass media as well, but very little media research has examined the cognitive process that takes place when viewers are forming impressions of fictional media characters. The present article reviews a large and complex body of research and theoretical writings to put forward a synthesized model of character impression formation based on Zillmann's disposition theory and Fiske and Neuberg's continuum model of impression formation, arguing for inconsistency resolution as a moderating cognitive mechanism.