Similarity, interpersonal attitudes and attraction: The evaluative‐descriptive distinction

Abstract

Forty subjects chose trait words to describe six public figures and then received information regarding several strangers' judgements of the same public figures. The strangers' judgements had been ‘rigged’ to be similar or dissimilar in terms of the evaluative and descriptive aspects of the subjects' original judgements. Two hypotheses were tested: (a) that a subject's rating of the attractiveness of a stranger would be differentially influenced by the extent of similarity to his own judgement in both the evaluative and descriptive components of that judgement, and (b) that cognitively complex subjects would be less likely than cognitively simple subjects to rate strangers as unattractive when they manifest descriptive dissimilarity. Significant main effects were found for both evaluative similarity (P < 0·001) and descriptive similarity (P < 0·01), evaluative similarity having greater influence on attraction than descriptive similarity. Cognitive complexity interacted with descriptive similarity (P < 0·05) to the extent that complex subjects were more accepting of strangers who used different trait dimensions. The results are discussed in relation to consensual validation and the suggestion that validation of judgement about others' personality has a salient place in attraction.